Old Retired Guy Blog
April 15, 2010
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Florida (Page 1 of 4)I know that it's tax day, but that's not what's on my mind. We just returned from an 12-day vacation in Florida and had a great time. Long ago some guy named Juan Ponce de León went there to find the Fountain of Youth. Apparently he didn't find it. Despite his failure the state is filled with millions of old folks who appear to be chasing that same elusive objective -- good for them. Actually, compared to many of the retirees down there I felt quite young, so maybe there is something to that Fountain of Youth thing. Although we had no fountains on our list of things to see, we did have three objectives in mind. The first, and the one which controlled our schedule, was to see a space shuttle launch. 1: The Rocket's Red Glare At the time we came up with the idea to see a shuttle launch, only four remained before the program was to be terminated. After checking out launch schedules on NASA's web site, we decided to see the next available launch to avoid having to go to Florida in the summer. We arrived in Florida on the day before Easter. Since the launch was not until Monday, we went to the Kennedy Space Center on Easter Sunday to immerse ourselves in all things NASA. Even if you don't have an opportunity to see a rocket launch, the Kennedy Space Center is a fascinating place to visit.
There's a garden with rockets large and small and space capsules that you can climb into. In a huge building you can see the enormous Saturn V rocket that was used to propel the Apollo astronauts to the moon. You can experience the noise and vibration that the shuttle astronauts feel during a launch. You can see the inside of a shuttle and walk through modules of the international space station. I can't begin to describe it all, so, if you're interested, visit the Kennedy Space Center web site. With Disney World, Universal Studios, and other similar attractions everywhere, Florida is pretty much a land of make believe. The Kennedy Space Center, however, is a place where some things may be hard to believe, but they are real. We were psyched for the launch.
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