Thursday, December 30, 2010: Well, let’s start with last night. Just as I was finishing up on the computer at about 1:00am, the fire alarm in our building began sounding! My dad woke up, Bruce woke up, and Darren (who I don’t think was asleep yet) woke up. Mom (wearing ear plugs to sound out Dad’s snoring) and the girls (NOT wearing ear plugs and sleeping right under the alarm) didn’t wake up. We weren’t sure what we should do so Darren headed downstairs to check things out. Not long later, we found out that someone had burnt popcorn and it made the alarm go off, which automatically calls the fire department. We did not have to evacuate. Darren ended up having to go down and then back up 23 floors of stairs. This morning we left the room about 9:30 and headed to St. Augustine. We got there about 11:00 and first went to a visitor center and then down a street where the oldest wooden school is located. We shopped in a few of the stores and got ice cream for lunch! We also checked out the waterfront near the fort. Then we headed to the Fountain of Youth, which turned out to be not so great. Oh well! On the way back to Daytona Beach, we drove by a lighthouse and then came up highway A1A the whole way, along the coast. Once we got back to Daytona, we went back to the game room where we spent some time on Christmas Day. We spent a little bit of time there and then headed to dinner at a seafood restaurant in Ponce Inlet called Down the Hatch.. Once we got there, we decided that it looked like a place we had eaten on our 1997 trip. When I get home, I will investigate and see if I can find out for sure. The food was OK but not great. We then came back to the room and began packing for tomorrow. We played cards for a little while before going to bed.
Friday, December 31, 2010: We had to check out this morning, which we did by 10:30am. It was challenging to get everything into our bags (once again, I guess we purchased too many souvenirs! Ha!). We went to a miniature golf place and we all played. It was a neat place and they had live alligators there! We bought some food to feed them, which was fun. Then we headed to a pier that Mom and Dad discovered a few days ago when we were at Disney. We ate lunch at the restaurant on the pier called Crabby Joe’s. It was good food in a good atmosphere. We walked out on the pier where many people were fishing. Once we left there, we went to another area with a pier and fishing (this time on an inlet). While there, we saw several dolphins in the water, which was really neat! We then began driving towards Orlando. We arrived at the airport plenty early and got to the gate at least 2 hours before our flight. So we played cards on the floor and ate some supper we bought at a nearby stand. The time actually went by quickly and we were boarding the plane before we knew it! We had a layover in Atlanta again and our laptop (we again had free internet on the plane so the girls passed their time well!) had run out of power. So while in Atlanta, we found an outlet in order to charge the laptop and my dad and B2 went off to find a snack. They began boarding the plane early and they were not back yet so Bruce went to find them. We were in one of the last zones to board anyway, but now we were pretty much the last people to board the plane! LOL! The flight to St. Louis was pretty uneventful. We landed to temps in the 30’s though! The airport was almost dead (it was New Year’s Eve and all) and when we went to get our luggage, one of Mom and Dad’s pieces was nowhere to be found. They left their name and number and were told that when (if) it shows up, it would be delivered to their house. The skypark shuttle worked well; they picked us up and took us to their office and our van. With the coupon, it only cost $48 for the entire 8 days! We were on Hwy 70 in north St. Louis when the new year began. We stopped at White Castle in Collinsville and went through the drive-thru for a new year’s snack. We got home about 12:30am, brought in all of our stuff, and went to bed. The laundry will begin tomorrow!
**Mom and Dad’s luggage was found in Atlanta and delivered to their house on the afternoon of 1/1/11….everything in tact!
