From Snow to Sand

This trip began when Kacie’s company decided that they would attend KBIS in Orlando this year. It’s a convention for people that do what she does, along with the various support industries. Once we knew the date, we planned to either head to Florida together before or after the event. We figured on the weekend before, since James had shows he’d rather not miss during the convention. This ended up being February 13-15, with her and her co-workers attending the convention February 16-18. After booking hotels and planning the trip, we realized the 14th was Valentine’s Day, the 15th was the Daytona 500, and then the 16th was President’s Day. So a busy time to be in Florida. Not that Florida isn’t always busy anymore. Everybody wants to be in paradise. But, we were booked and we were sticking to it.

The original plan for leaving was for Kacie to work half a day on the 12th, then head down after she got home. If we had stuck to that, we would’ve arrived in Florida around 5AM on the 13th, and had to wait around to get into a room after driving 14 hours straight. So we decided to take our time, get the Bronco washed, get something to eat, and then leave the house around 8pm the night of the 12th. That worked out pretty well. I took the first leg while Kacie slept for a little while. Then we switched and I passed out around 2am. We went back and forth a couple times after that based on who was more tired. It was me. Hit Cracker Barrel around 9am on the 13th, and then drove the rest of the way, about 2 hours, to St. Augustine.

The plan is to stay in St. Augustine the first two nights, then Orlando the third night. On Monday, Kacie will meet up with her homies, and I will drive home by myself. We have a free hotel room with points I had racked up at work. The points are good for Choice Hotels, so we ended up at a Quality Inn in St. Augustine Beach, just south of St. Augustine, a block away from the beach. Then on Sunday, we have a room at a new hotel in Orlando, The Wave Hotel… it’s shaped like a wave. That one isn’t free, and everything is far from it since it is a holiday weekend. Not a big deal since other than gas and food, that one night was the only expense.

As we were coming into Florida, we knew we were going to get in early and the signs for Buc-ee’s were everywhere. So we decided since we’d never been to one, even though we had driven by the biggest one in the world a couple months ago, that we would stop in. What a weird thing. Kacie said it best, it’s a mix of Walmart and Sheetz. They have all kinds of gear, kitchen supplies, and clothes to buy. As well as anything you might want to eat. Apparently they are big into brisket, with the people putting the brisket sandwiches together yelling something in unison every couple minutes. Couldn’t tell you what they were saying though. Oh, and gas. So many gas pumps. We took a walk around the place and Kacie bought a very soft sweater. We couldn’t leave without buying something. I did feel bad for the cashiers. They had to yell welcome to Buc-ee’s every time someone walked in. And people were walking in constantly. They did this while they were ringing people out, or anything else they might have been into. They seemed to be dead inside. I guess they always need help at Buc-ee’s, as they had signs out front advertising open jobs and salaries. $175k-$250k for a manager. I’d say welcome to everyone for that I guess.

Since we got down to the area our hotel was in around 11am, we had some time to kill. I had scouted the area before we got there, and found that there was a public access park right across the street from the hotel. So we parked at the park, changed shoes, and headed to the beach. Even though it was a little chilly on the beach for Florida, there’s nothing like it in the US. St. Augustine beach is pretty wide, especially at low tide when we were there. It’s winter, so the sand is a duller white, but still so clean and soft. The only thing you’ll see is a few shells here and there. This is one of the many beaches you can drive on in Florida, and there were a decent amount of trucks and Jeeps running up the beach. We immediately walked right down the water to dip our feet in. It was too cold to swim, but not too cold to stand in the water and let the waves wash over our feet. Cold enough that we didn’t keep our feet in too long though. We walked back up about halfway up to the soft dry sand and just stood around taking it in for a bit. Kacie was so happy to feel the sun on her skin. It’s been a bit rough up at home this winter.

Once we decided we had hung out in the sand long enough, we walked back up the boardwalk to the Bronco, but still had a while before we could check in. So, instead of just killing time, we ran over to Publix for supplies, which included crackers and cheese, water, and little Valentine’s Day brownies. We also hit the liquor store for some rum. We are still striking out on finding our favorite rum anywhere except the Keys, but did grab a nice Cuban rum that we never tried before. We’ll try that tomorrow. Still had some time, so we went back to the park to sit at a little picnic tables and eat crackers and cheese under the palm trees. Finally we were ready to check in, so we drove across the street to the hotel.

It’s not bad, we got a suite, which means it has more seating and a little half kitchen. Although it was only the middle of the afternoon, we felt like to was the middle of the night. And we still hadn’t eaten anything except for cheese since our 8am stop at Cracker Barrel. We had seen a pizza shop down a little bit from Publix, so we decided to hit that for some really good garlic knots and a meaty calzone… delicious.

Now that we were filled up, back to the hotel to finally shower the last 24 hours off. That was also great. Not a great shower in our room, but the price was right. The rest of the night consisted of Kacie reading and us watching the Daytona truck race. Cleetus, Travis Pastrana, and Tony Stewart are in this one. Cleetus just crashed on lap 6. He’s new… gotta learn some how.

Our plan is to get up early and head to old town St. Augustine tomorrow. I don’t think we’ll be up too late tonight, so it shouldn’t be too bad getting up. Should be a nice day tomorrow, high 60’s low 70’s, partly sunny in the oldest town in America. See you tomorrow