Ponce Inlet

I'm not a huge beach person, but it is nice to go every once in a while. My parents were staying at their favorite hotel in Daytona Beach Shores for the week that we were in Florida and invited us to stay with them for a night. This beach is another place I have been a million times and it was fun to show Travis. My dad always brings bonoculars so we can stand on the balcony and watch the ships way out at sea.

As soon as we got there we took a walk down the beach. It was actually really warm, but as soon as you got down by the ocean the wind about knocked you over!

There were jellyfish ALL OVER the beach. I didn't believe Travis when he said these were Portuguese Man o'War but after looking them up once we got back they totally were! Thank goodness we didn't go swimming like we talked about! (The water was FREEZING anyway).

We took a little trip down to the Ponce Inlet lighthouse. It is the tallest lighthouse in Florida. We've been here probably 4 or 5 times. This time my mom admitted that she had never been! Usually on vacation she and my brother would lay on the beach the whole time, and my dad and I would lose interest quickly and go on little field trips. 

It is 203 steps to the top! That my not sound like a lot, but by the time you are about 3/4 of the way to the top, you will wonder how the light house keepers did it every day! There are great exhibits about the lighthouse in the old keeper houses. I like the ones about the families that lived there. They even have a book about the lighthouse pets! 

This is three or four landings from the top. See the checkerboard floor?

Here we are at the top! It is a fun view, even on a weird cloudy windy day.
Us at the top! We had to find a spot where the wind wasn't toooo crazy. look at how pink i am from the wind!
These are fresnel lens that were used in the light house. The are huge and really pretty.

After the lighthouse we went to another Hartsock Vacation classic. We talk about this restaurant all the time and Travis makes fun of me for it. So of course we had to go. It has a deck on the inlet side, not on the ocean, and sometimes you can see dolphins swimming by! So awesome! It is pretty much the perfect beach vacation restaurant. It wasn't as fun in the winter, but the food is still really good.

Trigger fish. Yum. The hushpuppies were so good! And they have a raspberry vinaigrette house salad that is delicious.

There are a bunch of manatee mail boxes on the peninsula. I want a pug mailbox!
After dinner we went tacky souvenir shopping. So many alligator heads!
So classy. I bought some pretty sea urchins and a sand dollar painted like santa.
Then my parents took us to their favorite ice cream place. I got a derby, of course! Too bad they only had chocolate, no butterscotch. We went back to the hotel and called it an early night after that.

I think he was acting like he was going to eat mine so I would quite taking pictures, haha!