Florida Vacation

We flew to Orlando and drove about an hour east.

Our hotel was in Cocoa Beach (home of the "I Dream of Jeannie" tv series)

Doug and I rested in the hotel, while Jackie & Jonathan went fishing on Cocoa Beach pier.

Our first dinner in town was at Fat Kahunas.
I had the MahiMahi

The next night we ate at Pelican's Bar & Grill on the Cocoa Beach Pier.

We spent the next few days (Friday & Saturday)
exploring the Kennedy Space Center.

We did the Launch Control Center tour on Day 1...where we had access to restricted areas at Kennedy Space Center, including a visit to the Launch Control Center and tour of Firing Room 4 where the last 21 shuttle missions were monitored. View launch pads for SpaceX and NASA before the final stop at Apollo/Saturn V Center.

Firing Room #4

 Rocket Garden

SpaceCrawler
This machine transports the rockets from the Vehicle Assembly Bldg to the Launch Pad.

Doug having a go at landing the space shuttle

Spacex building

Vehicle Assembly Building

The Apollo 1 exhibit, celebrating 50th anniversary (Jan. 27, 2017) marks the 50th anniversary of the first major, deadly disaster for the U.S. space program: the Apollo 1 fire. On Jan. 27, 1967, a fire erupted inside the Apollo command module during a preflight rehearsal test, killing three astronauts who were trapped inside. 

Our tour on Day 2: Lunch with an Astronaut. We enjoyed a chef-prepared buffet lunch and met an actual NASA astronaut. It was a personal presentation by J.O. Creighton, a veteran astronaut. After the presentation it was open for question/answers and photographs.

 J.O. Creighton, piloted three different space shuttle missions.

On Sunday, we drove back to Orlando and dropped off Jackie & Jonathan at their hotel

 so they could explore Disney for a few days. 

We drove on to Tampa and had dinner with our friends Ken & Kim. Kim made some wonderful crab cakes and the conversation was as spirited as always.

Sunday night, we drove further west to Indian Rocks Beach and there we would visit with our Canadian friends Ken & Connie. We had fun catching up and telling them some stories of our Tahiti vacation. They served BBQ ribs and we watched the Super Bowl.

Monday the four of us went to Tarpon Springs (45 minutes north of St Petersburg) for the day. Tarpon Springs, Florida is known as the Sponge Capitol of the World. We saw several boats coming in and washing their sponges and hanging them to dry.

We did some shopping and ate a wonderful seafood restaurant - Rusty Bellies.

Back home on Tuesday morning.