As usual a early start to the first day of the holiday saw us up and in breakfast by 7.30am. It was the usual Holiday Inn Express fare. We were the only people in Breakfast. We weren’t sure if it was because we were early, whether it was because it was May or where we were staying. Anyhow it was pleasantly quiet.
We decided to turn right out of the Hotel and follow the road straight to coast. The sun was shining and everything was good. Karen was even happier when we past a Starbucks en route, noting its location for our journey back.
We did nip into a Walmart we passed in order to buy a ‘cool-bag’ to put some food shopping into. A sound investment at under $5 for the rest of the trip.
Vero Beach was lovely and we walked the 1963 feet along the boardwalk at JayCee Beach Park. There was a lovely old fashioned coffee shop at the end, so needless to say we stopped to top up Karen’s caffeine levels which may have been getting dangerously low.
We then drove further south and found the Vero Beach’s other public beach and again went for a short walk. By now it was lunchtime so we went to a Panera Bread and had a lovely lunch in the sun and took advantage of their wifi to send a few messages.
Karen was now starting to feel the heat so I found on Trip Advisor that the Environmental Learning Centre looked a promising place to visit which would be out of the full sun. We drove the 8 miles along the coast and paid the $5 entrance fee. It was enjoyable walking on the boardwalks (a bit like Ranworth albeit with mangroves and stuff). In truth it was set up for school visits, but we still enjoyed ourselves.
We then went back to Starbucks where Karen had her usual whilst I sat there earwigging into some guy setting up a new domain for his business. I wanted to tell him that the site name was rubbish and the dot com version (he was buying a dot net version) was already in use and therefore everyone would be confused, but thought better of it.
We returned to our Hotel for a swift turnaround before heading to our first Outback of the trip. As usual it was excellent. We sat at the bar. The Brucie bonus was that they brought me out a 6oz Steak instead of the 9oz I had ordered and let me keep it and still brought a replacement. I was very full of Steak afterwards but happy at a small win.
Our journey back involved stopping at Publix for some supplies for the next couple of days. By now the jet lag was catching up with Karen and she was asleep in bed by 9.30pm leaving me to tippy tappy on the laptop.
