Greeting from Cruiser Expo

We are at the Cruiser Expo conference, within the Stuart Boat Show. The expo started at 8 this morning with coffee and bagels, followed by a run of four seminars in succession. We opted to skip the fourth and look at boats instead. After a box lunch, provided, we joined a group of four other attendees for a low-speed cruise around the marina on a Krogen Express 52. We then spent some more time on the docks before retiring home for a break before the 5pm cocktail party.

We arrived here in Stuart sometime after 5 yesterday, after a brief stop at the Flying-J in Fort Pierce to dump our tanks and put some water in. We had directions that only brought us so far, with instructions to then follow the signs to the free parking; fortunately the signs were already in position when we arrived. The parking is scattered across several lots throughout the general vicinity of the show, and we found the closest one (map).

This particular lot happens to be a parking lot for a long-defunct and now leveled business, which I think was a night club. It's just the sort of place we might have chosen for a stealthy urban boondocking location anyway, and so we took up residence in the furthest corner of the lot, and stuffed a very official looking sign that I made on the computer in the window, identifying us as three-day full conference attendees. We were undisturbed for the night.

This morning as the program began one of the organizers informed us that the lot would be staffed by an attendant starting sometime after 9am (the boat show starts at 10 each morning). I ran home after the 9-10am seminar to check in with the attendant; apparently our sign had already done its job and they cleared us to remain here for the rest of the show. It's a great spot, just a couple blocks from the main event.

Even though we are fairly close, it's a long walk, and it would have been an even longer walk to dinner last night at Wahoo's, which is not far as the crow flies but a long way around over the railroad crossing. So we pulled the scooters out last night, and have been parking them just a few feet from the main show entrance -- one of the real beauties of scooters is that you can get away with parking them anywhere, and a Stuart police officer was even the one to suggest it. They've closed a stretch of Old Dixie Highway for the show, so the police are stationed at the road closure.

The show runs through Sunday afternoon, and we apparently have a fairly full agenda of seminars and activities. I am hoping we will just be able to stay right here Sunday night as well; since Monday is a holiday I can't imagine it will be a problem. As for where we go from there, that is as yet undecided.

Photo by kreegermc, used under a Creative Commons license.