We’re trying to work out a week at Daytona Beach Ocean Walk Resort again in the next few weeks. Last summer, we stayed there for 5 nights. SO much fun! I posted photos and a kind of review last year. We loved the fact that everything we wanted to do was within walking distance. We parked the van in the garage when we got there and didn’t get back into it until the day we checked out. The beach, two pools with a lazy river, entertainment complex with movies, restaurants, shops and across the street a water park, arcade, laser tag, go carts, mini-golf and the BEST? A SPA at the hotel that accepted the Spa Finder gift certificate I won at a Christmas party, so I even got a massage! GREAT vacation. Bought it on eBay. Seriously. GREAT deal.
I’m a Florida girl. I went to the beach on Saturdays, some when I was in high school, more when I was in college. I remember I parked my car on the beach at New Smyrna once. (It was allowed back then.) Hung out with friends all day. Then the tide came in. Not good. The tires did not budge. Not good. No cell phones back then. Just lots of freaking out about how much trouble I was going to get in and how I was going to get the car home with an engine full of salt water. Thankfully, lots of tanned, good looking guys, drippin in machismo, surrounded my Mustang and pretty much lifted it out of the sand and back a few feet before it was completely water logged or dragged out to sea and turned into an artificial reef. What? I was 16. I thought it could happen.
So I’ve been to the ocean a few times. Mostly the east coast of Florida. Daytona Beach, Cocoa Beach, Cape Canaveral, Jetty Park, New Smyrna . . . I love the beach. Kinda. Here’s a few things I’ve learned about myself:
I DON’T like swimming in the ocean. I’ve gone in far enough to STAND and catch a wave with a boogie board or a raft, but actually SWIM in the ocean? No. Riptides. Fish touching my legs. The movie Jaws. eek.
I DO like walking, basking, sleeping and reading on the beach. I know I’m not supposed to sleep and bask – skin cancer – I know. I don’t really do it anymore. We all lather up SPF50+ now. But the days of SPF2 Coppertone Suntan OIL? I can still smell it. The deep brown skin and bleached blond hair from a bottle of Sun In spray? Good times. Good times.
I DO like sitting on the beach, building sand castles and sand . . . stuff. Digging trenches. Burying my feet and legs. Digging up sand crabs for bait. Sand fills up in your bathing suit bottom and you have to trudge out to the ocean at least waist deep and do a little dance, hopping nobody has goggles and can hold their breath for a long time.
I DON’T like going to the beach for the DAY. The 60 to 90 minute, sand in my pants, wet bathing suit, sticky skin drive home is miserable. HATE that.
I LOVE going to the beach when we stay overnight. Spending the entire day outside in the sun and sand and getting to take a shower IMMEDIATELY after. Then going out for a bucket of Cajun shrimp and ICE cold beer at Bubba Gumps. Then waking up the next and doing it all over, but with different sea food at the end of the day? Like maybe blackened mahi mahi? Oh, now why did I go there? I’m ready for vacation now.
I LOVE sitting out on the balcony of a hotel at night, listening to the surf and (hopefully, if the moon is right) watching the waves.
I DO like walking on the beach at sunrise and sunset. Breathtaking.
I DO like riding out the channel at Cape Canaveral in a boat EARLY in the morning. You can actually FEEL the tension sliding off your back behind you as you get farther away from land.
I especially like standing on the top deck of a Disney Cruise Ship as it makes its way down the channel.
I DON’T like walking on the beach at night. The scurrying little sand crabs freak me out. If I walk at night, I want a flash light. A BIG one.
oh. And my final DON’T like? Shaving my legs the same day I’m going to the ocean. ow. ow. ow. ow. Shave the night before. Trust me.
To find out what others learned this week, check out What I Learned this Week hosted by Musings of a Housewife.
Thanks, Kristin for inspiring this post!
The whole shaving of the legs comment brought back painful memories… Thanks for that. :oĆ I guess we’ve all got to experience it sometime in our lives.
Oh yes – I remember “frying” in oil!
I love a full day at the beach – as long as I have all my supplies with me – including a barbecue for the evening.
Love walking and paddling – no swimming for me here – much too cold.
I totally forgot about the shaving thing! Thanks for the reminder.
DH is a Florida boy–grew up in Orlando and called your species “Red Legg-ed Shell Pickers”
My neighbors didn’t even bother with SPF2–they did CRISCO. Or Baby Oil. ::shudder::
THANK YOU, THANK YOU for the timer suggestion. We did 10 on and 10 off for homework. He finished his spelling stuff in the first 10 minutes and his math in the 2nd 10 and was so happy with himself that first night. Last night we did it again and there were no tears or fighting. Of course, you didn’t suggest this BACK IN SEPTEMBER!!!! But we’ll definitely use it this coming year for him.
Although, I want to be honest: What kind of jerky teacher gives homework the last week of school in SECOND GRADE?
Daytona Beach Ocean Walk is a lot of fun – I’ve never stayed down there because I lived in Daytona, but I’ve spent many a day right there in that area. That’s where we’d always go to the movies, too – and then head over to Cold Stone Creamery.
I went to Vieques (and Island off the coast of Puerto Rico) with my in-laws and husband a few years back. They rented a house on the cliff side of the island and the waves crashed, crashed, crashed into the side of the island. I thought I was going to lose my mind. The noise was deafening to me. The other side of the island was the calm side. the water lapped up onto the beaches. I suggested each day that we spend our time there, as much as possible.
I like the idea of the ocean and the sand, but once I arrive, I’d just as soon leave. I had never really talked about my relationship with the sea until we had that trip to Vieques. It all came together in that trip – my likes, my dislikes and the reasons behind it all.
I like your list š
Oh yes, I can just SMELL that oil!
I’ve certainly learned that I don’t love the beach. I love to swim in the ocean – yep, the wide open, Jaws-filled ocean. That sand thing just grosses me out. š Although I love a good walk on the beach at night and listening to the waves from the balcony.
You and me both, girl. When my first two were my only two and wee little, we lived a mere hour from Destin. Did we go? Not often. Day trips were too much trouble. Staying overnight is the best. Drinking coffee on the balcony looking out over the ocean–a piece of heaven on earth.
Some great vacations were spent at Florida beaches :
I remember going to Cocoa beach one winter as a teenager in a Christian singing group. Some wonderful memories there.
Most of the time, my family went down to Pensacola and those glorious bright white beaches. The “in” place to go with your friends, however, was Panama City.
Our honeymoon was spent at Gulf Shores, AL in a friend’s beach housebefore heading down to Miami for one of those “vacations” where you get 3 days and 2 nights free if you sit in on their presentations. We were poor! And I, being blond and dumb, got a TERRIBLE sunburn. On the way back, we stopped at a brand new theme park, just opening that weekend. In Orlando. Yep, we share an anniversary.
One summer, I went down to Pensacola again for a seminar–and got stranded the last day due to a hurricane and 7 spin-off tornadoes. My little yellow Volkswagen bug just couldn’t handle the winds, so I spent another night at the motel listening to a battery-powered radio and eating dry cereal from a box. It was a little noisy and hairy at times, but what an adventure!
The summer of ’75 (I think) a couple of us from work went to a another seminar, this time at Daytona Beach, just 6 weeks and 6 blocks from a shark attack. I’d seen “Jaws”. I was no fool, but decided I had to go waist deep into the ocean just to say I’d been in the Atlantic, then it was Moses parting the Red Sea coming out! If any shark wanted me, he’d have to come across the sand and jump into the pool!
Yep, some cool memories on hot Florida beaches.
And oh, yeah, I went through bottle after bottle of Sun-In.