April 30 – Daytona Beach, FL – Walmart

After finishing up our second day at Busch Gardens we jumped in the RV and headed east through Orlando to Daytona Beach. We spent the night at Walmart just down the road from Daytona International Speedway. We did make the drive by and around the racetrack although we didn’t do the track tour. The next morning we headed to Daytona Beach. It was Tuesday morning and we largely had the beach and stores along the boardwalk to ourselves. This turned out to be the best beach we have visited thus far. The kids had a blast swimming in the Atlantic and the beaches had really fine, soft, white sand that we all enjoyed.  Incidentally, this is the second location that Nancy felt the need to collect sand from because of its unusual quality.  The first place was White Sands Monument in New Mexico. To underscore how white the sand was, it wasn’t a couple days after collecting it that Nancy caught Jim spooning it into his coffee and wondering why he couldn’t taste the sweetner.

We continued our drive north right along the coast and spent the afternoon in St. Augustine. St. Augustine is the oldest continuously occupied city in what is modern day America. It was originally settled by the Spanish in 1565 when Florida was a Spanish possession, several decades before the English arrived at Jamestown and Plymouth Rock. While here we walked through the downtown area and visited Castillo de San Marco. Completed in 1695, this masonry fort commissioned and paid for by the Spanish was built to protect the Spanish outpost from invasion by pirates and the English. The coast of Florida was an important strategic asset for the Spanish as it allowed them to protect the Spanish treasure fleet as they made their way back to Europe following the gulf stream north by Florida carrying bounty from Central America. For something that dates back over 300 years the fort is in excellent condition and it was interesting to learn about the engineering and design features that were incorporated. As I recall, the townspeople had to move into the fort 2 different times over the years to protect themselves from invasion. Both times the fort proved invincible and protected its inhabitants allowing them to retain their city. Modern day St. Augustine was the perfect blend of old world history and complimentary, modern conveniences needed to meet the needs of this small coastal community. Our visit was enhanced by 90 degree weather which we are quickly growing accustomed to J.

Lucas with one of the park volunteers

Looking down inside the fort from the upper level

Looking out into the harbor off of St. Augustine