No boat travel
We spent the morning doing boat chores including the dishes that I pretended did not exist last night. After lunch, Clark said we should go to the post office and then shopping for boat supplies. We walked the quarter mile to the post office to mail off some letters then haled a Lyft for a ride to our next stop.
In Florida, a boater staying over 90 days is required to purchase a sojourner's permit, i.e. temporary registration. We spent an hour at the tax collector's office trying to register our vessel. The first clerk to help us had no idea what we wanted even though we had the completed paperwork in hand. Ultimately, she handed us off to another clerk who at least knew how to process the paperwork. Because Florida does not prorate the charge for registrations, we decided to purchase the permit after Clark's birthday to save ourselves almost $200. The detailed explanation for this is a painfully, long story.
When we finally left there empty-handed, we called for another Lyft driver to take us to Fastenal to buy some wire connectors. The driver took us to the address supplied by Google where we found an art studio featuring work in clay. Fail! Fastenal had moved. We quick looked up Fastenal again and found an alternate location, so he took us there. Clark quick ran in and bought what he needed.
Next we asked the driver to take us to Walmart to buy motor oil. On the way there I determined that the store does not stock what Clark wants, so there was no point going there. The driver diverted to AutoZone and took us there instead. Fail! Clark ran in and found that AutoZone does not sell the special brand / variety of motor oil we need for Sunset Delight. Finally, we just had the driver take us back to the marina.
After all our running around, we only had a bag of wire connectors to show for our efforts. With the amount of money we spent on Lyft for the afternoon drive, we could have rented a car for the day. At least we had pleasant drivers. If I had spent less time looking at my phone and more time looking out the window, I would have gotten a good tour of the town.
Feeling no more like cooking tonight than I did last night, I suggested that we try one of the many restaurants St. Pete has to offer. Tonight I brought up the idea at 5:00 hoping that we would have time to find a place to go before I got "hangery" (it's a word - I looked it up). Unfortunately for me, however, Clark wanted to order the motor oil online before going out. By the time we had placed our online order and researched restaurants, I had a headache coming on. Uh oh!
We decided to check out two pizza restaurants to see which one we would like to try. As we approached the first one, about eight teenage girls walked into the restaurant in front of us. Since the place had only two tables, we decided to keep walking. We ended up at a place called 28 Grams where we found a very friendly owner using very fresh ingredients to make his pizza. The only drawback ... 28 Grams is a very small place offering only a bar and bar stools for seating.
After we left there, we walked over to Beach Drive in search of the Kilwins ice cream shop to have a sweet treat.
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| Chocolates, Fudge, Ice Cream at Kilwins |
Even though the fudge, chocolates, and candied apples appeared quite tempting, we made our way to the ice cream and made our selections. We sat outside to eat our dessert and then strolled slowly back to the boat.
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| Elephant statue on bench outside Kilwins |
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| Alligator "lady" on bench down the street |
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| Bird statue on next bench down the street |
We walked through a park on our way back to the boat to admire the holiday decorations celebrating Kwanza, Hanukkah, and Christmas.
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| Menorah, Dreidel, and "Peace on Earth" display |
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| Manger Scene for Christmas |
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| Candy Cane and Package Scene for Christmas |
We heard the sunset cannon boom again tonight as we sat on board trying to decide on a restaurant.
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