Space coast

Since one of Adam's dreams is to explore space, we made our next stop Cape Canaveral so we could spend some time at Kennedy Space Center. We heard that Jetty Marine Park was the place to stay to get good views of the space shuttle launches and to watch the big cruise ships come in and out of port. Being that the shuttle isn't launching until the end of February we figured we had a chance of getting a spot in this park and indeed we did. The first night offered us an exciting atmospheric display of wild weather filled with tornados. The park was conscientious enough to walk around to each campsite and let us know to go to the bath houses if a tornado comes through. Luckily it formed just north of us near Kennedy so we had no damage though it was a bit nerve racking.

We visited Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge and the Cape Canaveral National Seashore. It's a great place if you like bird watching. I didn't think it would be all that exciting, but once we found some interesting looking birds I started to get into it.

Adam signed up for astronaut training which hopefully fulfilled his desire to become an astronaut (since that is an extremely unlikely career now given the circumstances). He was like a kid in the candy store absorbing every bit of information he could about astronauts and the space program. I visited the astronaut hall of fame museum, but then I had enough so I let him do the training on his own. They told me to come back for the "graduation" and I did but ended up getting to observe their "mission" instead. Adam was a mission specialist in charge of operating the arm outside the craft. He was very good! The rest of the controls operating the shuttle was surprisingly like Star Trek where they just punched buttons to make things work. The other highlight for him in his training experience was the one on one talk with a veteran astronaut.

We spent another full day at the Kennedy space center where we sat through 3D movies touring the international space station and another one showing how the Hubble telescope was built. We perused the rocket garden showing the evolution of the space rockets and experienced the shuttle launch simulator. It was truly a fascinating day. I called it Space Disneyland. Since they are unsure of the future of Nasa and the space program they are really ramping up their pitch to youngsters articulating the need for future space explorers.

The rest of our time in Cape Canaveral consisted of long walks/runs on the beach, shell hunting and rest. Other than all the dead pelicans along the beach there were multiple flocks of different types of sea birds. It was a generally peaceful, fine sandy beach. A tranquil place to spend a week. If the shuttle launch remains on schedule for the end of February we will definitely be back.