Our month in Daytona was a weird mix of challenges and sadness, fun, weird weather, a few excursions, time with family, and plenty of ‘downtime’ to just be.
It would be pretty safe to say that January 2025 was not one of our best months we’ve had on the boat. Okay, it really kind of sucked. But as the saying goes, even a bad day on the water is better than a day on land, and we always try to look for the positives every day while chanting our IIWII mantra (It Is What It Is).
We completed our awfully cold run south from Norfolk right before Xmas, arriving in Daytona in time to enjoy their Holiday celebration – boat parade, and lights and evening festivities in the new Riverfront Esplanade. The temps were still unseasonably cold in Daytona (but at least better than up north), but it did make it seem more like the holidays. So for the last week in December we pretty much just hunkered down on the boat, getting in a lot of reading, relaxing, and college football.
Then along came January. We had a ‘honeymoon’ of about a week where we got out, met some of the others in the marina, fell into a daily rhythm, enjoyed a visit from our boating friends Erika and Holger, and took a couple scooter rides to explore the area. But I picked up the nasty head cold going around – and it took me out of commission for over a week. It was the first time I had been this sick since long before COVID. Amidst all this, we had to say good-bye to Roxy, leaving us heartsick. (Which I wrote about in my previous blog — click here to read — not gonna rehash it because I still tear up.) We then had a much-needed and well-timed weekend trip with family in Tampa & Ocala, and then it was Dave’s turn with the same crud just as our month in Daytona ended and we had to move on to Jacksonville. Oh yeah – and there was that record-setting below-freezing cold front moving in across the entire East Coast, including northern Florida. Sheesh!
But January still wasn’t quite done with us. For it seemed Roxy still had one last bit of mischief to get into from the other side of that famed Rainbow Bridge.
Daytona Beach, FL
Dec 20, 2024 – Jan 19, 2025
Daytona is our undisputed winner of the Most Improved Award. We first stopped here in April 2021 as we first began our nautical adventures on See Level. It was only our second stop since leaving Ft. Pierce, and just as things were starting to recover from COVID. Halifax Harbor Marina was nice, but the historic downtown area within walking distance was a ghost town. There were a couple restaurants still in business with very limited hours, and many empty store fronts. We didn’t venture far, but saw very few people. It was so sad we wondered if it could ever recover. Then stopping again last spring, we noticed lots of improvement – both completed and ongoing. Enough so we decided it would be our first month-long layover for this winter season. Now the historic downtown is really an amazing place to visit.
After the New Year, it warmed up and we got out to explore. We scootered across the bridge to Daytona Beach one day – and weren’t particularly impressed. The beach itself keeps getting washed away by increasing storms, and seawalls are in a vicious cycle of destruction – repair- destruction. The main drag along the beach seemed very worn and beachy kitsch, especially on the southern end. There was a lot of construction going on, but it seemed more patchwork repair than real renovation. Dave and I both recalled Daytona Beach as the Infamous Spring Break City of our own college days (though neither of us had ever attended), but those days seemed to be long over – admittedly not necessarily a bad thing, except that it didn’t look like it was to be replaced with anything at all.
But the historic downtown area! The highlight is a beautiful, brand new and family-friendly Riverfront Esplanade that stretches over a mile along the water, with a wide multi-use trail, a splash pad and playground equipment, benches and swings, and mosaic artistry throughout the walkways. The landscaping is more like a botanical garden, with lush native plantings. City workers were frequent sights as they kept it clean and well-maintained, and even took down all the Xmas decorations before New Year’s! This quickly shot to the top of my list of favorite city parks and recreation areas we have visited.
On the other side of the main drag of Beach St is a wealth of small family-run restaurants, art galleries, antique and other shops, an artsy cinema, and our favorite Angell and Phelps Chocolate Factory. We quickly found a couple of coffee shops, each with its own unique ambience. One day we scootered north along the Esplanade all the way to the end into the old Florida neighborhood of Holly Hill. Here we admired the older homes with their mix of architecture and lush tropical gardens. And what should we stumble on in the parking lot of a historic market site on a Saturday afternoon? A hot dog cart! Of course we stopped, as hot dogs are one of Dave’s favorites. The woman manning it had just started it up, and my Reuben beef hot dog and Dave’s spicy sausage were great! The guy at the brewery there at the old market invited us to sit at his tables in the courtyard with a huge oak tree, even though we weren’t having any beer since we were on the scooters. It was one of those nice little surprise finds that we love.
