May 1–Daytona Beach

I awoke this May Day morning to Zack telling me we were late. My first thought was that I needed to get to class, but quickly realized that I wasn't anywhere near school. Still somewhat confused, I quickly got ready for the day and rushed out the door. When I asked what we were late for, the only response I received was, “It’s a surprise.” Not being the quickest thinker immediately after waking up, I was clueless as to where we could be going (I didn't even realize yet that it was Sunday).
 
We drove for about ten minutes or so, and, after a couple of wrong turns, arrived at our destination. Looking forward, I saw what looked to be somewhat like a church on the other side of a large parking lot. However, before entering the church, I noticed that we had to pass by a building looking strikingly similar to a fare booth or ticket booth of some sort. Pulling up to the building, we saw a sign reading, “For worship, tune in to 88.5 FM.” We had gone to a drive-in church.
 
Instead of paying for a ticket when we pulled up to the booth, we were handed bulletins and communion cups. 

We drove up to one of the spots and parked our car. Looking towards the church building, we could see a large altar, pastor, and choir up on a balcony a good 15 feet or so from the ground. We listened as they sang hymns, preached the sermon, and gave announcements (with a chorus of car horns honking in places applause would typically go in some church services).
 
After the service was over, Zack and I returned to David’s house to finish preparing for the day. After we were ready to go, we decided to go to the Museum of Arts and Sciences. While we may not have normally gone to this type of museum, today there was no cost for admission, and what can beat a discount that lets us get in for free?
 
Braving the floods of people (and a very large amount of children), we were able to see lots of different interesting objects from many different eras and cultures.

Most of the items we looked at ranged from the 16th-20th century, though there were some older items scattered throughout the museum. One of the prominent features in the museum (and the reason we could get in for free) was a very large skeleton of a giant sloth that once lived in the Florida area.

While still in the museum, we also were able to see a short laser presentation in the planetarium about the stars.
 
Outside of the museum, there was a short nature trail. Even though we weren’t fully equipped (him wearing sandals and I in flip flops), we decided to walk the trail. At first, it seemed as if we would need to take one of the shorter trails, as the time approximation for the longest was over an hour. However, apparently people must walk really slowly on this trail. Further down on the sign the mileage of the longer trail was posted: about 6/10’s of a mile. Minus the mosquitos that landed on us whenever we stopped to take a picture, it was a pleasant walk (we even felt like we were going through a sub-tropical jungle at one point, surrounded mostly by palm trees and ferns).

 
After our jungle expedition, we decided to travel to a slightly more populated area of Florida—Daytona Beach (the actual beach portion). But before travelling towards the beach, we figured it would be best to take care of our slowly growing pile of dirty clothes. After washing our clothes at a local laundromat, we returned again to David’s house to change into beach attire. We then walked a short ways and set ourselves down at the beach.  I was feeling fairly tired, so I reclined onto my makeshift bed of towel and sand, pulled out my book, and enjoyed the final pages of C. S. Lewis’s Till We Have Faces while Zack ventured out into the ocean.
 
Shortly after my book was finished, Zack rejoined me on the shore. The sun was getting close to setting, so we began to pack up. Before leaving, I left my mark on the beach, making three sand angels in the dry sand. We then walked down the beach a ways, until the sun had set, then walked back. After a quick stop at Burger King to use some coupons on dinner, we returned back to where we were staying for the night.
 
 
 
Interesting Observations:
-Even though the saying goes “Diamonds are forever”, seemingly Jade has diamonds beat. The oldest item we could find in the museum today was a small Jade disc split evenly into four pieces in the Chinese art section. It was estimated to be from approximately 2000 BC.
 
-Apparently there are a lot of jellyfish off the coast of Florida. While at the beach, Zack and I saw hundreds of (what we later found out to be) dead moon jellyfish, looking and feeling like transparent, smooth gelatin packs. Luckily these ones were safe to touch (as I touched one to see what it was, before we realized that they were jellyfish). These ranged in size from about the size of a quarter to the size of my palm.

One jellyfish we saw though was an interesting combination of blues and purples, which we took great care not to touch (which was smart, as this type turns out to be one of the types that sting pretty bad). Here’s a picture of the Portuguese Man-O-War:

 
-If you didn’t notice from today’s blog post, I can be very long winded when I’m tired. Hopefully Zack can survive my chatter for the remainder of the trip.