Tuesday April 5th 2016

I spent the day today trying to figure out what the attraction is here in Daytona Beach. It was a sunny day in the 70s with a good breeze. I toured around the area stopping at various places looking for what it is that draws people to the area.
One obvious attraction is the Daytona International Speedway. I would have liked to take the tour, but some kind of event was going on. This limited the available times and the extent of the tour so I didn’t get an opportunity. The speedway is only a few minutes down the road from where I’m staying so I drove by a few times. It is a huge structure. This is not surprising when you consider it is a two and a half mile tri-oval.

Daytona International Speedway main grandstand. The picture was taken out the car window from US 92.

I went to the beach on the Atlantic Ocean. I had no desire to drive on the beach, I was a passenger for a drive on the beach back in the 1960s. It was a novelty then and now it just doesn’t interest me. There is a ten dollar a day charge to drive on the beach.

Ormond Beach looking south

Ormond beach looking north

A little bit north of Daytona Beach is Ormond Beach. It has a number of fee parking access areas for the beach. I took advantage of a couple of these to get down and walk on the beach. The tide was either half out or half in making for a wide area of packed sand to walk on. If I were in the area for a longer period of time, I would probably take a much longer walk on the beach.

Looking south toward Daytona Beach from the mainland side of Inter-coastal from Ormond Beach.

The area I found on my touring that was the most interesting was on the mainland side of the Intercoastal Waterway. I stopped at two locations. One was in Ormond Beach and the other in South Daytona. The Ormond beach location was beside and under the bridge out to the beach on the barrier island. A fishing pier is built out into the waterway, under the bridge and back in on the other side of the bridge. It is nice spot to sit and watch the boats go under the bridge. There were several people fishing, but I didn’t see anything caught.
The other location on the Intercoastal that I stopped in South Daytona provided a good view of the condo towers of Daytona Beach Shores. This stop was in a small park with picnic tables, a boat launch and a fishing pier. There weren’t any fishermen at this location. Once again if I were in the area for a longer time I might get a fishing rod out and drop a line.

Condo towers of Daytona Beach Shores across the Inter-coastal waterway.

Tomorrow I will be traveling further north. I’ll probably only go to the Florida Georgia line. That’s about halfway to the RV site I found as a base to visit Charleston SC this coming weekend. I had some difficulty finding a site. Maybe there is something special going on this weekend. Time will tell.