50,000 Pieces of Wood

Somewhere just north of St Augustine the Emperor glided past the 50k mark. I guess I was wrong the other day when I said there would be miles left to travel on the warranty when we ran out of time. Just the opposite, the 3 year/50k warranty has expired with three days left.

We drove out of Georgia on I-95, but 36 miles was all we could take. Just after stopping and getting some free OJ at the welcome center, we got off the ugly Interstate and picked up A1A. We then drove the whole way down to New Smyrna Beach following the coastal road. Sometimes beautiful, sometimes tacky, sometimes crowded and sometimes nearly empty, taking the slow road, if you have the time, is the way to go. It helped that it is off-season which kept the crowds way down. The big trouble for us was that the weather was way off-season. Average high this time of year along the middle Florida coast is is 75, but today is wasn’t even 55. Combined with the 10-20 MPH mean that the top was up all day and any ventures out to look at the beach and waves was very brief.

Even though I was running right at the speed limit, Johnny Law shadowed me for a couple miles when we drove through Daytona Beach.

Before dinner tonight we took a walk around a mile and a half circular boardwalk that is at the north end of New Smyrna Beach’s coast. It was a quick walk over about 50,000 pieces of treated wood. The sun had finally popped out from under the clouds, but it was too late to raise the temperature any as it traversed the last 10 degrees of it’s arc before disappearing beneath the horizon.

Food for today consisted of the “deluxe” continental breakfast at the Village Inn, bah. Lunch at another Barbara Jean’s (which turns out to be a mini chain of about 6 restaurants), very good, but finished off any possible crab cake cravings for a month or so. Dinner was at Vincente’s in New Smyrna Beach, a small Italian place whose baked ziti was just the right amount to split and very satisfying.