Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Day 9 - Sunday 25th April - Kennedy Space Centre




Today we were up the earliest of our whole Disney stay (well, it was 645am and that to date the earliest we’ve gotten up). We did a final check that we had everything, put it all in the car, had breakfast and headed off to Kennedy Space Centre.

The drive took about 1hr 10min and was fairly simple – just follow the signs. We went through a number of tolls to get there, they were interesting to start with, but after the 3rd one we had got the hang of it all. We had saved up a whole stack of quarters and had them in a little ziplock bag and when we saw the signs a mile out saying how much it would cost, Bubbles would get the money out so that all Spanky had to do was throw it in the collector and away we go. Thank god that The President taught Spanky how to throw good, the aim was off on only one out of 6 throws.

We got to the Kennedy Space Centre by about 930am and pick up our tickets (we couldn’t print our tickets at home as they processed the payment 3 times and had to do refunds – although we ended up losing about $10 in the international transaction fees and the change in exchange rates).

We had a good wonder around the rocket park and some of the exhibits, then headed off to our 11am tour. The tour was good, it took us up close for a look at the Shuttle launch sites, the landing facility, the Vehicle Assembly Building, International Space Station processing facility and also over to Cape Canaveral for a long distance view of the launch site over there.

Currently there is a Shuttle out on Launch pad 39B, is the shuttle for mission STS-132, space shuttle Atlantis (ready for its last mission) and Launch pad 39A is still set up from the launch of the new Atlas rocket that went up 3days ago. (We could bore you all with the many facts that we know about the Space Centre, Cape Canaveral, and NASA, but we won’t, except to tell you that there is only 3 more space shuttle missions left.)

After having lunch at the Saturn V centre, we went back to the main Visitors Centre, checked out the last few things there, and then headed back to the car.

Off we set on out 2.5hr drive to the other side of the state, aiming for Pass-a-Grille. The drive was easy, it was all on freeways and just following the signs to Tampa. Bubbles was still affected by the cold that he had and was a little doped up on some meds that we had got him, so he struggled to stay awake for the drive (that was his reason anyway). We got to Pass-a-Grille just after 7pm, found the Inn we were staying at, meet our lovely Host, Sheila, and were shown our apartment.

It then started to rain. Actually, rain is the wrong word. It started to Storm.

We headed out to a nearby restaurant, had fish & chips (Bubbles had been hanging out all week for it, and it was well worth it) , then headed back to the apartment.

During a break in the downpour, we were able to move our luggage into the apartment and settle in.

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