On Daytona Beach

We're having a week of leisure in Daytona Beach, Florida, this week. Even Matt is here with us on a nearly unprecedented use of his vacation days (next year's homecoming logo won't design itself, after all), which has given us ample time to discuss and process and discuss again his jury experience.

All of my library guidebooks noted that Daytona Beach is a little...um...seedy?...and I will tell you first of all that, in my opinion, this is true. People can drive their cars right onto the beach (and oh, they do!), and people are apparently permitted to smoke EVERYWHERE (and oh, they do!).

However, our room is nice and overlooks the beach and costs something like $40 a night, the two pools are nice, and the ability to walk across the patio and open the child-proof gate and step right onto the beach is very, very nice, and has made us very, very happy here this week:

 
 
 
 
 
 
Also this week, we're going to visit Kennedy Space Center a couple of times and spend a morning at a big-ass flea market (squee!), and then the girls and I are going to send Matt back home on a cheap-o one-way flight on Southwest, because we're going to be headed across the peninsula for a few days to study seashells, but we've got to be back on the Space Coast by Friday!

The launch of Space Shuttle Endeavor won't watch itself, after all.