Yeah, you caught my hints earlier, didn’t you!? We bought tickets for NASCAR’s Daytona 500! The superspeedway race, on the 2.5 mile track, with the restrictor plates and the draft racing. An experience Jeff’s wanted for years!

Our friends aren’t NASCAR fans, but they were up for the experience, so despite the tickets being “sold out”, we found hundreds of them on reseller sites back before Christmas.

We originally planned to rent a car and drive to Daytona Beach, which isn’t much further than an hour’s drive from Orlando, but after looking into parking possibilities and reading about traffic leaving the race afterwards…. ewwww… I found a charter bus line that was offering round trips right to the main gate of the race. That sounded WAY BETTER so we booked tickets for the bus too.

Every day that went by while in Orlando, it became more and more clear that the rain was going to be a problem…

Then we had to make the decision of whether to go to the track on Sunday when the rain forecast was 100%. Would a window open where drying the track was possible? That seemed really unlikely when the track is so large it would take over two hours to dry it entirely with their mobile air dryer vehicles.

But we had these bus tickets… and we didn’t want to miss out… so we woke up super early to get on that bus in the 7am hour. We were quiet and weren’t that keen on spending an entire day in the rain. If only they would make the call to postpone the race!

So we boarded that bus with a bunch of NASCAR fans, including a group of guys from Southern Ontario, and we drove to Daytona Beach, napping through most of the ride.

Once we were there, we stayed on the bus for a while, but then sucked it up and went walking around in the rain. Shortly after, they postponed the race until Monday. Whew!! That was very welcome news because we didn’t really want to just sit for an entire day at the track in the rain waiting for something to happen.

But we did get another day of use of those Universal ponchos!

After the race was postponed, the bus driver said we’d head back to Orlando as soon as everyone was back on the bus, or at the latest, an hour after the announcement. We each bought something to eat and/or drink, then boarded the bus. It wasn’t too long before everyone joined us and we drove back to Orland and headed back to the hotel.

Once there, Jeff declared it nap time and we had a few quiet hours without any great replacement plans.

But then Jeff remembered there was a Bass Pro nearby and you know we’ve never had a vacation without visiting a Cabela’s or Bass Pro store. Tim and Liz were game to go too, so we got an Uber rather than walk in the rain.

The Bass Pro Shop had the boat mounting bracket Jeff has been looking for to mount his transducer on the back of our boat, so he was able to get that and save on the shipping fees. I found a couple of shirts. For supper, we were looking around the area and noticed a Brazilian steakhouse nearby. We wandered over there in the rain, but there was valet parking and many fancy people going in. The internet informed me they didn’t have any availability anyway, which was probably for the best since we were soggy and I was wearing a baseball cap I was not wanting to remove to eat.

A Longhorn Steakhouse was a couple blocks in another direction, so we hopped the puddles and shuffled our soggy way over there. Along the way, I found a way to reserve a spot in line on their website, which put us near the top of their long line to get a table when we got there. YES! Fortunately, we were able to wait out of the rain and got a table in about 20 minutes. What a great meal!! I had the parmesan encrusted chicken with steamed broccoli and a mac and cheese dish, and it was AMAZING! I’d definitely eat there again!

I noticed this symbol on the door outside when we were waiting for an Uber back to the hotel and was super curious for what it meant.

I was able to do a mobile Google reverse image search to figure it out. It tells firemen that the building was constructed with a lightweight truss system and it shouldn’t be trusted in a fire. Those of you from the Listowel, Ontario area will remember that two of our firemen lost their lives back in 2011 in a fire when a store roof collapsed. An investigation determined the lightweight trusses were to blame. This sticker system is an attempt to prevent further loss of life.

On Monday, the next day, the bus to the postponed race was not possible due to other school trip transportation commitments the bus company had. So we were on our own. Jeff and I had a rental car booked at the airport already because we thought we were going to head off on the last leg of our trip, so we had transportation! We checked out and went to the airport to pick up the car. The race wasn’t until 4pm and we couldn’t see any logic in sitting at the race track all day, so we had plenty of time to play with.

