Time in Saddle: 3:58
Distance for the Day: 42.8 miles From Vero Beach To Cape Canaveral, FL
Accumulated Trip Distance: 4880.33 miles
Altitudes: Starting/Ending 10’/12’, Highest: 34’ Accumulated: 78’
Speeds: Avg: 10.7 mph, Max: 24.2 mph
Weather: 72°
Expenditures: $17
Woke up at 7:30am; Terry had already left for work, so I made an entry in his Visitor’s Log Book – wow, that thing is almost full! Terry has hosted a lot of people from all around the globe. Well, he lives in Paradise, and just wants to share it. I went for a short walk on the beach, and saw those sea turtle tracks and nests that I mentioned in yesterday’s blog. Someone, that morning (probably from Terry’s office) came by on an ATV, found each turtle nest, and marked them with flags. I got my stuff together and took off to go see Terry and Barbara a few miles up the road at their office. We chatted a bit, took pictures of
each other, I shook Terry’s hand and thanked him for hosting me, and then headed north towards my next Warmshowers host, Kim D in Cape Canaveral.Stopped at mini mart for choco drink and Danish ($5). Also stopped in at Ron K’s home; he was going to host me, but since Terry C was able to host me, I didn’t really need to also be hosted by Ron – so we did lunch, instead from about 11:30am to 1:30pm. Made Kim’s at 4:30pm with a little difficulty, but not too much. She called the Kennedy Space Center to make sure I would be able to pick up my Will Call ticket that I’d ordered online. It was a bit of a worry, because it was now after 5pm, and the launch was at 7am the next morning, so, was I too late to pick up my ticket. As it turns out, they were keeping the facility open all night, until 5am (not their usual hours), so it wasn’t a problem at all. We chatted until 7:30pm before I went to sleep for 3 hours. Then I got up at 10:30pm and Kim drove me 25 minutes to reach the KSC at 11pm. I got my online pre-purchased ticket at the ticket booth, and entered t
he facility; Kim went back home and would pick me up after the event, whenever I called (she’s so nice!). I was just planning to be there all night so I could be first in line for when they opened the doors a few hours before launch, but he entire facility was open until 5am, including all their numerous exhibits – I guess they do that for late night/early morning shuttle launches. So, I took a tour bus to the Saturn V building, where they have the full-sized rocket laid out on its side but in sections, with info plaques and interactive kiosks that tell all about its different parts, interviews with the Apollo astronauts that flew it, and a gift shop, hot dog stands, etc. This was great! It sure beat waiting 8
hours for the launch, getting et up by the mosquitoes and no-see-ums. During my 16-hour stay, there, I paid about $35 for food and drinks (all overpriced, but no more so than at other theme parks or movie theaters). I didn’t know it at the time, but the shuttle launch got scrubbed at about 12:30am. Kim found out just before going to bed, so she called and left a message offering to come pick me up, but I was happily running around the Center looking at all the cool exhibits. By the time I did find out, around 4am, I figured I would just stay there until closing, wait for them to open again, and finish checking everything I could out. So that’s what I did.
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