Winds, waves, beaches and music…

We have been really enjoying our time here at Jonathan Dickinson State Park. The proximity of this location to various cities nearby make exploring the area a real treat. The weather took another turn the other day as a cold front came through dropping the temperatures only a bit but it did bring gusty winds and high surf.

So with the weather being a bit dicey we decided to drive south to West Palm Beach on Saturday in search of the local farmer’s market there. The less than 20 minute drive was pleasant but once we got to the town center complex where the market was supposed to be we never found it. It appeared as if a fund raiser had taken its normal spot or perhaps we simply never found it.

But while looking for the town center we stumbled upon Florida Atlantic University. So we took a driving tour around the smaller than expected campus and didn’t go for a walk since there seemed to be a football game that day causing a lack of parking available. It wasn’t a huge deal since I thought we could also drive along the road 1A over to the beaches nearby.

We drove over to Palm Beach along the beach road and stopped at a few of the pocket beach accesses. The wind was howling and the waves were huge yet the water was still very blue here. From Palm Beach we drove over to Singer Island  following the beach roads there as well. What a beautiful drive this is along 1A this was. We passed through Juno Beach and continued to stop at small public access points to the beach along the way.

Sunday’s weather was about the same as Saturday’s with gusty winds of near 30 mph and mild temperatures with scattered showers. We thought we would drive north to the town of Stuart about 15 minutes away to visit their farmer’s market. We found this one (hooray) but didn’t see anything worth buying so we drove over to Hutchinson’s Island to check out the beaches near Stuart.

We found several small beaches with public access but there was something different about these beaches. Several of the beaches here had lots of rocky ledges along the shore. I really wasn’t expecting this but we really enjoyed watching the huge swells crash up against the rocks causing an enormous amount of salt spray.

Since it was too windy to hang out at the beach we decided to head back over to the famer’s market area in Stuart because we noticed as we were leaving the market that a stage was being set up.  We figured maybe a music event was about to happen there. After finding a parking spot near downtown Stuart we could hear the music as we approached. We read later that the town supports a free music series on certain Sundays and we just happened to stumble into one of these events. The band was really pretty good and we thought the violin player was really good however I can’t imagine the pain she must have gone through to get all those tattoos she had. OUCH!!!

 

We spent about an hour just enjoying the sound of the music and the breezes blowing in from the sea. We are supposed to be moving today but I am heading over to the office at 8:00 am to see if any of the non-reservable spots are available for us to stay through the Thanksgiving holiday weekend…