Is it 2009 Already? 14/01/08- Daytona Beach & Speedway

[Guest]

Day 3 Monday 14 January 2008. Daytona Beach and Speedway.

Weather, cooler today, breezy, high of 65 degrees. No rain though.

I had a lie in until 5.30 this morning, ah bliss. I wrote the previous day’s trip report and also wrote out some post cards, whilst I had my morning coffee.

Once Bill was up and had had breakfast, we set off for some apparently famous Harley Davidson shop at Daytona. In addition to his regular job, Bill also works part time as a motorcycle instructor, and the owners of the bike school he works for are going to Daytona at the end of February for Bike Week. Bill has organised their flights and accommodation for them. He has also been trying to secure motorcycle hire for them, but has not had any joy in doing so by e-mail, so we were going to see the Harley dealer involved to sort out the motorcycle hire. At least that is what Bill told me, I couldn’t see why it can’t be done over the internet and have a sneaking suspicion he just wanted to go to the largest Harley dealer in the world.

It took just over an hour to get to the huge – and was enormous –
Harley place in downtown Daytona. The dealership had loads of different bikes on show, some classic ones also and some new custom machines.



Even I was impressed with it. However, it turned out that we were at the wrong place as they did not do bike hire. The place we should have been at was at Daytona Beach, so the Sat Nav was re-set and off we went again.

It didn’t take long to reach Daytona Beach and the correct hire place. Bill arranged the bike hire required and we went off again to explore the beach itself. It was quite breezy at the beach but still nice in the sun. It was a lot warmer than it had been when I was last on the beach – 2 weeks ago at Whitley Bay – brrr now that was cold.

One of the bike school owners had asked Bill to arrange for him to have something different to ride. Bill has hired this trike for him

Here are some photos of the beach and ocean.



We had lunch at a branch of Subway at Daytona Beach. Whilst we were there a guy came in wearing surfer shorts and vest top. He was there for a job interview. Bill said to me that that was no way to dress for an interview. I laughed – I just love it when he gets all high and mighty and old fashioned. We were after all in surfer dude territory.

[Guest]

We then set off to go back to Orlando. We passed the Daytona Speedway on the way back and Bill suggested we maybe stop there so he could get a couple of photographs.

Hmm I thought that means hundreds of photos not two. We parked up and walked towards the visitor centre. As we were walking we could see one of the stewards who were directing traffic coming in on where to park, arguing with a woman who was driving a Jeep. We then saw the steward tear off his luminous orange jacket, hurl it to the ground and proclaim loudly that he was quitting. The woman made a gesture which involved using her middle finger and promptly drove over his jacket. Hmm we wondered what that was all about (just because we are both nosey).

We went into the visitor centre and had a look around the shop before going out to the race track.

It was really quite busy with lots of spectators milling about and taking photos. Some of the cars were going a great rate of knots and were just a blur and a very loud noise as they shot past us. Others were going at a more sedate pace, but still a lot faster than I have ever driven before Bill was really enjoying himself and took a lot more than a couple of photos.



This last photo was one of the really fast cars and was taken with a shutter speed of 1/250 th of a second. The car is still blurred slightly.

As we were walking back to the car we noticed the steward who had said he was quitting, was in fact once again wearing his orange jacket and directing the traffic (there were tyre marks on his jacket though).

We set off once again to return to Orlando and made good time. As we were approaching the Mall of Millenia area, Bill asked me what time it was. It was 4.40. He asked what time I wanted to go out for dinner and I said around 7ish. ‘Oh well would you mind if we just popped into Circuit City as we go past it’ he said.

Well I suppose it was our third day in Florida and we still hadn’t been in there, so that was our next stop of the day. Bill wanted the ‘Heroes complete season one’ box set and got it in Circuit City. The price at home is over £40, Bill got it for $39.99, and was well pleased.

We then returned to The Fountains and just chilled for an hour or so before getting ready to go our once again. We went to Unos on I – Drive for dinner. It was lovely as usual and we started with pizza skins as usual. Bill also had the Numero Uno individual pizza, whilst I had sirloin steak tips. Also as usual neither of us could finish so gave in gracefully. Then it was back to The Fountains where Bill fiddled with the camera and the Mac book to download the many photos he’d taken that day before we went to bed for the night.

[Bob_and_Dawn]

Sounds like a very busy day Jools,

Dawn

[TinkTatoo]

Sounds like a great day and I'm amazed that you lasted until day 3 without a visit to the dreaded CC

[Michelle]

Ah memories, Daytona beach on a cold January morning, getting stuck in the sand and having to get the beach patrol to dig us out

Lovely day.

[georgemac]

Sounds like a nice day, nobody on the beach though, in the summer here when it hits 65 we head for the beach, not hardy enough in Florida

Some nice bikes, the guy at the speedway not having a good day at work LOL - the tyre marks on his vest must have looked great

DVD box set is not a gadget, so I'm sure Bill will have to go back to circuit city.

[wjd]

Sounds like you had a great day, my dad loved motorbikes he had a BSA Gold Star, it was his pride and joy. We went to daytona years ago as he wanted to go past the Daytona Speedway. He'd of loved the photo's.

Uno's for dinner I wish, great report, great price on the dvd's.

[BarryandCaron]

Great day Jools with fantastic photos. Didn't Bill fancy a trip around the track whilst you were there?

Caron

[Guest]

A very Bill-orientated day today, hope it's more of a Jools day tomorrow to make up for it. Great photos!

[highlander447]

Those bike pics are pretty good, lol at the interview