Boats crowded in. Star Gazer in center. Old town to the right of picture.

We have been in Fort Pierce several days while I took a 2 day (4 including road and air travel) trip to Coeur d’Alene, ID for my business. Sue stayed with the boat and had a great time because she only had to step off the dock to be in a very nice “old town” section of the city.

Even in Florida, older towns started on the waterway for easy transport of goods and people. That makes it easy for us to dock in the “old town” part of the city whether in Charleston, Savannah, St Augustine, Fort Pierce and a number of other smaller towns. Like many of these areas in the US, Fort Pierce is in the process of revitalizing the area, sprucing up the old buildings and bringing in new businesses.

One thing they brought in was a great farmer’s market/craft fair every Saturday. Sue said it was as good as “Art on the Green” in our former hometown of Coeur d’Alene. She found Christmas presents for daughter in laws, sister and other women we know and I came home to a lot of fresh fruit and other food.

We’ve heard that this part of Florida is a bit more depressed than other coastal areas, but I have figured out its main source of income. We get either cable or local broadcast TV at marinas. Here it’s broadcast. To understand the local economy you need to watch the local broadcast stations. In the Fort Pierce area the personal injury and class action lawyers clearly dominate all the commercials, with things like new cars and furniture a distant second. While driving around we saw billboards proclaiming “Get an AGGRESSIVE attorney”, “Get ALL you can”, “YOU may be entitled to BIG $$”, etc. We’ve even seen prime time commercials offering to consolidate your judgment payments into one lump sum. So that must be how the average person makes money, suing someone else. I wonder if I can get my share? Without getting hurt, hopefully.

We’ve had today for me to recover from getting in late last night. Tomorrow morning we’ll leave for our 4 month home in Lantana.