We drove from Montgomery, Alabama to Dunedin, Florida which is about 500 miles, and the longest drive we will make in one day on the trip. Unfortunately, we also lost an hour going from Central to Eastern time zone. The good news was, there weren’t too many distractions or side trips on this drive! The other good news is that although we were warned from multiple sources that it could be a stormy drive with predicted heavy rain and thunderstorms, they didn’t materialize. There were some periods of heavy rain, but nothing too treacherous.

Although we didn’t hit too much rain on our drive, we did encounter plenty of rain once we reached Dunedin. We were staying in Dunedin to take in a spring training game at the Blue Jays facility, and also take advantage of the cute touristy town. It really did rain hard pretty much the entire day, so the game was canceled, and while we did get a chance to peruse a few cute stores between deluges, we pretty much hung out in our hotel room for the afternoon. But hey I got caught up on a “This is Us” episode AND submitted a claim for my oral surgery so it was not a wasted afternoon! 🙂

From Dunedin we went on to Parkland to visit our longtime friends. We stayed with Bill and Jean for 3 nights and had fun going to the beach, playing pickleball, visiting, and were treated to some home cooking! Ok, yes, we did laundry too. Quite a bit actually. It’s good to have friends and family in some key places!

After a pool day at the hotel, we went to the Kennedy Space Center in Titusville, Florida. As we were driving in, it reminded us of Disneyland in that there were two long lanes of cars, 90% of which were headed to KSC, and no cars going the other way at all. There were a lot of neat exhibits, artifacts, and interactive displays. I also learned a lot about Artemis, the newest rocket that will take a crew to the moon, and then hopefully Mars! There was an entire building dedicated to the space shuttle program, complete with the Atlantis space shuttle. It also had a moving tribute to the astronauts that had died aboard the Challenger and Columbia shuttles, and pieces of the shuttles that had been recovered from both crash sites.

On our way to our last stop in Florida, we did have a side trip to the Daytona International Speedway. We are not too much into racing, but we went on a very fun tour, including getting to go out on the track! Amelia Island is our last stop in Florida, it was a very fun beachy town with cute shops, and a beautiful beach. A very fun way to spend the day!