Daytona Beach

Day Eight

Best weather yet - a perfect day for the beach. We spent the whole day at the pool/beach then headed to Ponce Inlet to eat at our favorite restaurant, The Lighthouse Landing. We've eaten there every time we've gone to Daytona and it's always great. It's changed a little since last time we were there. They added an outdoor bar, a new dining area and some kind of Tiki Bar thing. The sun was just starting to set when we sat down. For starters, Natalie, Tom and I split a big order of steamed clams. Matthew had a bowl of clam chowder that he said was OK but a little too salty. Tom liked it enough to order a bowl for himself. For my main course, I got the best - a fried grouper sandwich. I'll have to ask the rest of them what they ordered.

After dinner we took the kids back to the condo and Natalie and I went out for a couple of drinks. First we went to Crabby Joe's, a pretty cool looking place on a fishing pier that you can just make out when you look south from Mike's condo. Now this was 9:00 PM on a Saturday night and the waiter said they were closing. Natalie said I got kind of nasty with the guy but I was genuinely shocked - a bar/restaurant closing at 9 on a Saturday Night? I really couldn't believe it. After that we went to Pirates Cove which is on the ocean at the Port Orange bridge. The hotel was half closed and all torn up for renovation but they were open. We got a couple of Coronas and went out on the deck. The deck would have been nice if it hadn't been enclosed in scratched up, dirty plexiglass the you couldn't see through. Oh well, at least the beer was cold. We left there and headed across the highway towards the bridge and stopped at D.J.'s Oyster Deck for one last drink in Daytona. Another nice place that we had been to before (I think I got frog's legs last time I was there). We sat on the deck and fed the catfish that congregate there. Little vending machines sell the fish pellets you feed them. We should have went there to eat instead of some of the other places we went to. After that it was back to the condo for the night.