Daytona Beach was nice and warm but we did not like it that much. When we arrived yesterday there where a lot of strange, old (formost) guys with long hair, tatoos and big noisy bikes… Apparently it was Bikers week at Daytona Beach.

When we walked to the city centre at night, some though guy was trying to impress people with his nice and fast racingbike. And yes, just like we expected, within 2 minutes he was gliding over the street with his bike. Hehe, loser… Lukely, today was the last day for Bikersweek.

Around dinnertime we drove the car over Atlantic Avenue searching for a restaurant Eelco’s dad told us to go to; Aunt Catfish. After 2 minutes we found that we mist our junction, but the houses we where passing where so nice, we drove a bit further. Wow, these houses, at the beach, with places for about 5 or 6 cars, 15 rooms +, etc.. Very nice!

After 30 minutes we got too hungry to view the houses, so we got back searching for Aunt Catfish. But some policeman thought differently… We have been pulled over for the 4th time this week… After we, once again, shown all the papers and our driverslicense we could finally head for the restaurant. But not before Eelco tried to sell the car to the policeman Unfortunatly the guy did not really like our car…

When we arrived at Aunt Catfish we had to wait for 45 minutes before we finally got our table. Thats not what you are hoping for when you are hungry. The food was allright, but not so special as we expected. But thanks anyway for the advise, Joop. It was a good and very cheap lobster!

When we returned at the hotel, there still was loud music on the beach. Apparently the next theme-week has started: “Springbreak”… Kind of funny because of all the partying, but after we visited a club for only 45 minutes, we found out that it is nice party for frustrated 16, 17 and 18 year olds. But because of springbreak there was very loud music almost all night long in our hotel. That was not what we have paid for and we immediatly decided to leave the next morning and go to Orlando.

But, not before we had seen the launch of the Endeavour. Cape Canaveral is pretty nearby, and the hostess of the hotel told us that we would have a clear sight from our own balcony. And she did not lie. At 2.28 hours at night we where witness of the launch of the Spaceshuttle. Wow, what a sight! The sky just lighted up in orange and than we saw a orange stripe cruising at the sky. After 15 seconds or so it was gone. It was short but very cool and Eelco did film the whole launch with his HD-camera. So, that we will show you later on.

After that we where kind of tired and where able to sleep. This morning we checked out and drove to Orlando. We tried to find a bank, which we found after it was closed, we printed our “For Sale”-poster for the Roadmaster and washed the car. After some Japanese food we ready to go to bed. We do need the rest, tomorrow we’ll be heading for the MGM Park!

We’ll keep you all posted!Above: The cars driving here in Daytona. In the back you see the bikes.

And we got pulled over AGAIN! Below is are the video’s (there are two). We didn’t fix the video in Daytona because of time issues.

Another piece of our trip puzzle is complete. We’ve reached Daytona, and our temp gauge just told us that it is 25 degrees celcius. Gooood!
We haven’t been pulled over, so nothing exciting to report on that area. Tonight, at 2 local time there will be a shuttle launch from Kennedy Space center, and the launch will be clearely visible from our hotel!!  So we’re going to stay up ’till 2 to watch the whole thing.  Below is the route from today.

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So, we’ve made it to Tallahassee!!! Yes! What a trip. Below a few stats from the trip. We also got pulled over *again* and we might have a video of the whole event, but we’ll put that up tomorrow. This day started for us at 6 in the morning (what happened to have changed to 7 because of daylight saving time) and it is now 1 at night local time (we’ve crossed another timezone). Time difference with the Netherlands is now 5 hours (it started out to be 9 hours back in Las Vegas). We’ve crossed the following states: Missouri, Arkansas, tennessee, Mississippi and now Florida.  So tomorrow, when we arrive in Daytona (which will be another 4 hours) we’ll upload the pictures and video!

This is us at Jeff’s (who’s in the picture with Bubba J). The show was fantastic. First there was a standup comedian (Jeff Rothpan) who started doing some jokes for a couple of minutes (he was quite funny). After that Guitar Guy came on doing some really good jokes and showing his amazing acts on the electric guitar (his real name is Brian Haner). So, then the real show started. First, Walter came on. He was a blast! Some jokes were really harse (we were afraid that the audience couldn’t handle them, but they turned out good). Then Achmed the dead terrorist! He was marvelous and did the whole Jingle Bombs gig with Guitar Guy. Then came Peanut. With the other pupets Jeff repeated some familliar jokes but with Peanut most jokes were improvised (which was very cool). Ofcourse, Peanut is nothing without his good Friend Jose Jalapeno, see the picture below.

(We were not really fully allowed to make pictures so the quality isn’t really good. Quintijn made some on his iphone too but due to some internet hickups here in the hotel we weren’t able to put them on just yet).

So, after Peanut en Jose Jeff told us that that was the end of the show. A few seconds later he came back for an extra with Bubba J.  This was great but also a bit strange. Jeff said that Bubba J. wasn’t really in the program any more so he didn’t remember the lines and had to use his cheat sheets (see picture below).

Then the whole audience (which were for about 80% real Jeff and friends fan’s) started to whisper the lines Bubba’s supposed to say. This got extremely funny and Jeff started to laugh a lot as well. Somehow he’s so good at being a ventriloquist that you actually start believen that you’re looking at a performance of two individuals. At one time Jeff kept on laughing while Peanut stayed serious, extremely well done.

At the end of the show we got our merchandise (no Walter dolls unfortunatly).

Quintijn has the large Peanut T-shirt. I took the Achmed and for my son Kyan i bought the Peanut toddler shirt (i hope it fits cause he’s very big).

Talking about my boy and totally of-topic.. I haven’t seen him and my wife Marloes for 2 weeks now and i miss them a lot. To keep in touch we use skype and i wanted to show this little screenshot i’ve made of our conversation yesterday. Love you two!