Tim and Liz were going to visit their friends for a few days and needed to meet them that evening, so it didn’t look like they were going to be able to go to the race!! Noooo!!! We were really looking forward to taking them to their first NASCAR race! Now they’ll be able to attend another race instead, or get tickets for next year’s race, or even sell them.

But we weren’t ready to part ways with our friends yet, so we went to pick them up from the hotel with our practically brand new, black, Nissan Rogue and we went out for a good ol’ American breakfast at an IHOP!

They were still going to need to kill most of the day themselves, until they were meeting their friends, that evening, so we dropped them off at the SeaWorld park for the day!! They got another amusement park day!

And Jeff and I headed east, back to Daytona.

We had looked up parking options for the track and there was a big free parking lot with shuttles to the track, but it had been pouring rain for over 2 days and everything was wet, underwater, or super muddy, and we knew that parking was all on grass or mud. Did we want to risk getting stuck or delayed if someone in front of us was stuck?

So we did what anyone would do with $40 in US currency burning a hole in their pocket, and we gave it to some people who were renting out a business’s parking lot along the road, just a few blocks before the track. Then we snapped a picture of the intersection so we’d be able to find the car later!

The rain had stopped, the sky was clearing, and it was shaping up to be a beautiful day!

The Xfinity race was scheduled to run first, but since the rain persisted for a few hours that morning, they decided to push it back to after the Cup race. Then, to keep the crowds happy and the stands full, they let anyone with tickets to either race stay for both races, and just pick any open seat.

We spent the first couple of hours outside the gate, looking at the merchandise vendors. Jeff had a burger and fries, and I found a lemonade vendor and got their biggest one to keep me hydrated.

Then we made our way through security and into the grandstand. Our seats were on the very far end, closer to Turn 4 than the finish line, up in the third section. We knew the track was going to be huge and we wanted to be high enough to see around the entire track.

And our seats were perfect! Although really steep, and really steep places get me all freaked out. Steepness and stairs, eek! And almost immediately my stomach felt bad. I had taken my layers off, and we applied sunscreen, but I felt like the sun was already making me sick. Or maybe it was the sugary cinnamon pancakes I had for breakfast at the IHOP, I don’t know. So I wandered back under the shade of the grandstand to find something to eat. Papa Johns had a counter selling pepperoni personal-sized pizzas, so that was perfect! The grease and dough fixed me right up!

I put my long-sleeved shirt back and on swamped my baseball cap for my sun hat. Florida sun is intoxicating! It felt so amazing yet it can cook ya quick!

The track is right next to the airport, and we were so excited to hear the Thunderbirds fly-by was able to be rescheduled for the race too! The Thunderbirds are like our Canadian snowbird team. While we waited to see if we could spot them at the airport, jets were landing just beyond the track! It was neat to watch.

There were planes flying around pulling advertising banners behind them, and the Goodyear blimp was up too. We kept waiting to see them clear out, hoping we could predict when the Thunderbirds were going to appear.

People were still mingling on pit row, and soon enough we spotted the Grand Marshall, The Rock!

They had a new Toyota truck to take every driver for a ride along the grandstand (not around the enormous track) after their introduction, each with a big American flag.

Of course, we found ourselves more mesmerized by the jets! Here’s a fly-by in formation during the national anthem:

And here’s The Rock giving the opening command – followed by another fly-by that was even cooler!! The video just doesn’t capture how loud these passing jets were… not just loud, but you could FEEL them pass by deep in your chest!

Here’s a video of the start of the race!

Thank goodness Jeff had the foresight to bring some of those disposable foam earplugs from home, because the race was loud!! My Apple watch kept warning me the sound was above 90 decibels and was going to cause hearing damage, then it was over 95, and then over 100!

The race was a good one! Seeing how close these cars can run in formation, lap after lap, so insanely fast!

