Daytona Beach

Day Seven - Universal Studios/Daytona Beach

Beautiful day. We got up early and checked out of the hotel, picked up some delicious breakfast sandwiches from Burger King and headed over to the park. It was up in the air over which one to go to, but we decided on Universal Studios. Natalie insisted that this time we would do it in order instead of running from ride to ride. We got on all our favorites again - The Mummy, Back To The Future and The Terminator. We did ET's Adventure Ride, which we missed the first day. It was OK - the ride's cars look like bicycles. I nodded a little during the Terminator (for the second time). Must be sleeping sickness.

After we left the Terminator Show, a trolley came down the street carrying a bunch of cartoon characters. We got pictures with Scooby-Doo and Scraggy, Woody Woodpecker and the female Woodpecker (?) and Curious George and The Man In The Yellow Raincoat. While we were still in Hollywood, Natalie got pictures with Lucy and Desi Arnez and Maryln Monroe and Joe DiMaggio. They all went in the gift shop while I sat on the curb listening to the Ricky & Franky Ricardo Band. We must have missed Lucy and Ricky's show with them but I really enjoyed the band by itself. They were great. We left the park around 1:00. Matthew wasn't ready to go but I think the rest of us were. I know I wanted to get back to the beach and enjoy what was our best weather day so far.

We got back to Daytona around 2:30 and had sandwiches for lunch. We hung out around the pool and on the beach until it got dark. The beach was really nice and the ocean water had warmed up quite a bit, but that was nothing compared to the pool. The heater had been broken but it was definitely working now - the water must have been pushing 80 degrees. We got dressed and headed across the street and south a little to the China America Garden restaurant. The food was so-so. They had a big screen TV playing sappy Asian music videos in the corner. The videos were in one Asian language with sub-titles in a different Asian language. After dinner we walked up the street to the Congo River Miniature Golf course. They have about a dozen 4-5 foot long alligators out front that you can feed with fishing rods baited with hotdogs. The kids really liked that. The course had a lot of waterfalls and a real plane crashed into a fake mountain. Nice place.