Busy End of April

On April 30, four years ago, I had my retirement party at the ENSCO office on Wickham Road. It is too bad that time moves so quickly as you get older, but I can still get a lot done in three days. Here is a photo journey presentation of my last weekend in April of 2018.

It started off on Friday when I wanted to get some lunch. I was planning to stop at the sushi place in Palm Bay, but only if there were more than three cars in the parking lot. I hate uncrowded places. There were only three so I traveled by and thought about stopping at Malabar Mo's but it was too crowded. I ended up stopping at a new place, it had been a while on that quest, called Rib City in the tiny town of Grant Florida. There were lots of old railroad decor inside and out. The entrance...


The back garden area...


The bar and my bartender...

 They did have the Dragon Point IPA on tap from the local Intracoastal Brewery which I ordered. Here are a few other scenes in the restaurant from my bar stool perspective...


The special was a 1/2 rack of baby back ribs with two sides. My two were the coleslaw and green beans with a slice of garlic toast. All for $8.99. They had three BBQ sauces out and a hot if you ask for it. I liked that, you won't accidentally taste the hot sauce...

After lunch, I walked around. There was a nice tiki table or two out back where they have an ice cream store attached. I like the stools, tractor seats.


I treated myself to a chocolate chip with caramel swirls in coffee ice cream on a regular cone adorned with an American Flag. BJ with his one-scoop cone in a one-stop town...


I must admit, the food was great at Rib City and I give the place a 3.0. I know I can stop here again for some great barbecue. Leaving the restaurant, I was able to find Grant Road which heads West toward Babcock Street, my next destination. I had my camera and I wanted to visit the Stick Marsh again. As I parked my car, there was a great blue heron trying to figure out how to eat the fish he caught. It was squawking at a large gator that seemed to be very interested in the treat.


The north end of the Stick Marsh is a waterfowl management area called T.M. Goodwin. Those are real buzzards on the sign...



Very close to the boat ramp is a small island full of birds. There is no walkway to the island and there were a few large alligators protecting it, so swimming was out. Here is a wide angle view to show all the birds...


There were lots of nests of different species of birds, and many were full of young chicks. Well, not that young though, most were as large as their parents. They do have a lot of roseate spoonbills. Wonder how it got its name?


This shot has an anhinga, snowy egret, roseate spoonbill (one in flight) and my parked silver car...


This photo includes a nest of anhingas. You can see one chick has its head down the throat of its mom getting food while the others wait their turn...


Next, I headed south to Fellsmere. I was supposed to meet some friends at the resort called Captain Hirams in Sebastian. When I got there, I found a seat outside at the sandbar where the band was playing. Took this shot of a sign above the bar...

It was about 4:30 in the afternoon and the fishing boats were arriving back to the docks. They were cleaning the fish right there and feeding the guts and heads to the pelicans. I do like the catch hanging below the official sign...


I was meeting up with my friends Joanne and Paul Snyder, followers of the band Tree Frogs who were playing. Here are some of their group that follows the band.



While the band was playing, mostly 60s and 70s tunes, a lady was dancing with a hula hoop. I was more interested in the little girl on the far right, who really looked like she wanted to try the hula hoop.


Back in the late 1970s while in college, I had purchased a poster that I hung on my wall. I lost the poster in 1979 when hurricane David swamped my parent's trailer where it was stored. I lost this one and the famous Farah Fawcett poster. A few years ago I saw that the Jamaica poster was at Captain Hirams. I took a picture this time...


I had to leave Captain Hiram's so I could make the Hemingway look-alike contest in Melbourne...


Only 423 miles from Cuba, the Hemingway's Tavern was having their third annual contest held at the restaurant and parking lot off of NASA Blvd. FIT was there too holding an auction...


The trophy for the winner, plus they get a trip to Key West to enter the contest there too...

While waiting to hear who was in the top ten from the 22 entrants, I sat at a fountain in the park and there was a man playing guitar...



The 22 entrants in the Hemingway's look-alike contest...


The auction was being run by the football head coach of the FIT Panthers, Steve Englehart...


I did not stay to see who won this year. Saturday morning, I decided to visit the new Farmer's Market held in Melbourne. They have moved from the 1900 building south to Riverview Park. I took this photo of the Melbourne Causeway from the Park.

There was an interesting grass growing with pretty pink flowers.


The Farmer's Market was not very big. I did buy two cucumbers and a loaf of organic wheat bread. The bread was wonderful. As I headed to my next stop, Melbourne Auditorium, I saw that progress was being made on the new Wawa going up on the corner of US1 and Strawbridge...


I went to see the exotic fruit club which was having its annual sale. I almost bought a lychee tree but stopped at the last moment. My next stop was at the Tiki Bar at Doubles in Indian Harbour Beach. I had friends that summer in NC and were leaving on Sunday. They invited some of their friends to stop by for a drink.
Chuck (blue short) and Shari (with camera) have been friends for over 25 years.


On Sunday, I went to see the new Avengers movie, Infinity Wars with Nancy. It was very good and then I headed over for the last day of the Melbourne Art Festival being held at Wickham Park. I talked to my friend Carol, who was working one of the beer booths.

The entertainment was Bill Wharton, a Blue's guitarist known as the sauce man. While playing, he makes a pot of gumbo seen on the right. I saw him play many years ago at the Sebastian Beach Inn.


I walked around and saw all the artwork and then went back to the amphitheater to see the Wicked Garden Gnomes play...


The artists were situated all around the back lake at Wickham Park. A duck was enjoying a swim...


The Pink Flamingo has always been a Festival thing. They had a few lined up in the lake.

Here is a lame attempt at a panorama...

The month of May looks like it may be even busier!!

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