Florida has some beautiful beaches and great vacation destinations, one of those being Daytona Beach. Located on the Atlantic side of Florida, Daytona is the home of the Daytona International Speedway and plays host to Daytona Bike Week and the Daytona Turkey Run Car Show and Swap Meet.
My husband and I recently vacationed in Daytona Beach for the Thanksgiving holidays. We actually left the Friday before and drove down, stopping in Albany for the night, before heading to the Moultrie (Ga.) Car Corral and Swap Meet on Saturday morning. We ended staying almost all day and purchasing a blue Vespa, which I will learn to ride by Spring 2017!
We had reservations to stay at a hotel on the beach further down from where we ended up staying. The first hotel was damaged by Hurricane Matthew and so we were moved to Bahama House. The accommodations were awesome. We had a balcony that had a beautiful view of the ocean. Our room was very spacious, and had a kitchenette and a large bathroom with a semi-private toilet. The pool was nice and we could access the beach from the pool area.
{Photo Above: view from our hotel balcony; view of the hotel from the beach; and me at the beach.}
We had a few days to mill around Daytona – on my Vespa – before the Turkey Run Car Show and Swap Meet. We went to the mall, ate at Bubba Gump Shrimp, and went to Bruce Rossmeyer’s Harley Davidson, where my husband ended up buying a beautiful Heritage HD motorcycle.
We were going to stop by the lighthouse in St. Augustine, but we ended up riding his motorcycle down to the lighthouse at Ponce Inlet. The history at this lighthouse was fascinating. There were several buildings on the property that visitors could walk through.
{These are the lights used in lighthouses; me after I reached the top of the lighthouse; and exterior of the lighthouse.}
{Cuban refugee rafts; clothing worn by families who lived and worked at the lighthouse; photo of Mike from the top of the lighthouse.}
{I climbed 203 steps of Florida’s tallest lighthouse; Mike reading the plaque about the Second Assistant Keeper’s Dwelling; plaque about Jesse Linzy.}
On our way back to Bahama House, we stopped and played putt-putt. {Mike won, but only by two strokes.}
We purchased two {2} two-day tickets to Turkey Run, but ended up just using one day – Thanksgiving Day only.
{I love VWs; vehicles from the TV show “The Munsters” were on display at Turkey Run; classic cars like this black sportster appealed to non-car people like myself; Mike sits astride a Triumph motorcycle for sale at the swap meet in Moultrie.}
We arrived too late on Friday morning and ended up sitting in traffic for over 1.5 hours. I thought everyone would be at the mall, shopping for Black Friday deals. Instead, everyone {including their mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters, and hoards of children} showed up to Turkey Run. We decided that it wasn’t worth waiting and fighting the crowds at Turkey Run, and so we ended up back at Bruce Rossmeyer’s Harley Davidson.
Riding up and down the coast on the back of the Vespa or the Harley Davidson was wonderful. {Merry Christmas to us!}
The weather was a bit chilly the first few days we were there, but by Wednesday the weather was warming up and the sun was shining brightly.
If you plan to take a trip to Florida, think of Daytona. It has everything — shopping, scooter rentals, beaches, lighthouses, good food, and fun activities.
Yours Truly,
Vanessa
