Atlantis Launch

Friday, July 8 -- We made it!  We got to see the shuttle launch.  Wow, what an experience.  We got up at 3:00 a.m. to try to get a spot.  We drove up to the Space View Park, which was probably about 20 miles.  We must have gotten there to late to get the free parking because they hit us for $30 to park, but we got to park pretty close.  We walked around the park, checking out the situation.  It was already pretty full, lots of tents and people sleeping on blankets.  We walked over next to a bank and found what we thought was a better spot, so we walked back to the car and got our chairs and stuff.  And settled in.  It was now about 4:30 a.m.

We were under a streetlight, so Joe got his book out and read for a while, and I kept trying to doze off. We could barely see the lights on the launch pad across the river, and once it got light, we could only see the launch pad framework through binoculars.    Time went very slowly, but it didn't rain on us at all.  The crowd kept getting larger, and we moved over to a different spot when people in front of us raised their Easy-Up and blocked our view.  It was cloudy, so we didn't know if the launch was going to happen or not.
Daylight came about 6:00 a.m., still 5 1/2 hours to go. Here's the crowd in daylight, and the view we were watching across the river.  We saw 2 military jets and a NASA helicopter fly over, and a hovercraft (we don't know if this was military or not) kept patrolling the far side of the river.  There were several boats of different sizes out on the river -- they had the best view of all.

 Some people moved in beside us with a portable radio, so we got to hear what was going on from time to time.  Finally, the countdown started.  And stopped.  And continued.  Everyone was on their feet.

There's people everywhere now.  The cops blow a whistle every so often to get people to move off the street, but it seemed otherwise that they were allowing them to park about anywhere there was a hole.  Some of these people had huge cameras with them, and tripods.

And here it goes!!!!

Way cool!  We actually got to see it for several seconds before it disappeared into the clouds.  And the vapor stream hung around for quite a while.

 

We could have used Joe Myer's camera for this day.

We got back to the RV in about an hour, so we thought that was pretty good, considering the traffic.  And we slept all afternoon.  We had McDonald's breakfast sandwiches at 3:30, hamburgers from a park vendor at 9:30, so I'm not sure what meal is next, but I'm up from my nap, it's 5:00 p.m., so I should probably wake up Joe and fix us some dinner.  But what a day this was!

On to Cocoa

Thursday, July 7 - Today is a travel day, so we headed out to fuel ($3.459/gal here) and hooked up with Mike at McDonald's for a breakfast sandwich.  We took the very scenic A1A north through Melbourne, stopping here to walk over to the beautiful beach.

So you can see the sky was pretty cloudy, and we hit rain shortly after this rest stop.  The beach is very accessible along this route, with many parking areas, boardwalks over the sea oats to the beach, and restrooms and showers.  The waves were pounding in here pretty good, and there were a few surfers out.

A fisherman here had 4 poles in the water, but he never had any action while we watched.  We were hoping he would pull in something exciting, but no luck.

Part of the scenery here on this highway are the variety of mailbox posts.  We've seen lots of dolphin, manatee, and even some seahorse mailbox posts here in Florida, but we came upon some new ones today -- turtle, tiki hut, pelican, mermaid, lighthouse, iguana, and even a huge conch shell.  If we have time here (if the launch gets postponed) I hope we can find a subdivision with some of these that I can get photos of.   We continued on our way, on through Cocoa Beach where we had toured last month when we came over to the Kennedy Space Center, then headed over to the town of Cocoa and our campground.  At the stoplight where we were turning, a car beside us said it all.

We got to the campground about 3:00, and they were ready for us with registrations (and patriotic-ly decorated cupcakes) because they were expecting to be very busy.  They led Joe to the parking space while I got us registered, and the rain started then.  I got a ride in a golf cart to the RV to stay dry, and we hunkered down and watched it rain for a while.  We know the launch is very iffy, but we are keeping our fingers crossed.  And the plan is that we are getting up at 3:00 a.m. to go over to the Space view Park to try to find a parking space.

