Sugar Mill & Bongoland

OK, so far, I’ve gotten caught up on blog posts from Daytona Beach week for Monday and Tuesday. So let’s get going with…

WEDNESDAY

The girls had some muffins in the hotel room for breakfast, and I had one of my protein drinks and some low-sugar yogurt. Then I planned out the morning for us to explore some of the area, and also avoid the potential rain… So first up, we went to the local library, where they had an amazing kids area, totally sectioned off in the back, with tons of toys and activities, where they could just be as loud as they wanted!

Next, we hit up a few Little Free Library’s around the area.

And our big adventure of the morning was a visit to the Dunlawton Sugar Mill Gardens and the (now-defunct) Bongoland amusement park from the 50’s. And we were so happy to find not only one LFL, but two within the Sugar Mill!

The Sugar Mill used to be thriving back in the 1830’s,  but now it’s just the ruins, but looks pretty cool. The gardens and property though is absolutely gorgeous, with amazing trees and landscaping and lush gardens and forestry. The girls and I loved wandering through all the coquina-shell lined pathways, and exploring all over the property. The rain held off, the sun actually came out, and with the sun shining through the greenery, it was a beautiful, magical day! Plus, admission is free! So it was definitely worth the price of admission 😉 And one of our favorite adventures from the week.

 

 

After leaving the Sugar Mill, we made our way back up north, and on our hunt for another Little Free Library, we found this cool playground that was built in the shape of a big dinosaur, right on the river. It was bright and sunny and super breezy, so we stayed there for a while to let the girls play with some other kiddos, and I just read my Kindle.

Then I needed some afternoon caffeine, so we hit up the Beach Bros Coffee Co cart right near our hotel. The cart itself was so adorable, and the drinks were delicious.

 

 

We had lunch in our hotel room again, and Jeff was able to come upstairs from his conference to join us. Then obviously, we went back down to the pool for the afternoon. We spent a couple of hours at the pool, and it was pretty chill and not too crowded again. But it was only like 77 degrees that day, and we were in a crazy “special marine warning” for high winds, so it was VERY windy, and we were actually kinda cold!

We got showered and cleaned up after the pool to go out to dinner, once Jeff finished up at the conference for the day. Addie “wasn’t tired,” but she fell asleep about 5 minutes from the restaurant we were headed to.

We went to a little pizza joint off the beaten path again, trying to stay away from the super touristy spots out on the beach. And we made a good decision with that, because everything was very yummy, and we could tell that’s where the locals ate. The table right behind us seem to come there every Friday night, and multiple servers knew them and knew their “usual” order.

And obviously we had to go hunting for a few more LFL after dinner! And just look at that beautiful sunset in the background!

Whenever we go out of town, Emmie always shares my bed, and Addie always shares with Daddy. I love cuddling up with Emmie and night and reading our books side-by-side, until she gets so tired she finally scooches down to go to sleep.

I actually stayed up pretty late this night, sitting at the little desk reading my book for a long time, until I couldn’t hold my own eyes open any longer and just had to finally turn in for the night.