Our Adventures: Not your usual Thanksgiving (2010)

After we left Lake City we headed to St. Augustine. Our nation’s oldest city! It was discovered in 1513 by Ponce De Leon and founded in 1656 by Pedro Menendez. St. Augustine is a beach front community of quaint shops, restaurants, horse drawn carriages and even some street performers (I use that term lightly). The first Catholic Parish in the Nation was established in St. Augustine and we were there. Awesome! We had been in St Augustine once before in ’06 but it was really rainy and cold so we didn’t go into town. The weekend we were there they were having their Christmas lights lighting ceremony, yes it was not yet Thanksgiving. Don’t you hate THAT! I think everyone that lives in or around St. Augustine was there. I was amazed at the number of people.

Our next stop was one of our favorites. We stayed at a state park in Flagler Beach, Gamble Rogers State Recreation Area. This may have been our favorite because the park was right on the beach. We could see the ocean from our windshield and smell the salt air. The high light was we were there for a full moon and WOW……….. We got some awesome shots. It was like something out of a movie. The drive from the pier to the campground reminded Chip of Carlsbad when he was growing up. It had that small beach town feel. We would have liked to stay there a lot longer but the only space that was open we had and it was only open for 3 days. One of the down sides to not making reservations!

Ever wonder what makes all those little holes on the beach? Here it is!

There is that "Man in the Moon"

When we left there and headed to Daytona Beach. We were there for Thanksgiving and the big HUGE car show that is held every Thanksgiving, the Daytona Turkey Run. You cannot imagine the number of old cars that are in town for this long weekend event. Chip was so excited to find a 65 GTO just like the one he drove in HS (or at least close enough to count). It was amazing how many cars we went by that he said, “Michael had a car just like that” or “Cantarini had a car just like”.. It was fun (for a while) but Chip loved it! I can only imagine what memories it brought back for him. ~sigh~

Chip and his car!

If I am going to dream this is MY dream car!!

This is just a small part of what was here!

Thanksgiving last year was not your usual Thanksgiving, we didn’t have turkey and dressing, we didn’t have sweet potatoes topped with marshmallows or pumpkin pie. Most of all we didn’t have FAMILY around. For that reason it didn’t feel at all like Thanksgiving. So we chose to do something most people don’t do on Thanksgiving (or not on the west coast anyway) and that was to sit on the beach and soak up the sun. We had a great day enjoying the warm weather. Being able to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving on the phone was “almost” like being there, ALMOST! The beaches in this part of Florida are pretty with white sand, very little rocks or shells (at least on the east coast, the gulf coast is a totally different story) and when you walk on the dry sand it sometimes squeaks. A really cool thing is you can drive on the beaches. I don’t know if you can all of them but in Daytona Beach you can. On this day we did not take the Jeep out on the sand. We spent 4 days in Daytona and did take our Jeep out once. If for nothing else but to say we did it! Plus it was actually a little breezy that day so the Jeep came in handy to block the wind. We had a great time! But we are not finished with Florida yet!!! Until next time…..