Key West to Port St. Lucie

Tuesday-Wednesday, July 5-6 - As we are leaving Key West this morning, I was thankful that we got through all these days here with no "tropical depressions/hurricanes" heading our way.  Actually, although we had some rain, the weather was pretty good because the clouds kept the heat a little lower (but not the humidity). After Trucker Joe got us backed out of our tight parking space, we got on the road about 9:45, after a 5-minute delay due to a rain shower.  Neither of us ever got in the water at the campground, although it was only 2 steps from our door.  We were always getting back at low tide, and although the water was clear enough to see fish, the current was pretty strong through here, so Joe was afraid we would be swept out to sea.  We saw several fish here in the water, but we didn't get out fishing poles either. 

As we were driving along, we thought we spotted another flying fish, but this turned out to be a blimp in the sky.  It is sort of fish-shaped, especially from a distance.

As we came upon the Bahia Honda State Park, we saw that someone else was in the parking spot we had a few days earlier.  But this was a good view of the campground here.

We passed a Veterans Memorial right along the highway that had a very pretty tree all trimmed up.  We didn't stop so I didn't get to see the memorial itself, but the tree had several different colors of blooms in it.

While it took us 4 days to get to Key West, it took us just less than 3 hours to get back to Homestead.  We continued on Hwy 1 until we got to I-95 at Miami, and that was a slow trip -- lots of traffic and stoplights, although the traffic had been no problem coming out of the Keys.  We opted to go over Miami on the freeway rather than driving through the city - a rare drive on an interstate for us.

Our next destination was the Ft. Pierce area, where my nephew lives, and Joe just decided to drive all the way today -- a total of 272 miles.  We found a very nice campground at Port St. Lucie, about 10 miles south of Ft. Pierce, and got set up about 5:00 p.m.

We got in touch with Mike and made plans for tomorrow, so we went up the street to Sonny's Barbeque for dinner, then drove out on Hutchinson Island to check out the beaches.

We made the whole loop back through Ft. Pierce, but it got dark on us so we called it a day (a long day!).  Wednesday morning we got directions to Bathtub Reef, a beach with good snorkeling, so we headed out there.  This is a really pretty area, with some beautiful homes and golf courses.  This was a nice beach, but the waves were pounding in pretty hard, and the lifeguard told us the snorkeling wouldn't be very good right now.  We got there about noon, at high tide.  There are 4 tides a day here, and low tide was 6 hours away, but then you could walk out to the reef because it would be sticking out of the water.  Maybe midway between the tides would be the time to snorkel, but we didn't last that long.  We did swim around some, but there were lots of big rocks underwater and I scraped my leg on one and it started bleeding.  I really was afraid the blood would draw in sharks, so I was a little apprehensive after that.

The coastline bows in here, and with the outer reef, it forms a bowl when, at low tide, the water is very calm and it's a very popular beach for families.  There was some surf here, but no one was snorkeling while we were there.  After a couple hours (we forgot our sunscreen), we headed back to camp for lunch and showers, and I threw our wet clothes in the washer/dryer at the campground.  I had taken a seasick pill in case we went snorkeling, and although it was supposed to be non-drowsy, while I was waiting for my laundry to finish, I could not keep my eyes open.  So when I got back to the RV, I laid down for 10 minutes, then it was time to go meet Mike, Lisa, and Corey.  We had a really good visit with them, went to dinner at a Mexican restaurant just up the street in Ft. Pierce.  Mike is always full of stories, so we shared some good laughs.

We head out in the morning back to the Cape Canaveral area, so we are keeping a close watch on the weather.  And it is not looking real good right now.  Rain is predicted for the next several days, so we are hoping the window is open for the launch to go off on time.  We'll be there!

July 4 on Key West

Monday, July 4 - Amazingly, July 4 was a rainy day down here.  It was in the 70s this morning, with a breeze.  I watched the display of storm clouds accumulating, and the jet stream from a plane taking off left a beautiful track in the sky.

The mosquitoes don't seem to be a problem in the daylight hours, so I enjoyed the view for quite a while.

The clouds got closer and closer, and it finally started raining.  Joe came out and joined me in our private little tiki hut -- see how far I've advanced since hiding in the closet in Indiana during all those awful tornado warnings!

It quit raining so we headed back into town, but Joe got caught in the Circle K getting his soda when the rain really let loose.  He finally made it back to the car, only slightly damp, and we stopped at a couple stores searing for snorkle fins.  We went on down to Duval Street (the main street here, that goes from the east coast to the west coast), and had some success with the fins, so now that we are leaving this area we are completely set up for snorkeling.  We drove from coast to coast, traffic (both pedestrian and vehicle) was heavy and it kept raining.

