We left Joni’s parents home and headed to Vero Beach for our first long stay in a Florida resort.
Joni had been looking forward to being on the beach ever since we started full timing in our RV.
We are in PARADISE!!!! The Atlantic Ocean and beach on one side, the bay on the other, tennis, kayaking, biking, bridge, walks on the beach, swimming in the pool, biking, beautiful palm trees! It’s Joni’s paradise! Thank you to Mary Jane Mulaski for telling us about this place.
We arrived at Ocean Resorts in Vero Beach about 2:00 pm and Joni loved it the minute she saw it. Pictured is the view from our campsite with and then without neighbor's motorhome next to us. Look carefully and you can see the ocean in the background.
The park is situated between the river (or bay) and the ocean. Our spot is on the ocean. We can see the ocean from our RV spot. It’s beautiful. It used to be a KOA campground, but sometime in the late 70’s it was sold and is now a coop of individually owned RV spots or manufactured home spots. 
Mary Jane and Dave Mulaski, from Trophy Club (home) joined us after we’d been here for 10 days and parked right next to us (teal canopy) for the next 10 days. Pictured are our motorhomes with Mary Jane siting outside on her patio (Maroon canopy). We have had a blast together. Mary Jane and Dave have a lot of the same interests that we do. We have talked about camping together in Florida for a long time and we have finally done it.
Our days have been totally full since we arrived. Joni met people at the tennis courts our 2nd day here and asked them what she needs to do to play. There are women’s leagues and Joni signed up to be a sub. She has played everyday and sometimes twice a day since then. 
She has made many new friends and we’ve played doubles with the Mulaski’s also. Mary Jane and Joni have played tennis together for 23 years.
The bridge club met on Wednesdays and Sundays. We signed up to play each time and since the Mulaski’s also play, we signed them up before they even got here. We have enjoyed playing bridge with them for many years. The bridge players here are very very good and sometimes the bridge was very intimidating since we weren’t as good they were, but again we made some new friends and had a good time.
Joni was looking forward to kayaking and met some of the “kayak club” people. They go kayaking every Thursday morning, so Joni joined in – paddling her little blow up kayak across the intercoastal. They (about 12 people) took a 30 minute paddle to an island in the middle of the intercoastal (Indian River) and had lunch and then returned. It was like Gilligan’s Island. A small island with a beach all around it. It was so cute! Mary Jane and Dave brought their own kayaks also . We have gone out together a few times and loved it. 
We even got to see some Dolphin playing in the water very close to us. That was outstanding! Some of our new friends offered to let Joni use their “real” kayaks, so she took them up on their offer. Watch out Delton – Joni wants a “real” kayak now !
While kayaking one afternoon, Mary Jane and Joni came upon a manatee in the bay. He looked like he had gotten himself tangled into some rope with cans attached to the rope. We watched the manatee swim for a while pulling this “stuff”. Look closely and you can see the manatee under the water at the very right side of the picture. It looks like a shadow in the water. A man came to the pier with a clipboard and looked at the manatee and started writing down something. He told us that the manatee was tagged and the “cans” were actually radio controlled devises for the study of the manatee. The radios had antennas on them and we could follow the manatee around because the radios were above the water. We were told that they are very friendly and if we splashed our hands in the water, they would come to us and roll over so that we could rub their bellies. We did that for about 45 minutes but they never came to us, but they seemed to play with us by swimming all around our kayaks and under our kayaks. We were fasinated!
Delton has been taking his morning walks on the beach everyday. After walking he does his muscle exercises with exercise bands and also swings his practice golf club. Some men say him doing this outside our motorhome and asked him if he’d like to join them to play golf with them. He has played twice with his new friends.
Of coarse, Joni has not passed up her 12 mile bike workouts every day. Some days it was hard to get the ride in, but Joni managed to get it in every day anyway. There’s just not enough time in a day to get everything in. A typical day here for Joni is: bike ride for 12 miles, tennis match for 1 to 2 hours, walk on the beach, swim in the pool, kayak for a couple of hours, tennis again and maybe eat and sleep in between. Notice the ocean behind the pool - in the background.
Cape Canaveral is about 150 miles north of Vero Beach and had a space launch while we were here. We walked to the beach and stood on the boardwalk while listening to the countdown. It was far away, but we could see the blast off and the trail (pictured) it left in the sky. The rocket was going to Pluto and would arrive there in about 9 years.One evening we went out to eat with Mary Jane and Dave. The Ocean Grill is a very nice restaurant right on the ocean. We had a window table and enjoyed a very nice fish diner while watching the waves come and go. Being right on the beach, this place has been rebuilt a few times after being destroyed by several hurricanes.
On our way here, Delton decided to do some motorhome repair, so pictured is Delton under the motorhome. He spent about 3 days under the motorhome.
One of the new friends we made had a birthday party and we were invited. All the new friends we made were at the party. It was held in the community center of the RV park and we had a great time. Pictured is Joni with Nancy. Also notice Mary Jane in the background of the picture.It’s so nice here, Joni is having a hard time even thinking of leaving, but our next stop is the Florida Keys. I guess we’ll just have to leave and move on. Sad isn’t it?
