Flagler Beach, Florida: Races, family and more

On Monday, February 20th, we said our goodbyes to Montie and Ann and left for Gamble Rogers Recreation Area at Flagler Beach.  We had site #20 this year.  Donald and Anna, Chuck’s uncle and aunt, were already here.  Of course, for our first night here we had to go to Aunt Catfish’s in Port Orange.  And we were not disappointed.  The food is still great and the cinnamon rolls are just as good as we remembered.

And we even had dinner with NASCAR announcer Mike Joy…

OK… we didn’t really have dinner with Mike Joy but he apparently enjoys it as much as we do because he was seated right behind Donald and Anna.

On Tuesday, we walked the beach and ended up having dinner this night at Giuseppe’s, an Italian restaurant in Flagler Beach.  Anna had to wear her crocs because she left her sandals at home and she hates to wear her crocs out in public.  But I captured a picture of her feet with them on anyways.  This picture is for Brent.

On Wednesday, we walked the scenic trail at Gamble Rogers with Donald and Anna.  We saw some interesting trees and plants...

 as well as some interesting people in the trees and plants....

 

And at the end of the trail, we found where they kept the alligators. 

Later that day, guess where we went back to eat?  You guessed it…Aunt Catfish’s!  Since it started raining, the guys didn’t get to go to the races tonight either so we went to Volusia County Mall.  Tony Stewart and Danica Patrick were at a promo at the mall, but Tony and Danica didn't get to see us because of the all the crowds.  :)

I couldn’t see Danica because of all the people, but Chuck said she was tiny.  My favorite part of the promotion was the free Oreos they were giving away.

On Thursday, Anna fixed us breakfast.  Yummy!!  Her homemade strawberry preserves are awesome.  Later that day, Chuck and I rode bikes to the pier at Flagler Beach. 

What a great place to ride bikes.  Wide sidewalk runs parallel to road.  While there, we saw several people surfing. 

It was a beautiful day for biking.  Later that evening, we went to Sonny’s Barbecue for dinner and the guys went to Volusia County Speedway to see the World of Outlaws racing. 

On Friday, we rode bikes toward Ormond Beach and later that afternoon, we played cornhole with Donald and Anna.  Weather was windy but very nice – mid 80’s.

For the record, Donald and I won 2 games out of 3.  Chuck and Anna were demanding to make it the best 3 out of 5 but we just so happened to run out of time.  :)

I fixed spaghetti for dinner.  While the boys watched truck races on TV, Anna and I played Monopoly Deal.  Then we had some of Anna's strawberry shortcake with whip cream....lots of whip cream.  In fact, we just finished the whip cream can off....

On Saturday, the weather turned off cooler.  We went to the Flagler Fish Co. for dinner.  The fresh fish was good but very pricy for what you got.  One serving was small portion of fish and two little potatos.  The guys went to races at New Smyrna.  Anna and I worked on our laptops for much of the evening, although it looks like we’re playing Battleship. 

Later we played Scrabble; and Anna beat me, of course.

On Sunday, we went to Church of Christ of Flagler County.  It was a small congregation but very, very friendly.  Lot of folks from Tennessee there.  After the service, one of the brethren stood up to thank the congregation for all they had done for he and his wife during the time she had been sick recently.  In commenting how much had been done for them he said:  “If you’ve never been sick at this congregation, you don’t know what you’re missing!”  :)  After church, went to The Chicken Pantry for lunch.  The Daytona 500 got rained out so we took a nap in the afternoon and played cards at Donald & Anna’s that night.

We went to Aunt Catfish’s for the 3^rd time for dinner and it was just as good as the 1^st and 2^nd time.  Got back in time for the start of the race which had been delayed since yesterday and did not start until 7 pm.  We should have known it was going to be a long night.  There was a wreck on lap 2.  And then with less than 50 laps to go in the race, Montoya ran into the back of a jet blower on a caution lap causing the jet blower truck to catch on fire.  They spent the next 2 hours fixing the track.  Needless to say, I went to bed.  The race that seemed like it would never start and then never end finally finished after midnight with Matt Kenseth taking the checkered flag.