I had the opportunity to write about my family’s experience traveling on Christmas Day to Daytona Beach. This article is going to be more about the stay at Hampton Inn and bringing in the New Year in the Ocala area. With the weather being absolutely gorgeous during our stay, we were able to enjoy the early sunshine by the pool overlooking the beach. This was definitely a nice relaxing escape that my family needed.
Morning Ritual
Every morning consisted of a long walk/jog (or a fat-man shuffle in my case) of 5-6 miles on the beach enjoying every sunrise. I love the beauty of a sunrise or sunset, whether on a beach or on a hike in the mountains, but I do love them. It’s as if The Lord is painting a new one each day and makes each one more special. When I get back to the Hampton Inn, it’s now time to play “Save My Place” by placing clean beach towels over the selected chairs. The reason for this is for optimum sunning and for people-watching folks. Then I would make my way inside to take advantage of the free breakfast provided by Hampton Inn. Thank you Hampton Inn for going back to a normal breakfast service.
Favorite Restaurants
Since we eat a late breakfast (9:00-10:00), we usually eat a small snack around lunchtime. We like to save our biggest meal of the day between 4:00 and 6:00 p.m. As mentioned in my previous article, we ate at the Hampton Inn Tiki Bar and Grill on Christmas Day.
The next night we were able to go to one of our favorite stops in Port Orange called Our Deck Down Under. My wife and I split the fried platter that came with cole slaw and we ordered the bacon jalapeno grits. This meal along with the beautiful sunset created a night to remember for us.
Two days later we hit another family favorite, Aunt Catfish’s on The River. I had the blackened salmon with a baked sweet potato. My wife ordered the fried catfish and shared some with me (one of many perks of being married). We also ordered the fixin’s bar. It has an unlimited number of trips to collect cornbread as sweet as cake, baked beans and several other items.
There were nights where we were out shopping and grabbed a quick bite from Chick-fil-A in front of Daytona International Speedway and Buc-ee’s. Yes, you can have a great meal from Buc-ee’s.
Activities
We spent several nights on the Daytona Beach Boardwalk and Pier. There are so many places to eat, buy souvenirs, and numerous rides that run parallel to Highway A1A. From May through September, the Daytona Beach Bandshell plays host to different genres of music concerts. May have to make another trip down just to do an article on this. There are plenty of activities just for people-watching. I love hanging around the Screamer’s Park so I can watch and listen to folks ride the Slingshot. It’s quite entertaining.
New Year’s Night
We made our way across the state of Florida by traveling the back roads to Hernando, that is close to the Ocala area. We enjoyed seeing parts of the state that looked very similar to our home in the North Georgia/ Southeast Tennessee. There does seem to be a tad bit more water than we have here. We spent most of New Year’s Eve at the Lakeside Grill where we enjoyed a buffet compliments of Timmer. The buffet had coconut shrimp, multiple flatbread pizzas, wings (dry rub and Lakeside) and several other delicacies. We then made our way to the home of family, where we watched football and played, more than likely my last game of, Cards Against Humanity.
Be blessed and safe travels!!!
