Day 76 fun at Kennedy Space Center

Today we start with the "obligatory" smiling faces on a bus...  We took a shuttle from the marina at 9:00 am to the Kennedy Space Center a few mles away. I have visited the Johnson Space Center (Houston) a number of times over the past 36 years, but I was really looking forward to the bus tour around the center. Why? I knew that the area was huge, but being able to go up in an observation tower and see for myself just how big everything is... Okay, I thought that I was prepared, but the size of everything was still impressive.

...and the second picture is of the same great looking couple. Why? Well, everyone knows that "I'm so vain", but the real reason is that the Admiral bought this picture. Thus, I am trying to get added value by actually using the picture.



An example of part of what I mean about scale can be seen in the second photograph of a tractor tread from the mobil crawler that moves the assembled rockets to the launch pad. There is no scale in the photo so it is not obvious that the treaad is about 5 feet wide. On the bus we followed the gravel "tractor path" for several miles. The gravel road is actually two lanes, which are each about 15 feet wide and separated by an even wider grass median. At first thought, you might think that two crawlers could pass one another, but the crawler is so wide that the tracks on one side use "one" road and the same for the other. Thus, without actually seeing a crawler, I know that the crawler is really huge

Okay, okay... Just one more of my favorite pictures from today. This one shows a "forest" of rockets with a Saturn 5 lying horizontal in the background. I first saw a Saturn 5 at Johnson Space Center in 1977 just a couple of years after the Apollo Program ended. I remember thinking then "how did that ever get off the ground?" I'm still wondering about that.

We got back home to Lucky Us aout 3:15 pm so it was a good, long time at the Space Center.

The final picture of the day gets back vaguely to the topic of boating. It seems that many boaters have a "thing" about protecting their beautiful teak and holley floors or at least keeping the dirt out. Walk along a dock and you will notice a variety of "No shoes, please" signs, but I thought this one a bit more likely at least to get read if not honored. 

Tomorrow, we are off headed North again. We plan to go a couple of hours to Titusville, but we'll see how we feel about it in the morning. I could reaally get to like this "no agenda/itinerary" stuff.