It was tough leaving all of my manatee friends in Titusville. They loved hanging out right by our boat but I’m excited about seeing New Smyrna Beach. Our Looper book said that Travel and Leisure Magazine named it in the top 10 of “World’s Coolest Beach Towns.” It is the only Atlantic city to make the top fifteen on that list. It was Henry Flagler’s original resort town before St. Augustine. When we arrived, we had an Uber driver take us to the beach and to our surprise, he drove right ONTO the beach!
There were lots of people with their cars parked in the sand so that they could tailgate and access chairs, blankets and food. It was crowded with bodies and different beats from an assortment of music, all the while little kids where running in between the passing cars to the shore. I could not have relaxed if Marko and Aaron were there! The Uber driver was quite wise in that he warned me that there is no beach like your beach! In other words, what one grows up enjoying becomes the ideal. He was so right. His wife was getting her Ph.D and his two sons were in the restaurant business in Smyrna; one a chef at Norwood’s Treehouse Restaurant and one a server at Garlic’s Restaurant. So, we decided to try both! We walked a mile through some well kept Florida homes with beautiful trees, vines and blooming flowers. We sat upstairs in the treehouse at Norwoods and had some smoked fish dip while listening to live music and dodging the occasional lizard on the tree.
We were pleasantly surprised from Maps that Garlic’s was only 800 feet away. When we got there the building looked like multiple sheds, lean-tos and pole barns. The line was headed out the door. It definitely had such a cool vibe as we watched a wood burning stove near the hostess station.
Our wait was only 2 minutes and we were seated at the table RIGHT to the front right side of the musician. He was probably the most proficient musician that I’ve seen in a restaurant. He was equally good at piano, guitar, trumpet and voice. What a treat! yes that is the sky you see and the walls were equally exposed to the outside with lots of stonework and ferns. It occurred to me, after the 🦎, that there could well be snakes crawling around…….
I don’t know what came over me! Those of you that know me well, know that I hardly eat bread and that I prefer vegetables over meat. After John and I ate 2 foot-long pieces of bread with 2 heads of roasted garlic, I ordered a 16 ounce meatball made of filet mignon. Now that’s a change! Notice that John’s chicken Parmesan is dwarfed by my giant meatball!
Maybe the travel magazine was correct. It is one of the coolest beach towns ever! Downtown had a canal street that was shaded by oaks and palms…..very charming.
The next day we headed to Palm Coast. We passed some very cool bridges. Traveling by boat gives one a different perspective on bridges!
This bridge is in Daytona FL. They were working on it as we passed under. I sure didn’t want to rock a construction guy and have him drop a wrench on my head!
Another cool Daytona bridge….
And another one that we had to really look at the side depth indicator. We are 18.5 ft high and it showed 19 feet clearance. However it had 3 more feet of clearance in the center.
This bridge had to open up for us!
There are many islands of birds!
We are almost to St. Augustine on 4-30-19. I’m excited to visit this great historical city. The Intracoastal is getting closer to the Atlantic Ocean as evidenced by the beach houses. I’ll conclude this chapter and let our next two days in St. Augustine be a stand alone!
