We spent last Monday morning watching the launch of the space shuttle Endeavour. It was an absolutely incredible sight. The picture (taken by a NASA photographer) is pretty cool but doesn’t begin to do justice to the real thing. We arrived at Kennedy Space Center on Saturday and spent the day touring the space center. Looking at all of the Apollo stuff and the Saturn rockets was very interesting. Most of you are too young to remember but I definitely remember what a big deal the space race was. I really enjoyed seeing some of the equipment and machines that were used back then. After spending the day touring the space center we spent some time checking out the best spot to view the launch (tickets to watch from the space center sell out well in advance). I have seen some serious tailgating before but nothing like this. Campers and cars were paying to park at 4:00 the day before the launch. It was crazy. We then checked into our motel and slept till midnight, when it was time to head for our viewing site and claim our spot to watch the launch. Of course, with our typical luck the launch was scrubbed about seven minutes before the scheduled launch time. Fortunately (using my scheduling experience) I had a contingency plan and had already booked the motel for an extra day. We did the same drill on Sunday only this time we got to watch the launch. It’s hard to describe just how spectacular it was. We were about eight miles away from the launch pad but could clearly see the launch tower. The amount of flame generated by those rockets was something to see and the roar of those engines from eight miles away was impressive. The whole thing was over in a minute but it was a pretty impressive display and we are certainly glad that we got to observe it.
After the launch we headed down to Fort Pierce and spent a couple of very enjoyable days with dad and Betsy. Dad and I got to do a little fishing (he did well, me; not so much) and we had a very good visit. Dad and I did manage to thoroughly whip Betsy and Sheila in euchre, even if they won’t admit it. (The boys won the first night but the girls won the second)
From there we headed down to Fort Lauderdale to visit the cemetery where Sheila’s parents are buried and enjoyed lunch at one of our favorite Fort Lauderdale restaurant, Guianni’s.
We left there and decided to take the long way home. We headed towards Miami and cut across the state on the Tamiami Trail. This is the place to go if you want to see lots and lots of gators up close and personal. There are literally hundreds of gators along some of the canals and if you were so inclined (I never was) you could get out of your car and get as close as you wanted to the gators. I never had a big desire to get out of the car for a close-up picture but preferred to just enjoy watching those critters from the comfort of my truck.
We then headed up the west coast of Florida and finally got back to our good old comfy camper late Wednesday evening. What a trip.
No comments:
Post a Comment