My Summer Vacation 2021 Road-Trip

It’s Part 7 of my multi-part Thursday blog series on my recent 77-hour / (4-day / 3-night) / 472-mile road-trip spanning Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, Martin, St. Lucie, Indian River, and Okeechobee Counties (in that order). It was my first extended visit ever along Florida’s Treasure Coast. While there I was always within about 5 miles of the Atlantic Ocean and the adjacent Indian River.

I awoke early on Day 4 – Saturday June 05TH 2021 – my 54TH birthday. In the weeks (even months) prior to this road-trip I had planned to enjoy a free birthday Grand Slam® breakfast at Denny’s, but they’ve actually changed things up over the past couple of years. Instead of simply walking-in to any Denny’s on the exact day of your birthday, telling them that it’s your birthday, showing them proof via your driver’s license, and then enjoying a free birthday Grand Slam® – now you have to be a part of their Rewards program, and receive a digital coupon for a free birthday Grand Slam® that you can utilize once anytime during your birthday month.

I decided to save my digital coupon from Denny’s for later in the month. Starbucks gave me a reward for any item on their menu free – good only on the exact day of my birthday – so it was off to Starbucks of Vero Beach for a quick small Breakfast.

After that it was a mostly uneventful drive home – down U.S. 1 – onto Florida State Roads 713 and 70, into Okeechobee County, around the eastern edge of the big lake, and then southward onto U.S. 27 and back into Miami-Dade County. I drove 180.2 miles home, and the total miles of the road-trip from start to finish was 471.8.

This was a fun yet well-planned road-trip. I planned it back in early-2018, and I scheduled it for the first week of June of 2018. I had to cancel it when a work-related road-trip to Georgia took precedence. Early this year I decided that this would be the year to take that road-trip, and so I scheduled it for the exact same 4-day / 3-night part of the first week of June. Most of the places that I visited were on my original 2018 itinerary. This was a road-trip where I wasn’t looking for potential part-time volunteer or employment opportunities post-retirement. I wasn’t driving around looking through potential future neighborhoods. I just wanted to visit new places that I’ve never been to before in my life, meet interesting people along the way, and enjoy some great food. I accomplished my mission.

Inside the Indian River Citrus Museum in downtown Vero Beach Florida

There are a lot of hidden treasures along Florida’s Treasure Coast – mostly along or within a few miles of the Atlantic coastline and the Indian River shoreline. I’ll definitely visit the area again to explore more. So far I’ve captioned and posted about 35 photos of this road-trip over on my Flickr site. I’ve got dozens more still to post, so I’ll be doing that for at least the next month. Check my Flickr often to see the newest photos.

And now it’s time to announce my next great Florida road-trip that begins in less than 100 days. It’s all planned-out. I’ll be driving up the spine of Florida along U.S. 27 up to Florida State Road 60, and then I’ll be heading westward into the Tampa area for one night. From there I’ll be heading southward along U.S. 41 (Tamiami Trail) into the Fort Myers area for one night. From there I’ll be heading southward and then eastward back into South Florida. I’ll be spending one night in Northwest Broward County before I return home on the afternoon of the 4TH day. It’ll be a nearly 650-mile road-trip from start to finish, and I’ll post all about it for many weeks after.

This concludes my 7-part series on “My Summer Vacation 2021 Road-Trip”. Actually it was an 8-part series, as I introduced it on the June 06TH 2021 edition of “Sunday Scripture”. You can utilize the calendar feature down at the bottom of this site to click on a previous Thursday if you missed any of the parts.

#TravelThursday continues next Thursday, as I plan to blog about Reykjavik Iceland.