Our other excursion was the Daytona International Raceway tour. We are not NASCAR fans by any means, but we still really enjoyed this. We were fortunate there was no activity going on so our tram could take as actually out onto the track, which is ginormous! It looks a fraction of its size when you see it on TV. And the 31° banking of the turns is steep — it was hard enough walking up the 18° bank at the start/finish line! We also learned how the seats in the grandstand are all random colors, giving the illusion they are always full of spectators even when they were completely empty as they were the day we were there. Another interesting tidbit? After the champagne spraying celebration in the Winners Circle, the winning car is moved directly into the Speedway Museum – dirt, grease, dents, stuck confetti and all – where it stays on display for a year.
Ocala Weekend
Jan 16 - 19
With so many options before us for travel after we are off the boat, we wanted to go to the big Tampa RV show. So we rented a car and drove across to the west side of Florida. Dave’s brother Jim and wife Tammy – who are current full-time RV cruising – met us there and we had a great day exploring possibilities. We came away with lots of ideas on which to ruminate. From there we spent a couple days in Ocala in central Florida, where our niece Beck and husband Todd recently purchased a 25-acre horse farm as they embark on her dream of rehabbing horses from kill pens. We perused the large outdoor market in quaint Downtown on Saturday morning, hung out with the family, and had fun solving an Escape Room with a Scooby Doo theme – right up our generational alley!
North to Jacksonville
Palm Cove Jan 20
Jacksonville Jan 21-present
We were reserved in Daytona until January 21, but while in Ocala they started issuing dire warnings about a winter storm and cold front moving across the country that would bring historic below freezing temperatures all the way down to Florida and high winds – nothing we wanted to be traveling in. Halifax Harbor couldn’t accommodate us staying another few days, so we decided to leave a day early and book on up to our next scheduled month in Jacksonville ahead of the weather. In all honesty, we were still feeling emotionally beat up and ready for a little geographic therapy.
It was a cold early morning start after a big overnight temperature drop, but it was clear and calm and an uneventful trip. We seemed to be the only crazy people traveling north into the approaching cold, judging from some of the looks we got as we passed southbound boats (noting how many flew a Canadian flag) as they skedaddled to warmer climes. But we saw several crew teams out on the water as we passed through Palm Coast — now THAT looked crazy-cold.
“But wait” you say, “I thought the plan was to go to the Bahamas for the rest of winter?”
It was the plan. But as Roxy began showing her age in the Fall, we realized it wasn’t practical to take her there and we set our sights on returning to Norfolk as soon as it started warming up. We’ve been planning for almost a year now that Spring 2025 would be the end of our Boat Adventure, and as we talked more and more about the possibilities for Life After Boat our brains just did a tectonic mental shift and went into planning mode for our next chapter. Both Dave and I have brains that work in flow charts, (okay, so my brain flow charts have more loops and tangents chasing shiny objects, but it still ultimately comes back to merge with Dave’s), and right now there is a bottle-neck at the ‘sell the boat’ action block before we can move on to the many other options. Even after Roxy died sooner than we expected we found we just didn’t have it in us to shift back, realizing that the sooner we get it on the market, the less risk something happens to the boat and the sooner it will sell. We are focused on continuing to move forward – which in our case means pointing our bow north.
It was a short but cold and overcast trip up the wide St. John’s River. We passed by the industrial port area, with its large freighters and giant cranes. Next was the tall modern commercial buildings of downtown and the familiar series of bridges crisscrossing the river as it narrowed a bit and the water turned increasingly a clear brown from all the tannins of the river. Where it made a turn to the south, we continued west onto the Ortega River with its older homes and private docks. Passing through a final drawbridge we arrived at the lovely Ortega Port 32 Marina, our home for a month while we wait for spring to bud. Tucked in all nice and snug, we settled in for the oncoming days of temps in the 30s land even a possibility of freezing rain. By now Dave’s cold was in full bloom, so it was good timing for a week of hunkering down.
Some Final Roxy Mischief
But the final week of January held a surprise appearance from Roxy’s specter. We had her ashes sent up to Dave’s brother’s house in Virginia Beach, as we wanted to spread them along with Dave’s parents ashes this summer up in the family’s long-time favorite camping spot.
Then UPS lost Roxy.
A few days after we arrived in JAX, our niece Shannon texted us that she had signed for the delivery of a box thoroughly labeled as ‘Cremated Pet Remains’ and asking if we wanted her to open it.
Inside was…two gallons of dog shampoo!