I haven’t followed NASCAR much over the last few years. My favourite driver, Clint Bowyer, retired and I didn’t find anyone to replace him as my new favourite. Jeff picked his new favourite as Ross Chastain for this race. He was so committed he bought his t-shirt! And he had a decent run too, could have won! I decided to pick Brad Keselowski. It makes the race more exciting when you have someone to follow. He was doing great! And then hung out near the back of the pack, as if he didn’t want to get collected when the big crash would come, because if you know anything about these restrictor plate races, the big one always happens.

But then somehow Keselowski joined, or started a new line, and went just about right to the start of the pack, all in one lap! Then the race was on for me!

As the sun set, the weather got COLD! And here I was talking about how hot Florida is in February. Well after the sun ducks down behind the horizon, and the breeze blows off the ocean, it was freezing! I was sitting there thinking that if I was in my good Skookum parka, I would not be too warm! I did the best I could, with the clothes I had with me, and muscled through!

The sunset was beautiful!! Dad even noticed it while watching the race on TV and messaged me to compliment the view!

By the time the third stage was well underway, the tension was building. You could actually feel it. Was it in the air? In the tension of the crowd? Was our collective pulse increasing? It continued to increase, lap after lap. They were running so tight and fast, sometimes three wide. You knew a big crash was coming, and it did, with just 8 laps to go. Between turns 3 and 4. And it took out Keselowski! No!!!!!!!!!!

Willian Byron went on to win the race. Annoying, since he probably caused that big crash, but no overtime laps were needed, as is sometimes common for this race.

Other than the two crashes that took out multiple cars, there wasn’t a lot of action. We were so glad for the experience, but I couldn’t help but think a small town track with a way smaller crowd would have been more entertaining?

We had a big decision to make. We had the next two nights booked into Fort Meyers because we wanted to experience a Florida beach and see Sanibel Island. However the race was supposed to be the day before, and now that the race was over, it was after 8pm, dark, and we were at least 4 hours away from Fort Meyers. Should we stay somewhere closer? Or should we even stay for the next race that they granted us access to for free?

We decided to just get the drive done so we’d still have a full beach day still the next day.

We were prepared to battle exiting traffic from the race for an hour, but our seats were on the far side of the grandstands from where we were parked, so by the time we walked with the flow of traffic, we were able to retrieve the car and pull out onto the road at a traffic light to turn left, and we did so without any wait at all!

The Interstate back to Orlando was a bit busy, and dark. We wanted to stop for supper somewhere, but also just wanted to keep going.

Apple Maps plotted our course through Orlando, and then down some back roads, through Winter Haven, and Bowling Green, towards Fort Meyers. I called the hotel at some point to make sure they didn’t give away our room. They said we just had to be there before 2am. Eeek, no pressure!

I imagine the drive would have been very scenic, in the daylight! But it was dark. We saw the road ahead of us, some dead raccoons, some deer standing in the ditch, and a bunch of citrus processing plants. We stopped in a small town, looking for gas. A bunch of stores and gas stations had metal doors they had pulled down over the doors and windows making us wonder about our safety? What was with the intercity-like security? Or did these doors double for hurricane protection? Was anything going to be open late at night for us?

We finally found a McDonalds, which excited me tremendously, because I really had to pee. But as we walked up to the door, the lady working inside ran over and locked it! Whaaaaa? The drive-thru was still open though.

We pressed on and found a gas station that was open. Jeff filled up, and I went inside for some relief and picked up some snacks and caffeinated drinks to get us the rest of the journey.

We passed some rest areas in the dark, that were wall to wall transport trucks. That explained the digital neon signs on the road indicating how many parking spots were left in each rest area, the truckers were napping!

We pulled into the Holiday Inn in Fort Meyers sometime after 1am. It was a late night, but I think we made the right choice! And the woman working the front desk greeted me by name when we walked in, so I guess we were the last to check in!

Next up, Sanibel Island!!