We enjoyed our week in Ormond Beach (I’ve spelled it differently before, but I’m pretty sure this is the right spelling!) and even went to the beach once, on our last day in the area. The weather had turned cool and cloudy with significant rainfall. We seldom saw the sun while we were there. From everything I’ve read, the weather in southwest Florida is better than in the rest of the state for some reason.

Right now I’m on Delta Flight 72 from Atlanta to Amsterdam. The map says we’ve got 5 hours and 3 minutes remaining flight time. In 3 1/2 hours they wake us up and feed us a breakfast. Flight statistics:

611 MPH
77 MPH Tail Wind
-62 degrees Farenheight
33,019 feet altitude
2,859 miles to Amsterdam
1,532 miles from Atlanta

While we were in northeastern Florida we spent one day in St. Augustine, another day at the Kennedy Space Fight Center, another day and a half watching football on TV, a part of a day exploring the area around Daytona Beach, and one day at the temple followed by dinner with Nina’s first cousin once removed and her husband. It was a full week and went by in a big hurry, it seemed.

St. Augustine is the oldest, continuously occupied city in the United States … that is, if you discount and ignore the Native Americans who were there long before the Europeans arrived. The city was first settled by the Spanish as a protection to their treasure ships going from South America back to Spain. These ships would go up the Gulf Stream which made them a tasty target for pirates and others. The city, though besieged and attacked several times, never fell but changed hands four times as a result of various treaties.

We spent five hours walking through the downtown area and going through the Castillo de San Marcos (the fort). We were plenty tired by the end of the day, but felt we had had a great time. There was a lot to see and we skipped most of it. That means we’ll need to go back someday. One place we really wanted to see was the Presbyterian Church. We saw it, but it was closed due to the holidays (we were in St. Augustine on New Years Eve).

Of course, the New Years Day football games were a big deal for us as both our desired (and significantly underdog) teams prevailed with Oregon manhandling Florida State and Ohio State outlasting Alabama. We’ll be in Mumbai when the championship game is played, but Ty is a football fan and I suspect we’ll be able to watch the game somehow.

The five hours we spent at the Kennedy Space Flight Center was also not nearly enough. It was a bit nostalgic as everything was a huge reminder of the demise of our once-magnificent space program. We’ve gone from flying to the moon to being unable to put a person into space … having to pay the Russians to fly us into low earth orbit. I’ll admit I got teary-eyed during the movie showing Neal Armstrong’s climb down the ladder and stepping onto the surface of the moon back in 1968. Like most everyone else we were glued to the TV that night as the event unfolded in real time.

The Museum of Arts and Science (MOAS) in Daytona Beach was a delightful surprise. It is a county museum, so my expectations were low. The museum has about 30,000 objects in its collection with about 30% on display. The African art was amazing. The Cuban art collection donated by Cuba President Baptista (before he was deposed during the Cuban Revolution in 1959) was worth seeing and experiencing. The Coca Cola display was huge. The Daytona Beach connection to Coca Cola is that the iconic bottle was manufactured first in Daytona Beach.

The beaches in the Daytona area are where some of the first high-speed race cars were tested and raced. The sand is hard-packed and provides good traction. Ormond Beach touts itself as “The Birthplace of Speed”. On display at the museum were some race cars from the 1950’s that originated from a Daytona Beach family. There was a huge teddy bear exhibit, a couple of personal train coaches, and much more. We didn’t do the planetarium or the children’s wing as we just didn’t have time.

We went to the Orlando Temple on Saturday, January 3rd to do a session. Getting there was an adventure by itself. The GPS routed us onto a toll road (of which there are several around Orlando and across Florida). However, the entrance onto the toll road required the payment of a toll in exact change (no person at the toll booth). But, we only had 35 cents in change and there was no information posted as to the amount of the toll. We drove around and finally found a place that would change one dollar (and only one dollar) into four quarters and went back to the toll road, except this entrance had a person at the toll booth! When we exited and drove towards the Temple, we came onto a very serious accident at an intersection where we had to go a different direction. As we made our way around, we came onto another serious accident at another intersection where the power lines were all down and a huge pole had been taken out in the accident.

The Temple was very quiet and wasn’t very busy. I heard later that this was one of the most poorly attended days at the Temple in many years. It was good that we were there! Afterwards we met Kate and Michael for dinner at one of those gourmet pizza places where only the avant-gard folks find the pizza tasty. We had a great visit with them, however.

On Monday, January 5th we drove back to Ninety Six, South Carolina to get ready for the Big Mumbai Trip. The motor home is parked there. The weather has turned very cold (a low tonight of 16 degrees), so I winterized the motor home before we left. Hopefully everything will survive and nothing important freezes.

So, now I’m on this Boeing 767 airplane headed across the Atlantic Ocean. I have an aisle seat 19C and Nina is in an aisle seat a few rows further up from me. We’ve 4 hours 27 minutes left in the flight. Not enough time to get much of a sleep, but I think I’ll give it a try. After making another trip to the bathroom, that is. The flight is completely full. Several very tired and cranky babies are here, most sitting on parent’s laps which doesn’t contribute to their well being at all. THANKFULLY I’VE BOSE NOISE CANCELING HEADSET!

Life is good!!

Time to Destination: 58 minutes
Eastern Time: 1:11 am

603 mph
123 mph tailwind
-73 degrees Fahrenheit
34,997 feet altitude
396 miles to Amsterdam
3,997 miles from Atlanta