TA Travel Center, Vero Beach

After two nights at Palm Estates we spent one night at Blue Cypress.  The mosquitos were pretty bad so we spent the subsequent two nights at TA Travel Center.

Here are some pictures of our van and the TA Travel Center.

You can even go fishing at the little pond at the travel center!

Vero Beach

We left Sebastian, FL and headed to Vero Beach to visit George's grandparents.  We spent nearly a week in Vero Beach enjoying the beach and the sun.

Grandma Wolf made me this delicious and enormous ice cream sandwich.

We walked along the beach and down the little boardwalk.


These were the gardens at then end of the boardwalk.  It was very pretty.

This was some of downtown Vero Beach.

My sister and Ben stopped by on their way to Miami and met us for dinner at Casey's Place.  It was so nice to see them.


George and I took the van to a self service car wash and gave it a much needed cleaning.


It was so shiny and clean afterwards except George accidentally drove it through the trees and we got leaves all over the top of it.

We were at the beach one day and we noticed a man make his own lounge chair out of a regular beach chair.  Do you see him?


We went to Italian Grill on our last night.

Then we went to Riverside Park.

Finally we made one last stop at the beach before heading off to TA Travel Center for the night.

Donald MacDonald Campground, Sebastian, FL

We left Three Lakes WMA and headed towards Blue Cypress Lake to scope out Middleton's Fish Camp as a possible free campsite to stay at while visiting George's grandparents in Vero Beach.  From there we headed to Sebastian, FL to Donald MacDonald Campground where we spent the rest of the day.  I went for a walk to explore the area and George played with the 10 horns now installed on our van.  Below is a video of some of our latest horns, followed by pictures of our camp, and the boardwalk at our camp on the St. Sebastian River.

 

Lake Jackson Camp, Prairie Lakes Unit at Three Lakes WMA

We left Daytona and headed to New Smyrna Beach.  From New Smyrna we headed to the Three Lakes WMA.  We found the turnoff to the Prairie Lakes Unit and decided to check it out.  Among the other campgrounds on the map we spotted Lake Jackson Campground and headed towards it.  There are three campsites at Lake Jackson.  We were the only campers so we had our pick of the three.  We found campsite 3 to be set back away from the road among a nice grove of trees so we set up camp.

Daytona Beach

We visited Daytona Beach on our motorbike yesterday and decided to come back the next day with our van and spend the day at the beach.








The beach is open to vehicles from sunrise to sunset.  So we awoke at 6am and headed to the coast.  Upon arrival though the gates were still closed.  The tide was too high to allow vehicles yet and we were told it should open around 11am based on the tide schedule.


So we took a walk to get some coffee and enjoyed the peaceful quiet of the early morning boardwalk.












Shortly before 11am the beach opened and we drove on and set up camp.  It was a beautiful day and the water was wonderful. George also took the opportunity to ride the motorbike for the full duration of the beach on which you are permitted to drive - 12 miles round trip.  It is very fun to drive on hard packed sand right next to the ocean!










***UPDATE***
Here are some videos of us driving on the beach in Daytona.

Daytona Beach Junk Yard Finds

George spotted an LKQ salvage yard on our way to Tiger Bay so today we stopped in on our way to Daytona Beach.  He was looking for door trim, other E-Series / campervan miscellany and a hood for my '06 Accord that a deer jumped in front of when we were home at Thanksgiving. For nothing more than his $2 admission fee, George was able to procure all of these fuses, relays, switches and cabling.  Once he has all of our horns hooked up all I can say is, don't drive like an idiot in our vicinity or you will be blasted!

Horn Testing at Bennett Field; Tiger Bay State Forest