Astronauts, beaches and bikes... Welcome to Florida

It was about a 2 hour drive from Savannah to Florida. We arrived and found a campsite called Hanna Park in Jacksonville right at the top of Florida. It was a lovely park, very quiet, it felt like we were the only ones around. It was getting dark we had some diner, showered  and went to bed. The park had loads of animals making noises including squirrels and a raccoon that came up to see if we had any scraps left over pretty cool for our first stop in FL. 

Day 1: Hanna Park was near the beach, so in the morning we went for a run along the beach this time with runners (learned our lesson from Myrtle beach). It was super hot and we only managed to run about 5kms.

After breakfast we were on the move again following highway 1A down the coast. The drive was really cool; we passed loads of beach towns and massive beachfront mansions. For lunch we stopped off at a small beach. I had a swim, the water was amazing (and free).

 

        

By late afternoon we had reached Daytona Beach. However coming in via highway 1 we got a little lost and were not actually able to find the famous beach. We had actually by-passed the beach and popped out to far down the coast. After asking for some directions we found our way. However it was getting closer to 6pm and needed to find the Daytona Harley Davidson (the biggest in the world) before it closed. Luckily we found the store with about 15min to get in have a look around. The store was amazing, beautiful bikes, every kind of merchandise you could think of and a crazy workshop you could watch bikes being worked on.

After the Harley store we made our way back to Daytona Beach, driving past the famous Daytona race track on the way (it was massive would love to have seen a race). By this stage the beach was closed to cars so we did not get to drive Hank along the beach.ut we got to walk it. The sand was crazy hard, just like asphalt; you could understand why they allowed cars to drive on it.

The beach was really busy with people swimming, lounging around or ridding bikes. We walked back up along the boardwalk passing a massive slippery slide, restaurants and shops. I even got asked if I knew that Jesus loved me (Marc walked off), I said that I was a Catholic, which shut her up pretty fast. It was cool to see Daytona Beach but not too much to do there unless you were on holidays.

After our Daytona experience we made our way to get something to eat. We had decided to try an American drive-in, were going to try the chain, ‘Sonic’ drive-in but the one we were going to was closed. So a change of plan we decided to keep driving and make our way to Titusville. On the way we drove past this cute little place called ‘Pappas Drive-In’ just the place we were looking for so we stopped and had an amazing experience. It was awesome the server came up to our window took our order and then when it was ready brought it over and sat it on a try on our window. We both had the cheeseburger and shared a thickshake. The food was so delicious, burgers were full of flavour and the thickshake was mainly ice cream, the straw was useless, you needed a spoon to eat it!
 

 
That night we drove into Titusville and found a Wal-Mart to camp. The car was really hot after the big day of driving, there were mosquito’s everywhere (so we could not leave the windows open), it was very hot and humid as we were in Florida; these factors made it extremely difficult to sleep.   

Day 2: Seriously last night was the worst sleep ever we did not sleep much because of the heat. I don’t think we are going to be able to do a lot of camping in the car with the humidity and the heat. We tried everything; sleeping sitting up, on our hands and knees and even on our heads it was funny for a moment but the worst night sleep ever.

Today we are going to see the Kennedy Space Center; we were pretty excited (even with lack of sleep) and arrived just as it was opening. On the drive there Marc saw his first alligator in the marshy water next to the road but I missed it.

The space centre was awesome; to start we went on the 'shuttle launch experience' a simulator ride so you could get an idea what it was like to take off into space. It was really interesting to find out how complex everything was.  After the launch we checked out a real space shuttle and watched a 3D film on the space centre that’s currently orbiting earth which was amazing.

Last we went on a tour of the launch pads and the buildings where they get stuff ready. Everything was huge. We are so impressed with NASA now we want to become astronauts; either by going back to school or getting really rich somehow.

After the space center we continued down the coast for a couple of hours before stopping at Juno Beach for the night. The weather was still extremely hot and humid so we stayed in a Super 8 hotel for the night.

Day 3: I LOVE HOTELS!! Feeling a little more human again after a night in air conditioning we continued our drive to Miami. We followed highway 1 all the way to Miami Beach only stopping for lunch. The drive was interesting but after a while most of the Florida coast looked the same.

We arrived in South Beach late afternoon, parked the car and walked around Lincoln Rd Mall. It was a very busy place with high-end restaurants, bars and shops. Apart from Starbucks, everywhere was way to over priced for us to drink at. While we were walking around Marc saw ‘Good Charlotte’ walking down the street.  We also saw a lot of really beautiful rich people and their little dogs. It would be a cool place to visit on vacation but not when your not working for 12 months. 

That night we found another cheap hotel out near the airport to stay at before we left for our cruise. Miami was big, beautiful and expensive. I think we will look around more once we get back from the cruise.