Cocoa Beach, FL

I’ve had a couple of emails to tell me to get busy with the posts.

1/17/12 - 1/21/12
Cocoa Beach, Patrick AFB, just a few miles south of Cape Canaveral.  This is one of those places that don’t take reservations, they will always fit you in somewhere dry camping.  The rule is first in, first out.  Which means you go on a list and you move from dry camp to partial hook ups (water/electric) and then to full hookups.  We opted to stay in dry camp, it’s really no big deal, they have potable water and a dump and we have our solar and a generator.

This area is quite the place for tourists, I guess all of Florida is that way.  We cruised through town, stopped at the famous “Ron Jon Surf Shop”, the place is enormous I have never seen so many shirts, sandals and string bikinis.   Not sure why people would want to surf here they only have a few little dinky waves.  It would even be difficult to body surf here but there are surf shops and surf lessons everywhere. Joe ended up with a shirt and I got a new pair of flip-flops.

We spent a day at the Kennedy Space Center and had excellent tours.  We also saw a 3D movie of the Hubble.  The Hubble 3D movie is in various parts of the country. Go See It, You'll like it.

 
This machine carries the shuttle out to the launch pad. Notice the cleats, each one is 2,000 lbs. They even have a special road made of special crushed rock. The crushed rock will not spark. I don't remember where this special rock came from, but is it rare. You can see how big it is by looking at the chain link fencs

Part of the special road, the machine straddles the grass. This road goes all the way out to the launch pad, which takes several days to go about 1 mile.

Each of the Space Shuttles have a patch just for that particular one.  Our last name is Conrad, for those of you not aware of it.  Joe was able to locate the patch for Astronaut Conrad and of course we purchased it.  No relation that he know of but you never can tell.

actual control room of Apollo shuttle 

The land around the Kennedy Space center is a wildlife preserve

here we say our first alligator

The best part of the Kennedy Space Center is that they had FREE temperature controlled kennels for dogs, our little Buddy, at 81/2 years has never been in a kennel.

The kennels were very clean and because they were not busy Buddy got a double.  They also had stainless steel bowls for water and little treats.  You are allowed back in the kennel as often you want to check on him and  take him out for a walk.

While here there was a launch of a Delta rocket. It was small but still exciting to see. 

On to our next stop, Safe travels to all


Nancy & Joe