Cape Canaveral

We extended our stay in the Cape Canaveral area to attend a home school event scheduled for March 7th. It was great and the extended stay also allowed us to watch a Delta 2 rocket launch on Friday night. We didn't even try to photograph that experience as it's just impossible. The launch and rocket's rise to orbit is over in 2 minutes, but it's well worth the trouble to get to a vantage point and observe if ever within a reasonable distance.

While waiting for the home school day, we invested some time in touring the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. Within the 140,000 acre refuge are hundreds of species of wildlife. We found more varieties of birds than we could count and many that we had never seen before. We were able to see an eagle's nest, but were too far away to see the eaglets. We also saw many alligators of which this one was the largest. She's 14 feet long and weighs 800 lbs. and she's pregnant. We were careful not to wake her as we captured the photo of her! No fences at the wildlife refuge!

We did not catch any glimpses of the river otters or manatees living within the refuge, but we enjoyed our afternoon in the peace and quiet with the animals.

We drove to Jetty Park to witness the rocket launch and it's an excellent vantage point. We barely arrived in time, but just made it and were glad that we did. We had to wake the boys as the launch was just before 11 p.m., but I think they will remember the sight and sounds.

Home School Day at the Kennedy Space Center was great. We were divided into groups by virtue of color coded arm bands and were provided an itinerary for both touring and participating in activities. The Astronaut Encounter was a very enlightening experience as we listened to Jack Lousma, astronaut, Sky Lab 3 pilot and Columbia commander. This gentleman had been within the NASA program from 1966 forward and had so much personal experience to share. The program was only 45 minutes long (but 20 minutes longer than the normal public presentation) and we could easily have listened to a whole day of this man's experiences. The kids were place into teams to gather information ('treasure hunt') in the Rocket Garden. This enriched their tour of the various launch vehicles on display with bits of facts. After lunch (which was included in the ticket price), the kids were back in their teams to build and test 'rockets'. Using balloons for 'engines', a straw for the vessel, paper clips for payload and masking tape for assembly, the kids launched their rockets on a piece of vertical fishing line. The charge was to determine the appropriate maximum payload with a successful launch - and design and build it in 20 minutes. Cory and Will were part of the only team that ventured to carry less than the maximum payload (8 paper clips instead of 15). Their rocket sailed twice as far as the others and their team won the competition. Not to brag or anything.....

We then toured the space center by bus to see the Apollo/Saturn V center, the International Space Station Center and an observation area near the shuttle launch pads. The home school event was $5 less than the normal admission price, included extra time for the astronaut encounter, lunch and the activities. Normal admission provides for a 2 day visit which we would heartily recommend. The second day allowed us to view the two IMAX theater presentations and ride the Shuttle Launch Experience (tame compared to Disney's Mission Space ride - but still worth doing).

We also visited Cocoa Beach while we were in the area, but didn't stay long. We haven't been gone from Corpus Christi for very long and a day at the beach - even one on the Atlantic ocean wasn't as appealing as some of the other choices. We visited an orange grove and purchased honey tangerines - the sweetest and juiciest we've ever tasted.

We're off to south central Florida - just north of the Everglades for our next stop. We're trying to miss the spring break crowd that's arriving for beach time.