Day IV – A dog and a beer

As per usual, today’s plan didn’t really transpire as anticipated but the end result was excellent.

The original plan was to meet up with Harrison and go to a spring training ballgame in Kissimmee – and of course, take the traditional “dog and a beer” photo; however, the weather wasn’t great (ie. it POURED all day) and driving 90 minutes each way to a ballgame that may or may not get played didn’t seem particularly smart (not that that’s ever stopped me before). Enter “the new plan”. Despite not going a ballgame, that didn’t prevent the full dog and beer experience from happening. Let me just say that going to the dog races on St. Patrick’s Day is a good plan! Lots of dogs. Lots of beer. 50 cent beer. No, that’s not a typo.

I’d never seen dog racing before and, despite the massive amount of rain, it was great. And rain or shine, those dogs can really move (well, except for the dogs that I bet on). The track is about 400 metres (aka. 1,320 feet) and it takes about 30 seconds for the dogs to cross the finish line (or 38 seconds for the dogs that I bet on).

There were two post times today – 1:05 pm and 3:05 pm. We figured we’d watch the eight races of the 1:05pm post and then head over to the Daytona Speedway for a tour. However, with the rain still pouring down, and the beer still pouring at 50 cents, we opted to stay at the track and bet on more dogs (Note: don’t bet on a dog named “Tripod”).

And that pretty much sums up Day IV. Day V (my final day here at Daytona Beach Shores) is another cloudy one at the moment and the ocean is significantly rougher than it has been the last couple of days.

Tomorrow the next phase of the adventure begins!