Road Trip (Daytona-Cape Caneveral)

Another week of grueling work has ended and it was our break day again (Monday - 28th July). It was just a day before where we were working like cows (it was a Sunday and crazily busy), and I thought that we deserved a timely ‘vacation’. It was so that we had already planned a trip up to Daytona 2-3 days ago and booked a car online. On the very awaited day, me and Winson were up early in the morning (this time, Dickson and Damien will not be joining us, because Dickson can’t afford to spend and Damien, erhmmm :)), we were already knocking on the Taiwanese girls apartment door by 8.50am in order for us to catch the 9am bus to Downtown. An hour of bus ride and we were already at Downtown, and so the plan was that we headed to the Bank of America in Downtown where the girls can collect their ATM cards while we deposit our cheques. Once we were done, we headed to towards International Drive where we will collect our car at 3pm, but it was only around 11am when we arrived, so after a short walk, we decided that we catch a movie in order to kill time. So it was Hellboy 2 (It was Dark Knight at first, but due to the timing of the movie, too bad..), the ticket was a miserly USD7.50 (very expensive compared to what we get to pay in Malaysia) but guess what, there were only 5 audiences (4 of us and another stranger) in the whole theatre, and it was free seating, plus no one came to check on us, so we thought that we could just get a ticket and stay in the cinema the whole day watching any show we can, but it was just too bad that we had an appointment to pick up our car at 3pm.

After the movie (which was so-so), we left the cinema with and unsatisfied feeling, because we felt that the money we paid for the ticket was unjustified for. It was already looking as if it would rain heavily when we left the cinema and we hurried to the car rental outlet which was a 15 minute walk away from the cinema. After some short paper work and dealings, we finally got our car and it was a Pontiac Vibe (intermediated SUV) instead of a Mustang which we rented online. The reason was because the Mustang is a special car and the driver has to be of age of 25 and above in order to rent. Nevertheless, we took the Vibe and it was really comfortable and spacious (and about the petrol consumption which I will talk about later).


A picture of the car we rented

Off we go and with a GPS guiding us, we headed towards Daytona, and the very first destination was the all famous Daytona International Speedway. An hour of driving and we were already there but the bad thing was the it looked like as a heavy downpour is about to take place. Below are some pictures of the jaw-dropping and awe-inspiring Speedway.


The journey to Daytona...


The Speedway’s signboard (and the dark grey sky)


Me & DAYTONA!


Look at the magnificent audiences' seatings of the speedway!


Me & a race car :)

Some thunders was the very reason that prevented us from continuing our tour of the speedway and so we left before it started raining because we wouldn’t want to get stuck in the speedway just because of the rain. It was not long we were in the car before a downpour started, but we still had our GPS to navigate us to the Daytona Beach Shores. After a short 20 minute drive, we had arrived at the beach shore (the downpour had just stopped) and we decided to stop by and had a look at the beach. The beach was great but I was a little disappointed by the lack of people by the beach (because it has just rained).




A view of the street

A short while of admiring of the beach, we then chose to have our dinner at a Subway outlet nearby (some Subs anyone? :P). After our dinner, we then went on to look for a motel for our night stay (after the last experience in Tampa, we really didn’t wanted to go through that again :p). So after scouting a few motels, we decided on the Oceanside Inn for a USD78 night stay with breakfast. We unpacked our stuff from our car into our room and soon, we were walking by the beach. It was already dark when we were walking with some great lightings by the beaches (unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures of them due to the inability of my camera to take a good night picture without a tripod). But it was no kidding distance that we covered by the beach (a whole 45 minutes of walk) and we arrived by the Main Street (a street where all the night activities are). There were buskers performing (which reminded me of myself volunteering for the Kuala Lumpur International Buskers’ Festival during December 2006) and lots of bars and pubs around not to mentioned lights and sounds (and again sorry for the lack of pictures).


A picture of Main Street

After a short walk around the street visiting gift shops, we dropped by a 7-11 outlet and got ourselves 4 cans of 16 oz beer and some chips where we can enjoy once we are back at the motel. It was a long walk back (felt like never ending) before we reached our motel. All of us got our bath and we had a few round of games of poker cards with the beer and chips we bought. It was only a can and the girls were already high, lol, while me and Winson were still downright sober. It was 2am when we were all snoring away on our beds.

Before we (I believe all of us) could get enough rest, we were all awake by 5.30am, because we had planned to catch the sunrise by the beach. By 6am, we were all ready and we headed to the beach. And it was all worth every single bit-of-lack-of-sleep because the view of the sunrise was just captivating and awesome. Here are a few pictures of the sunrise.


The sun wasn’t up yet when I took this picture


A picture of the coastline


A picture of the motel where we had our stay in


The sunlight breaking the horizon


And the sun rises!

After a good session of picture taking, we headed back to our room and left all our stuff in there, then we headed to the beach again, this time, we had a splashing good time by the beach (what a feeling it was because I didn’t really got into the water at Tampa due to my poor dressing) and not to mention that I volunteered to be buried in the sand by the rest (it felt like a spa treatment :) ). It was indeed one of the most enjoyable moment in Florida I’d ever had since I came to the US. After that, we then went back to our room to have our bath before we go for our free breakfast provided by the motel.


A picture from our room window

After a satisfying continental buffet style breakfast, we then packed our stuff and were ready to leave. It was already 10.30am when we left checked out and left the motel. Next on our list was the Kennedy Space Centre in Cape Canaveral.


Our journey towards Cape Canaveral from Daytona...

Another hour of drive and soon we were at the parking lots of the space centre. I can say that I was so eager to have a look at the real life space shuttles that I’ve always seen in pictures and it was like a dream came true when I laid my eyes on them. We even got the chance to go through a simulation of shuttle launch. After paying some USD38 per person for the entrance fees, we were thoroughly scanned through before we were allowed to enter the visitors’ centre. Below are a few meaningful pictures taken at the visitors’ center.


The entrance of the visitors’ center


The real-life space shuttle on show (amazing indeed!)


A picture of rocket gardens (where all the previous rockets which were sent to space on display)


A group picture of us with a NASA signage behind us

It was time that prevented us from going on a bus tour which will take us around the whole space port (launch pad, training centre and so on) because we had to return the car we rented by 3.30pm before we were being charged for another extra day’s fee. It was really a waste of the money we paid for the ticket and I would admit this was due to some poor-planning on our part, but nevertheless, the pictures we took and the sights we had partly overcame the bad feeling. We headed back towards International drive to the place we where we collected our car, and we got caught in some bad traffic jams on the way due to some accidents. For that moment, we thought that we wouldn’t be able to make it but luckily, time and luck was on our side and after we refilled the car till full (which was just 5+ gallons for the 200+ miles we travelled, way better and in fact very excellent petrol consumption compared to the car we last rented). When we returned our car, we were at first given a bill of USD188 but after some checks and calls, our bill was corrected to USD112, which was the agreed contract price at first (thankfully).
The girls then decided they want to drop by Prime Outlet for some shopping and so after spending 2 hours there, we all headed home by foot (to save some cash) and it was a good 30 minutes walk when we finally arrived at our beloved Walden Circle. All-in-all, it was really an thrilling eye-opening trip indeed and worth every single dollar of the roughly USD100 that each of us spent for the whole trip, because this might be the only chance we will have in our foreseeable future. I was about to say ‘Life well spent’ again but guess I wouldn’t this time. :p