Today promises to be a great day. No wind, partly cloudy and supposed to get up to 75 degrees so we decided to go to Daytona Beach and explore the area. Since we are on a barrier island, we drove south on A1A past Flagler Beach, through Peninsula State Park and Tomoka Marsh National Aquatic Preserve. This stretch is perhaps one of the last undeveloped stretches of Florida Coast. As soon as we passed out of the Preserve and into Ellinor Villiage (an extension of Ormond Beach) condos and resorts proliferated filling every available square foot o space. From Ellinor down to Daytona Beach is a nice drive with beautifully designed buildings but the density of development is almost overwhelming. It's a shame too, it'll all be gone in the next fifty years with rising sea levels and increasing storm activity. But enough doom and gloom! 
It's a beautiful day and we found a parking spot right next to the Daytona Beach Pier. Since it's getting on towards the end of the tourist season there aren't the huge crowds of a few weeks ago. The cable tram that runs out to the end of the pier has closed along with several other beach attractions. We walked down to the beach and under the pier for a way to check out the beach. It's certainly a nice beach, very flat with a gentle slope to the water unlike our beach which is quite steep from the seawall to the water. In Daytona Beach the waves gently flow up towards shore. At Beverly Beach where we are parked the waves come crashing in to shore with a roar like a freight train. Really dramatic but not conducive to beach bathing.
From the beach we walked back to the palm tree lined boardwalk along the seawall. To our left as we walk north on the boardwalk (which is really patterned cement and brick) are huge resort hotels, restaurants and shops. Everything is very touristy. We pass the Daytona Beach Hilton and stop to browse their oceanfront gift shop. Continuing down the boardwalk we came to a large plaza with a band shell at one end, obviously set up for concerts. Then it was on to the Oceanwalk Shoppes http://www.oceanwalkshoppes.com/ where we stopped for lunch at "Johnny Rockets", an All-American diner with tabletop jukeboxes that belt out tunes for a nickel. We had chocolate malts with our hamburgers and fries jut like going to the old time diners, fun!!After lunch we walked over to a shell shop where I picked up a box of chocolate dipped coconut patties, yum! Arriving back at the car we pulled out and headed for the causeway to drive through Daytona Beach proper. Finding International Speedway Blvd we headed towards I-95 where we found the Daytona Speedway, part two of our trip to Daytona Beach.
This is a really cool place for NASCAR fans. We got our tickets to the Daytona 500 Experience and went into the main event area. Our first stop was the Daytona Dreamlaps Experience, an iWERKS motion simulator ride based on the Daytona 500. Woooohoooo!! Watch out for the wall! Stay off the grass, keep your head up and the pedal down. Lookout, here comes number 88 on the right, Man, there's only a couple of inches between us. Yikes, we just got bumped from behind!! Okay, here we go into the final turn, up the 31 degree banking and out onto the straight-away for the checkered flag. Yippeeee!! We did it!! Man, that was fun. Scary, but fun. I don't think I'll give up my day job though - heheheh.
Next we boarded the tram to take a tour of the track facilities. First we went up on the service road along the top of turn three where we stopped for pictures of the track facility. Then it was along the perimeter wall down to track level where we actually went onto the track at the center of the back straight-away. Driving along the inside of the track on the apron, we saw just how steeply the track is banked in the turns. Staying on the apron we complete our on-track ride and cross the start/finish line where we turn into the infield. Here we enter Victory Lane, get out of the tram and ascend the podium for a celebration photo! Really cool! Getting back in the tram we cross the track once more to the outer area for a chance to go into the stands before checking out the gift shop. This was a really fun day.
But first we went through the historical part of the displays with old race cars, exhibits of racing gear and other machines, past trophies and the history of NASCAR. This took us to the entrance of the gift shop where we found a couple of things for family back home then headed for the car. Since we were close to I-95 we made the twentyfive mile trip north to SR 100 and Flaggler Beach in thirty minutes. We spent the rest of the afternoon taking the dogs for walks on the beach and visiting with our neighbors.
To see all our photos click on the following link:
http://picasaweb.google.com/mjdolanski
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