It was the correct box, with the correct tracking number and return address of the cremation service. But somewhere between Florida and Virginia the box had come open and the small wooden box/urn replaced with the dog shampoo. I immediately called the cremation service company, and they were horrified. We both filed a claim with UPS – but all had to be done online. What followed was a week of scripted emails with detailed requests for pictures of the box, scripted conversations, and the occasional vapid apologies for my ‘inconvenience’ and ‘delay’ – as if Roxy had been a small kitchen appliance and they could just pull another one off a shelf. There was no hint there would be any effort to find the what was missing. Apparently when there is no script for a personal and unique situation, the protocol is to ignore it.
I was surprised at how hurt and angry I was. After all, it’s just ashes, and it doesn’t take away in the slightest how Roxy lives on in our hearts and memories. I understand UPS handles tens of thousands of packages every day, that things happen sometimes, and I really don’t believe this was malicious. (But why would you put shampoo in a box clearly labeled as pet remains??? Did they think no one would notice?) It was the callousness not of what happened, but how they responded that stung so much. It would have taken so little for UPS to lessen the hurt – a phone call from a human sincerely apologizing, or even a not-obvious form email. The cremation services company was in touch with us regularly, keeping us posted on their efforts. This made a difference.
Commence the “IIWII” chant. What happened is out of our control. But we can focus on how we respond, choosing to view it as one last act of mischief for Roxy to get into, one last story to tell about her. We look for the hint of the absurdity of the situation, such as Shannon’s text as this was unfolding: “Very weird. I cried over shampoo.”
And I have to hope that someone who thought they had ordered shampoo is not bathing their dog in Roxy, because she absolutely hated baths.
Life is 10% what happens to you, and 90% how you respond to it.
— Charles Swindoll
Random Final Thoughts
We’ve been thinking a lot about what parts of the boating life we want to try to continue when we transition back to life on land.
- We really enjoy extended time to explore a place like we did in Daytona. We could live more like a local and get a feel for the rhythm of the city. This is how we hope to travel in the future –longer time spent in fewer places.
- We took the public bus to run errands. You can view areas of a place – through the window, admittedly – that you might not see otherwise. These may not be the prettiest or best-maintained areas, but for us it’s still important to see to realize how fortunate we are to have the lives we do. Hopefully it will help us see issues a little more from the perspective of others.
- Having a car for a week, we actually found errands more frustrating and less efficient, and it became a crutch. We hope to live in a place where we can walk, bike, or take public transportation and use the car only when absolutely necessary. What we find is that we have fewer trips, plan meals better, waste less (including our time), when we can’t just hop in a car. Plus we meet more people.
We are on a glide slope to the end of our Boating Adventure. More of our talk now is now about what our next adventure will be, with many possibilities and no firm decisions. But there’s an excitement of looking ahead and planning together, tossing around ideas, digging deeper to research those which sound fun.
But for now, we will enjoy our month in Jacksonville. The marina is in a great location for exploring, there’s a nice pool and hot tub, and our friends we traveled the Bahamas with last year from No Worries are also going to be here! From there, we will embark on the See Level Farewell Tour.
Pops’ Stats Corner*
- No of Days: 32
- Travel Days: 2
- Miles Traveled: 115.5 (100.4 nm)
- Boxes of Kleenex used: 4
- Bags of cough drops consumed: 2
- Hot tea with lemon and honey: Lots
- Bottles of Nyquil: 1
*Pops is the family’s affectionate name for Dave’s dad. He had a mind for sports statistics, earning him the nickname Numbers from the coaches of several Stillwater teams with whom he worked. This regular section of the blog is in his honor, because it’s the kind of thing he would love.
Wonderful blog, as always. When the pain subsides a bit, I’ll have to share the story of my best friend’s blind, and somewhat lame, dog going missing on an overseas flight. She did turn up a few days later🙄. There are so many things I want to comment on but won’t go on and on! Happy RV hunting! There are a few of us contemplating this ‘next adventure’!
Anne
Wow! Saddened that UPS lost Roxy’s ashes. Bear’s ashes came in a lovely rosewood box (ashes inside in a plastic bag) with Bear’s paw print. Maybe you can get something for the garden in your next home that memorializes Roxy.
You have had quite the month! That is such a mystery about Roxy’s disappearance. Does the crematorium have dog shampoo? I’m curious if it happened before it was shipped, perhaps an employee that wasn’t paying attention?
If it was indeed UPS that is a very cruel joke. I agree that they handled it horribly. I find when I have had a bad experience with a company or entity yelping them helps me get all my hurt and frustration out. UPS stands for utterly preposterous service 😡
I love that you look at the bright side. Maybe Roxy was claustrophobic and saw a nice green lawn she could roll on so made her escape. 🤔
I’m excited to hear of your next adventure. It sounds like you might be changing in see level for meals on wheels? Happy motor home shopping if that’s the case 😊🙅