Old Florida Christmas

Sometimes it’s hard to get into the Christmas Spirit when you live in Florida and it’s 80 degrees outside. Instead of sitting around and dreaming of snow, I decided to spend an afternoon at Heritage Village in Largo to find out how Floridians celebrated Christmas in years past.

Heritage Village is a 21-acre living history museum with over two dozen of Pinellas County’s oldest structures, dating from the late 1800’s to the early 1900’s. The historic homes range from the 1852 McMullen-Coachman log cabin, to the tiny one-room Boyer Cottage, to the grand Victorian-style House of Seven Gables. There is also a train depot, a fire engine from 1919, a general store and even a couple of Depression-era outhouses! One of my favorite buildings was the little Safety Harbor Church, which survived two hurricanes and still has its original pulpit.

Key West Super Boat Races

Back in June, Jenny told us that if we wanted to go to Key West, we were welcome to stay at Chris’s house. Key West, yes! Other than for a few hours on our Carnival Victory cruise last January, we hadn’t been to Key West for three years. We were definitely overdue for another visit to the Conch Republic. We decided we’d go in November because our friends Ronnie and Jamie would be there for the Super Boat International Championships.

But then this fall, everything went crazy. Between all the changes at work and having our house torn up to replace the floors, we barely had time to think, much less get excited about the trip. I didn’t start feeling that vacation vibe until we hit Key Largo and saw the beautiful turquoise water. At mile marker 37, we stopped at Bahia Honda State Park for photo ops of the old Bahia Honda Bridge, originally part of Henry Flagler’s railway in the early 1900’s. Very cool!

We could easily have spent a few hours at the park, but it was already after noon so we headed on to Stock Island for some lunch at Hogfish Bar and Grill, where I had my first mojito of the trip. That is one thing I love about the Keys – they know how to make a mojito. Not syrupy, not sour and definitely not from a mix! :-)  Hogfish’s Key lime mojito had just enough Key lime flavor to make it unique. Ahh, vacation had begun.

Bahia Honda State Park

The Best of Key West

Since my sister-mother trip to Virginia got "Joaquin'ed", I am especially looking forward to getting away to Key West next month. Ron and I have gone to Key West by car, ferry, plane and cruise ship, and each trip is a new and fun adventure. Here are a few of the things that I love about Key West.

History and Art

Daytona Beach Labor Day Weekend

We hadn’t planned to go out of town for Labor Day. The weekend cruises were either booked up or too expensive, and we didn’t want to spend a lot of money. But at the last minute, we decided we needed to go somewhere. Orlando? Apalachicola? Daytona Beach? Yes, Daytona! We hadn’t been there in AGES.

We left Saturday morning and got to Daytona at 10:30, just in time for the 11 o’clock All Access Tour at the Daytona International Speedway. Ron had been to the speedway several times for car shows but I’d never seen it and I thought it would be interesting to see what it was like behind the scenes.

The tour lasted about an hour and a half and we got to see many areas of the property, riding from place to place in trams towed by our tour guide in a truck. Our first stop was on an access road overlooking the incredible 31-degree angle of the track at Turn 4 (31 degrees because at 32 degrees, the dirt starts to slide down). Then we drove onto the track itself. As we entered the raceway, I could almost feel the adrenaline and excitement of the drivers. We stopped at the checkered Start/Finish line where we all attempted to walk up the 18-degree track. It was a lot steeper than it looked! Next we had souvenir pictures taken at Victory Lane and visited the Drivers Meeting Room, where the teams meet for safety briefings and instructions before each race. Our final stop was inside the stadium itself, which is undergoing a $400-million renovation called Daytona Rising. When the project is finished, the stadium will have 101,500 new, wider seats, 14 escalators, and most importantly, twice as many women’s bathrooms. :-)

Daytona International Speedway