Volusia County (The origin of the name is shrouded in fog like the fog in this photo.) is the home of Daytona Beach on the Atlantic coast of Central Florida. We have friends from our Air Force days who own a condo on Daytona Beach and I love hanging out at the beach. So last week I spent a very enjoyable day with Mike at his condo. To begin with you need to know that Mike and I are two wild and crazy guys (probably not).
I arrived in Daytona at lunch time, so we headed out for something to eat. The first place we targeted was out of business. It is probably good we didn’t eat there. Instead we stopped at a nearby ‘hole-in-the-wall’ place to satisfy our hunger.
Mike owns a Fitbit or something similar, so he proceeded to take me on a forced march down the beach to meet his daily steps goal. The beach was beautiful and surprisingly empty. Evidence of the hurricanes last fall were everywhere with ‘do not cross’ tape strung around shaky balconies and stairways. The beach is being refilled with sand and should be ready for the summer season. Following the ‘march’ we enjoyed sitting on the beach sipping adult beverages and enjoying each other’s company until it was time for supper.
We talked, as we did the entire time together, about many things. We talked politics-more guns will not reduce gun violence. We talked theology-the basic understanding is to hear the main theme of the scriptures which is living by laws doesn’t get us close to God, so God comes close to us. Spirituality is a corporate enterprise not an individual proposition. We are all connected to each other and to God (whatever name we use for the Eternal Being). We shared stories of our lives before we met in the early 90’s and military experiences unique to each of us.
Mike asked me if I had met anyone famous in my journey. I shared my moment with Drew Carey, which I thought was great. Well, it turns out Mike set me up. The famous person he met was Halle Berry. I am sooo! jealous!
That evening we had a fabulous diner at Anna’s Trattoria Italian on Seabreeze Blvd. I recommend the Penna alla Vodka. After dinner we walked around to savor the beach scene at night. While we lounged in his condo drinking adult beverages Mike noted that we had walked nine miles together. What are friends for! Really?
Somewhere in our conversation Mike shared that the Daytona 500 started as a race along the beach. The course started on the pavement of highway A1A (At 4511 South Atlantic Avenue a restaurant named “Racing’s North Turn” now stands at that location.) The course went south two miles (3.2 km) parallel to the ocean on A1A (S. Atlantic Ave) to the end of the road, where the drivers accessed the beach at the south turn on the Beach Street approach, returned two miles north on the sandy beach surface, and returned to A1A at the north turn. The lap length in early events was 3.2 miles (5.1 km), and it was lengthened to 4.2 miles (6.8 km) in the late 1940s.
The current race course doesn’t look anything like the original.
I returned home after lunch at Steve’s Famous Diner savoring the time shared by two wild and crazy guys (probably not) on the beach in February. Now, that is something very special.
See you next time.