Daytona Reunion

Sunday, 7/11

We got up at 9 for breakfast, as apparently all food must be eaten in the lobby. So all of us shuffled down and got in the "rofl-waffle" line. There wasn't much else, but we enjoyed the company: My sis, Ape's sis, us and all the boys.

They made ready to hit the beach and I stayed in the room. My plans were to find something good on TV, to read, and to update the much-neglected blog. I got to watch the last 30 minutes of Germany's win over Uruguay for the third place game (finals on soon). I got a kick (no, not a pun) out of a kick in the 83rd minute when the ball bounced off a prostrate Uruguay player, who'd fallen moments before in a contest for possession. I still love the vuvuzelas.

Next up was the GP2 race from Silverstone. I don't follow GP2 but I do like racing. Right after this the F1 race is supposed to be on, and near the end of that should be the World Cup final between Spain and the Netherlands. Plans changed slightly when Elder came up from their outing early with a tummyache. And he wasn't interested in F1, which was about to start. I managed to keep him into it long enough to see the start and I explained some stuff to him. It wasn't working. So I relinquished the remote and he found Mythbusters. We have like 20 channels, mostly the basics but oddly we have three Showtimes. Also the Cooking Channel ^^

We watched that until the rest of the crew came up and then we got ready for lunch, at the seafood place we had to pass on yesterday, Aunt Catfish. It was all hands on deck but I didn't see anything I wanted. SO I went looking for Catch, who was at the bar watching the World Cup final. I sat with him for 20-odd minutes, up to the scoreless half. He gave me his cinnamon roll (one comes on every plate) and it was quite good.

It took some time for the rest to eat, so I checked in on the game from time to time. We also had a great time talking and reminiscing. After that I convinced Ape's sis to drive through BK so I could get lunch for me. I got an Eclipse-themed chicken sandwich meal - I wound up eating with Jasper staring at me from the cupholder. I tried my luck with the gamepiece but lost. So much for Team Edward, lol. The prize would have been a Whopper. Not bad, but I'd have liked the Vespa. I asked Ape if I'd get to ride it if I won and she said I would...

From there we stopped by "north Florida's tallest" lighthouse but couldn't go up owing to the storm. Back in town, we tried some surf shops and then the Boardwalk but the rains began to threaten again. Somewhere in all that, I managed to cut my ear. See, Sis needed her big honking SUV parallel parked and wanted me to do it. As I climbed in I somehow struck the side of my head with the top of the door just at the bottom of my earlobe. It hurt, a lot, and began to bleed. Not finding a DDR machine on the Boardwalk didn't help any, heehee!

After dinner at Pizza Hut we packed the van so I could take most of our stuff with me in the morning. I was heading directly to work from the hotel and Sis didn't have enough room to carry much of our stuff in addition to her family's.

-~-~-~-

Saturday, 7/10

Up at 7:15 to take Younger to a swim meet at Eagle Harbor. This particular neighborhood is one Ape's mentioned wanting to move to many times. It's /very/ nice, but very expensive too... Anyways, I took him to give Ape a chance to sleep as she's been feeling lousy lately. And I'm trying to make solid progress into Sevenwaters 4.

If I failed to mention it before, swim meets are brutal affairs. Your child is actually in the water for *maybe* 10 minutes. For the remaining 3 hours 50+ minutes, it's hot. This time though, I had some distractions. After dropping the Clone off I grabbed breakfast and returned to the parking lot. I trimmed my nails and ate, and then went in. As it happened, Mom, Dad, Sis, Springfield Connection and Catch showed up.

We'd missed Younger's first swim, and there were 20 events before his next. Most of the crew left to find their own breakfast, but all made it back in time for the second event. Ape arrived minutes before Younger's swim too, so we all got to watch. After his third, everybody left but us, to get ready for Phase II of Vacation III. Seriously. We're all off to Daytona Beach. I'm on 'til Monday, leaving for work from the hotel, and the rest are returning Tuesday I think.

I took Ape to find food for Younger and her, and we stopped at some garage sales too. We returned for Younger's last event, grabbed him, and we were off. Back at home, we had the usual drama getting final packing done. Ape lost her "beach shoes", an old pair she didn't care about getting dirty. All she had left were brand new shoes she wanted to return so she was upset about that. We guessed, after turning the car and house over, that the shoes would appear in Daytona.

I got Ape to drive so I could read more, and made it a little past a third of the way in. The drive is pretty short and we got to the hotel without incident. I went to find parking in the very crowded lot whilst Ape and the rest went to see what kind of room we got. See, we're all here on "bargain radio" coupons and we were told we got what we got and the upgraded rooms were all taken. So I was surprised to come up from the parking lot to a very nice room. We thought the front desk may have given us Mom & Dad's room, but they checked in just after us and got the room they expected. So the room is very nice, even if the hotel, a decades-old beachfront, is a bit dodgy.

Ape's sis arrived soon after, with boys and Mimi, but sans hubby. He stayed behind to attend some car shows. So now there's 13 of us here. The main thing we did after relaxing and cleaning up was to hunt down dinner. We had coupons for a place called Aunt Catfish's and drove the few miles to it. And were told the wait was about 2 hours... Frenzied coupon-diving and phone calls ensued and we wound up putting our name in at Sloppy Joe's and drove around some. We had a wait for it too but I expect it'd be worth it as it's likely a much better restaurant than a tourist dive.

Ape sent me to get the boys a snack as they hadn't eaten since noonish and it was after 7pm. I went to Quiznos to get Elder a Toasty Torpedo and while in line, Younger comes up and says they're giving away free kid's meals. Assuming there's a catch, I left Elder in line and read the sign Younger pointed out. "Buy an entree, get a kid's meal." And a four-dollar Torpedo counts. So we got Younger a turkey & cheese meal and Elder got a beef, bacon & cheddar Torpedo. And better still, it was time to sit down at Sloppy's.

I won't go into the food much, although Catch let me sample his Cuban rice (tastes like soft cheesy tortilla bits) and I think pretty much everyone enjoyed their meals. The service was fantastic as well. And the boys all got blinky glasses to keep with their meals. And, just as we finished up, the beach fireworks started! So we got to watch that too! From there, I was left with 3/4 of the boys back at the hotel whilst everyone else went searching for ice cream. We spent our time on the shuffleboard court - I helped with scoring and the boys took turns. They all had fun and truthfully, all of them were quite good at it.

Eventually, our ice cream patrol returned (mint chip - nom!) and we basically called it as night after a little TV.

Oh, internet note. We dragged our Clearwire gear with us because, A) Clearwire has covrage in Daytona, and B) we had no idea what kind of access we'd have. Clearwire sucks just as bad in Daytona as in our house. Definitely thinking long and hard about a switch. Comcast's "upgrade to HD triple-play, get an iPod Touch" is looking better all the time!