Fortunately, we finally found a parking spot (a mission impossible here) and joined the crowd, stopping in a few gift shops.  Then we had lunch at the original Margaritaville, of course.  I talked to the lady who had her boat moored next to our RV earlier this morning, and she and her daughter had gone downtown yesterday to some public pool, where they saw women wearing only body art.  Joe was on the lookout for that sight, but I guess the rain forced them all to put clothes on because we didn't see any today.  She was pretty sure that Joe really had seen some naked woman in the parking lot the other day -- she said anything goes down here.

 We drove out to the state park again, where a coast guard ship and another WWII ship are museums, but they were both closed.

We also drove past (but didn't go in) the Museum of Art & History, which had a beautiful statute out front, and John Hemingway's home.  There was no place to park in the vicinity.  Parking is really a nightmare down here, unless you go into the public parking lots, or are lucky enough to find a spot with a parking meter.  But all day in the parking lots is $15 to $20, so we avoided that.

 

We also saw this beautiful banyan tree right in this area.  These trees are fascinating.

We drove  up the Atlantic side and came upon Higgs Beach, which appears to be where the locals go.  There were lots of people here, so I'm guessing they are probably having fireworks here later this evening.

We really didn't do much today, but we were ready to go back to the RV, after a stop at the grocery store.  I decided to get the laundry done, since we are leaving tomorrow, and Joe did some of his outside work.  We went over for a late dinner here at the campground, and they put on a small fireworks display so we stayed for that so we didn't have to fight the traffic and crowds downtown.  We hope to be in the Miami area tomorrow night, assuming traffic won't be too bad getting out of the keys.  But this was an interesting trip, and it is amazing to us that we have been all the way from the northernmost place  (Prudhoe Bay, Alaska) to the southernmost place (Key West) in the U.S. in the last two years.  We are definitely enjoying retirement!

Snorkeling at Key West

Sunday, July 3 - After a slow start this morning, we headed to the beach about noon.  Our camp host recommended a beach for us, so that's where we went -- Fort Zachary Taylor State Park and Beach.  It was better than the others we had seen here -- had some depth and not so weedy, but it was still a rocky beach.  Our boat shoes came in handy here. 

The water was fairly clear, so after we got wet, Joe decided was time to snorkel.  We both geared up, and he headed out to the rock wall, but I'm not the master snorkeler he is, so I paddled around on my noodle and tried to get used to breathing under water again.

We rented an umbrella and beach chairs, so we did some people-watching as we rested.  The group in front of us had 2 ladies wearing thong bikinis, so Joe got an eyefull there.  Last year we were looking at haliBUTs and halibut CHEEKS, but this year we had female butt cheeks on display.  I never did take a picture of them, I couldn't figure out how to do it inconspicuously, even though I doubt they would have cared.  I don't think being inconspicuous was their intent.

Our second time out, Joe headed over to a different set of rocks, and I finally mastered my equipment.  But then a storm blew in, and the beach emptied.

Even Snorkler Joe abandoned the water when he heard the thunder roll.

So we gathered up most of our stuff and headed up to the snackbar patio to eat some lunch and  wait it out.  It never did rain on us, and the storm finally moved on.  We had put our two noodles under the chair frame so they wouldn't blow away.  Next thing we knew, a group of young black guys were slapping them around out in the water, so I marched myself down there and got them back!   We finally were able to get back in the water, and this time I snorkeled with Joe all around the rocks.  We saw some neat fish.  One trip around was enough for me, but others had seen some big fish, so Joe went back around by himself.  He ended up with a pretty good sunburn on his back.

We left about 5:00 and headed back to camp.  After we took showers, we walked along our brick wall to the tiki bar here, where they had a barbeque going on, but their credit card machine was broken, and we didn't have that much cash, so we sat and listened to the band for a little while, then headed back to the RV and I fixed dinner.  By the time we ate, it was 8:00 and we were both tired, but we did sit outside for a few minutes (until the mosquitoes woke up at sunset) and enjoyed the view.

We had a good beach day.