Vero Beach, Voting and a Change of Plans…

Leaving Flagler Beach, Florida we made a longer than normal drive of a bit over 150 miles to our next stop at Vero Beach, FL. We will be here for two nights as we plan to visit Sharon’s cousin John and his wife Penny who retired in Vero Beach after spending many a cold winter in Michigan.

John and Penny have been extremely careful, as we have, dealing with Covid so we decided to do some activities while paying attention to socially distancing and staying outside as much as possible. We pulled into Tanglewood Village Co-Op, a Passport America park which we have stayed at before.

When we first visited John and Penny they lived in a smallish condo which was too small for their liking, so they have since found a nice sized home in Vero Beach. It was fun walking around their beautiful neighborhood and seeing their new digs. Not to mention Penny made us a fabulous dinner. What a great day!

The next day we took a nice long 3 mile walk through the Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge (the first NWR in America) and later decided to have dinner at the American Icon brewery which has a large outdoor venue. Not only did they have some good brews they had some pretty good food as I had a burger and Sharon had some great blackened mahi on top of her salad. It’s always fun to see John and Penny!

The next morning we headed further south but waited until after lunch since we were  driving less than 50 miles to the Corps of Engineers park, St Lucie South in Stuart, FL. We only planned to stay two nights and move on down to Key Largo. However, tropical moisture was slamming this area with heavy rains and worse there was a tropical disturbance impacting the weather in Key Largo.

Not knowing for sure what the tropical disturbance was going to do we added on a few days at St Lucie South when I discovered someone had cancelled on a waterfront site. Since this site would be $15 per night using our Senior National Parks Pass we added there and cancelled three nights for Key Largo. If we were going to have to sit in rain we might as well pay $35 per night less. We also definitely needed to watch the disturbance in the Caribbean to make sure it wasn’t going to completely wash out our Key Largo plans.

St Lucie South was a great place to wait out the storms. We discovered great walking from this park over to Phipps Park which has some boardwalks to stroll and view the birdlife in the area. We also were able to sneak in a short hike here and there between rain events including a nice one at Savannas Preserve State Park. And best of all was sitting in our front yard watching all the huge ships, sailboats and yachts making their way through the St Lucie Locks.

And while we were here, we voted!!! Don’t forget to vote!

NOTE:  We are currently in Key Largo, Florida.