African Animals Come to Vero Beach

March, 2018

SIT discovered something pretty special about Vero Beach this year. Well we knew it was here all along but this year we decided to go check it out ourselves.

Just down the road from our beach bungalow is a place called McKee Botanical Garden.  In 1932, Arthur McKee and Waldo Sexton opened McKee Jungle Gardens on an 80-acre tropical hammock in Vero Beach. These two land developers hired landscape architect William Phillips to design the basic infrastructure of streams, ponds and trails while they focused their efforts on assembling one of the most outstanding collections of waterlilies and orchids, augmenting native vegetation with ornamental plants and exotic specimens from round the world. Needless to say you get into the theme of the gardens when you come in and every year they bring a new display for all to enjoy.  This season the theme just so happens to be “It’s A Jungle Out There” featuring African Animal sculptures.

As you wander around you discover the animals of Africa spread out throughout the garden. You also find many beautiful plants and flowers that bring a smile to your face.

 Color

 Don't Worry They Aren't Real

 Fungus Among Us

Hello

The animal sculptors are a group of 19 Kenyan artists known as the Ark Collective.  Moses Ochieng is the leader of the group of 19 and he designs the animals, then he and his team go to work turning recycled oil drums and other scrap metal into life-sized works of art. We hope you enjoy the pictures as much as we enjoyed wandering around the garden and discovering them!

 A Bit Owly

 I Can Reach

 The Dynamic Duo

Come on Baby

Buddies

Friends

 Just Looking

 I Can See You

 Believe it or not Mr Zebra isn't real

Impressive

 A Touch of Red

 The Kiong

We Spotted This Tall Guy

 Royal Stick Work Sculpture

 Simply Yellow

A Tad Thirsty

This is not the last you will hear from SIT so simply stay tuned for more of our life and times!

Almost There

January 1 – February 5, 2018

As I last wrote we had enjoyed a nice cruise and Christmas but I guess the desire to relax some more wasn’t quite in our blood yet.

So SIT struck out on another home improvement adventure on our Beach Bungalow! The “Florida Room” was in much needed help and since we had some materials left over from repairing our ceiling we thought why not!

So the first step was for me to wash the ceiling and then paint it which made the room look better already. Steve then tackled the job of cutting the materials to cover the damaged paneling. Of course I had to prime them first since we were going to paint the room the same color as the living room.

  

Once he was done with that then I got to work on painting all the walls and the trim. It looks 100% better than before and can now be used as a nice place to sit and read or do my artwork or tackle a challenging jigsaw puzzle.

 Done!

 Izzy Approves

 Refreshed!

Since we accomplished this little task, we rewarded ourselves with a day of fishing. It wasn’t very successful in terms of catching fish we could keep to enjoy for dinner, but it did provide me with catching five different species in the time we were on the water. I caught a few more than Steve did this time too. Although he will tell you it is because he is the captain and has to do more than just fish. I have to admit it is true!

We got away for a round of golf too but not sure what we were thinking. It was one of the windiest days we have played golf in but that gave us a built in excuse!

Our shot wasn't that bad

Now one would think we were tired of home improvements, but alas it is not true. We bit the bullet and tackled the master bath which had a major floor problem. Steve was able to raise the level of the floor so it would now be even with the floor in the bedroom and put down this wonderful flooring. I tackled the shower pan and painting starting with the ceiling. We are now enjoying a much nicer looking bathroom.

I think that is it for improvements for now although there is more painting I need to do but it can wait. Time to enjoy the warmth of Florida and lounge on the beach, fish, play golf, explore, and eat our fresh tomatoes!

More to come from SIT so stay tuned!

We Be Cruising, Literally

December 3 – 10, 2017

When I last wrote I indicated we would be doing a first. Well that was taking a cruise. In all of our adventures a cruise is one thing we had not done. So the Sand T of SIT went on a seven night cruise leaving from Port Canaveral.

 That's a Big Ship

Leaving Port Canaveral

We were able to go with some friends, Frank and Linda, who have been on more cruises than I have fingers and toes so we felt good about tagging along with the pros.

We had three stops along the way and disembarked at each one. We visited St. Thomas where Steve and I had actually been before. We didn’t stay off the boat long although we managed to go back to a restaurant we had been to back in 2012. It was nice to see they were still around after the hurricanes.

St. Thomas Awaits

 Ahhh

Hanging Out

I Am Pretty

Tickles is Still in Business

Our second stop was San Juan Puerto Rico. Frank and Linda had not been there before so they enjoyed wandering around old town as much as we did. We went to the Fort which is part of the National Park Service. We enjoyed reading about why would they put something like this on the island and it was wanted by European nations. It just happened to be in the perfect location for ship travel. The Spanish built the fortifications on the island. They have done a great job preserving much of the wall that once surrounded the entire island.

 Linda and Frank

 The Cistern

 The View

 Hard Bunks

 Protection from Everything

 Watch Tower

 The City

You can see damage from hurricane Maria but that didn’t dampen the spirits of the locals. We wandered around as long as time permitted and would have enjoyed staying there much longer.

Watching Over

Damage Remains

 

Parks Nearby

Cobblestone

Ready for Christmas

Friends

Color and Class

Along the bay

The Pet of Choice

 Blended Fort

Part of the Wall

So Long San Juan

Leaving the island

 Gives you perspective

Our next stop was Labadee Haiti. The part of the island we spent the day on is owned by Royal Caribbean. They have done a nice job in creating a relaxing and fun place to spend a day at the beach. You can even go zip lining here but unfortunately the road was washed out so we didn’t get a chance to zip over the Atlantic!

 Beach Fun

Just Wandering

 Colorful

 The Island

 Native Dancers Perform

 Peaceful

Sunset as We Leave

It was amazing what the ship does have to offer. For newbies like us it was quite impressive. You think you are in a mall that has a lot of restaurants to pick from, a theatre for shows, casino, and of course several pools. Our time on the ship was spent mostly reading, wandering, and well what else eating!  We did get to a few of their shows which were great including Cats. Needless to say if you choose to be busy 24 hours a day you certainly can.

 Mashed Potatoes Anyone?

 Just one of the kitchens on the ship

 They Really Don't Drive this around

 Ginger Bread Houses Galore

One of the Pools

 
Theatre

Guess Who

 The Promenade

 Christmas

Central Park is Below

Who knows if we will do this again but it was a blast and now we can add a couple more places to our list of where we have been.

As always more to come from SIT!