Daytona

This morning we collected our rental car and headed for Daytona – about 1.5 hours from Orlando.

When we got to Daytona we went to Daytona Beach. The World’s Most Famous Beach! (We are not sure how you get the title of World’s Most Famous Beach, or if it is self-awarded!) It was a lovely beach – reminded us of Durban, but with whiter sand.

Next on our agenda was the part that William has been waiting for……the VIP tour of Daytona Race Track. What an interesting tour – we were taken to the archives of Bill France’s family. He was the guy who started Nascar and designed the original Daytona Race Track. The rest of the tour was around the race track, to the Victory Stand (podium), then to the spectator’s stadium and right to the top of the stadium, where we had a wonderful view of the entire track.  We ended the tour with a walk around the museum and the hall of fame. Cars everywhere! I could see William’s smile through his mask! Dad, Brad and Dylan – William took lots of photos.

After finishing the tour we drove back to Orlando airport to catch our flight to Las Vegas, a 5h 20min flight, but only takes 2 hours on our clocks, as we move to a new time zone -10 hours behind SA.

Cars are so different here. A lot of pickups (bakkies) have double wheels at the back. A small car is a Toyota Corolla. (No puddle jumpers, Mom, like my car). And as for trucks – they all have big bonnets, just like in the movies!

William has become a really good petrol jockey – he doesn’t offer to wash windows, so I don’t tip him! He has also mastered driving on the wrong side of the road and is enjoying the way the US work. After completing the paperwork for your rental car, you walk down to the parkade and are given a row from which to choose your vehicle. So we walk up and down choosing which car he wishes to drive. (They all have 4 wheels, 4 doors and strange looking number plates!) No cars in Florida have front number plates. It will be interesting to see if Nevada and California are the same.

The attendant at the car rental was quite amusing today. He saw that we were from SA, so grabbed his book to check out the requirements for renting a car to us. William then produced his driver’s licence and International Driving Permit. The guy’s eyes just about popped out of his head when he looked at William’s licence – William is travelling with a temporary licence as the one and only machine in SA that prints drivers licences have been broken since November.  He had to go and check that this was acceptable.  He didn’t know what SA’s code was, so William said that it was ZA. After repeating it a few times, and still receiving a blank look, I said “zee a” and all was sorted! Clearly, he doesn’t see many people from SA.

I am typing this as we fly to Vegas. William will wave his magic wand when we get there and insert photos.

Take care until I type again.