Day 065 – Melbourne, FL > Fort Pierce, FL

Monday fun day and it’s time to resume the ride.

After a breakfast of chicken, donuts and coffee and repacking the bicycle it was time to see if I could still pedal my big rig down the road.

I have full confidence that my Aunt Helen will be fine even though she has said repeatedly she wouldn’t know what to do without me. She is one tough cookie and has lots of people looking out for her.

I stopped by Sand on the Beach, a nice little beachside restaurant on my way through Melbourne Beach. It’s the place I ate at a few times when my parents were staying in the area last year. It even has a shower on wooden walkway from the beach so you can clean up before sitting down to your meal. The food is average beach bar fare, but the vibe is great if you want to be right on the beach.

After a bit more pedaling I stopped in at the McLarty Treasure Museum. My Aunt Helen had mentioned it to me, but I hadn’t made a formal plan to stop, but seeing the sign caused a few synapses to fire and my hands directed me into the parking lot. I’m not sure if it was the curiosity of the treasure or more a craving for AC that made me pull in, but I didn’t care as it was a cooler inside and there was shipwreck stuff to look at (pics).

The museum is built on the site of the recovery camp from the 1715 Spanish treasure fleet that sank . Although a hurricane took out a dozen or so ships about 1500 of the passengers and crew were able to make it back to shore. A group of Indian auxiliaries were sent from St. Augustine to aid in the recovery operation and protect the survivors and treasure.

It was interesting to the recovered artifacts (both real and reproduced), but I was more fascinated by a painting of a large sloth that apparently lived in Florida before about 6,000 BC. It looked like it was a badass animal to hunt.

I was planning on sleeping at a campground in Fort Pierce, but when I finally got there it was raining and dark and I didn’t feel like pitching my tent in the rain so I opted to keep riding with the idea of free camping somewhere further down the road. I did see the most amazing sunset along the southern edge of the darkened storm clouds. It really looks like a huge fire on the horizon.