On the agenda today? Day 1 of our 2 day visit to Kennedy Space Center. One would think you could get all the activities done in one day, but 2 days are really ideal to get the most of the experience…and honestly, with kids, 3 days probably would have been even better so the overload effect would be a little less.
The first thing we headed towards was the space shuttle lift off simulator. It was pretty neat-think Star Tours, but on your back! We entered the cabin, sat down and ended up pretty much feeling like we were sitting in our seats like the astronauts as they await lift off…….face up towards the sky. Then there was lots of rumbling and shaking and then feeling like we were launching. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t the same feeling as Mission to Mars at Epcot, but fun nonetheless and no motion sickness!
The kids enjoyed a Star Trek experience......complete with audience participation. Whaddaya know, one of our kids got picked.....probably because Eric nearly jumped out of his seat while raising his hand to get picked!
After we ate our lunch-prepacked at the condo- we headed to the bus tour. The tour took us to different areas of interest and also the closest we would be allowed to the launch pads. This is the building the shuttle is housed in while it is attached to the solid rocket boosters and then put on the crawler tracks to move out to the launch pad. It takes 8 hours to get from the building to the launch pad........1 mile per hour and something crazy like 40 feet to the gallon!!
Thank goodness for zoom lenses and our new camera. Bill was able to get some really great shots of the launch pad. Unfortunately the shuttle itself is hidden by the big arm that moves away when launch is imminent.
Without zoom-
with zoom!
Space Shuttle Atlantis is in place, awaiting its last lift off, scheduled for July 8th. The shuttle program is 30 years old, hard to believe, and NASA is ready to move forward with a new vehicle to get our astronauts to space……we learned more about that on day 2. I am very thankful our kids got the opportunity to witness a launch in November of 2009 and pretty neat that they also got to see the last shuttle to go up in space sitting ready on the launch pad.
The vast size of the space shuttle and the rocket boosters are mind boggling. You just don’t realize how big they are until standing next to mock ups.
Even the Saturn 5 rocket is so BIG!! This was the last stop of the tour…lots of info, not much patience by the end of the day to soak it all in however.
We finished up for the day and headed to our traditional diner of choice while visiting KSC-Dixie Crossroads.
A ridiculously overpriced (in my opinion anyway) seafood restaurant whose claim to fame is their rock shrimp. Small, sweet shrimp with an outer shell like a lobster. Their other claim to fame? Corn fritters. Ridiculously good and terribly unhealthy I’m sure……how could fried corn bread covered with powdered sugar be good for you? Oh well, they sure are good and I only ate 4. OK, maybe it was 5. Or 6.
Since we didn’t have to wait for our table, the kids fed the fish after dinner. The restaurant provides food for the kids to throw into the pond……it’s a good activity when table wait times run in the 30-60 minute range!
Good-bye Dixie Crossroads. I think it’s going to be a long time until we meet again-
1 comment:
I think I could eat five or fifty of those bad boys! Yum. Looks like a fun, tiring day.
Blast off!
Don't ask--just wanted to write that.
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