To NASA and beyond! We showed up to the Kennedy Space Center in the midmorning (Lisette had to get some work done first). There were plenty of spaces for us to park and we were right near the entrance. Similar to when we'd visited the Space Center in Houston, there are multiple ticket options depending on the experience (and add ons) you want to have. We got the cheapest, general admission ticket (which was already about $83); the add ons include going behind the scenes on an experience tour, meeting an astronaut, etc.
Lift Off and Bark Off
Compared to the Space Center in Houston which goes into one building and then splinters into different areas, as well as some outdoor areas, the Kennedy Space Center had us walking outside, and choosing which building to visit first. There are multiple towering rockets already displayed as we entered in the Rocket Garden, looking almost poised to launch, which was cool! We ended up going first to an exhibit that was focused on the various expeditions to Mars, which had a red tone to it in recognition of Mars being the Red Planet.
After this, we wandered into the IMAX building that shows several movies everyday. The movie we were going to see was "Deep Sky", which includes images captured by NASA's Webb Telescope, such as cosmic landscapes, exoplanets, and planets around other stars. As we got comfortable towards the front of the cinema as the movie started to play, we noticed that there was another lady in front of us that had her service dog in her lap. The dog turned to look at Sheila, and Sheila must have felt threatened because she barked loudly, making everyone jump! We were embarrassed and left quickly and immediately. Oh Sheila!
Right next door was the building for the Space Shuttle Atlantis, where we joined a very rowdy group of children on a field trip. It had seemed pretty empty up until this point, but with all of these kids screaming and running around us, it seems we'd joined where the majority of people were visiting at the moment! Eventually the exhibition opened and we walked on to watch a brief video about the space shuttle, before a portal opened up and we went through it to see the different launch pads and interactive exhibits to learn more about the space shuttle. We passed the kids who were still playing with the different displays, which led us down a fun slide (we took turns down it, because why not also have some play time?), landing on the ground floor.
One of the highlights for us was a simulator of being on a space shuttle! Since the simulator does shake from side to side as you launch outside of the Earth's atmosphere into space, we took turns going on it while the other person minded Sheila, watching the person in the simulator in a separate room with a screen. It was so much fun to strap in, look at the video simulating takeoff, and pretending that we were rocketing into space!
Let's Go Outside
There's a portion of the Kennedy Space Center that's outside, so we hopped on a bus that took us past the NASA campus, the working spaceflight facility where the US has launched to the moon, and every space shuttle went into orbit. It's definitely not an area we could have walked to from the rest of the buildings, as it's a decent drive and we ended up on some shared roads, passing by some swampy land where we saw alligators, birds and other wildlife just hanging out by the side of the road!
We stopped at the Apollo/Saturn V Center, where we could spend as much time as we liked learning about the Saturn V, the longest rocket ever flown (and we've now seen all 3 of these that are in existence--in Houston, Huntsville and now here!). At this point we were starving so we got some french fries before touring the area for a bit longer to check out the various space artifacts, before heading back to the main building area as Lisette had to leave early to hop on a work call, taking Sheila with her. Michael decided to stick around for a bit longer to watch the IMAX movie in full, before the Kennedy Space Center closed for the day.
A Couple of Firsts
While we were at the Kennedy Space Center we'd been told that there would be a rocket launch today from SpaceX, and while we wouldn't have front row seats to see it, we would definitely be close enough to look up at the sky to spot it! We parked at a Cracker Barrel and had the live stream on to catch it, but it seemed to be delayed as nothing was happening. But it turned out that the stream was stuck on our computer, so we hopped out of the RV with just enough time to see it soaring high in the night sky. Since there was so much light pollution around us from the restaurant, cars, and highway, we didn't perhaps get the best view of it, but it was awesome to see a rocket launch in Florida nonetheless! Either the people around us didn't know about the launch or didn't care (these happen a lot), so we were the only ones in the lot that were looking up--everyone else was focused on getting in and out of the restaurant!
We've stayed now in a ton of Cracker Barrel restaurants for the night, so we finally decided to dine here for the first time. The menu reminds us a bit of an American "Black Stump" restaurant--Black Stump in Australia was a popular chain in the 1980s and early 1990s; growing up it'd be the place to go to get a decently priced family meal (known for their steaks). Cracker Barrel is like the Southern cooking version of this! We had a meal and a couple of sides and while it was like your standard, home cooking fare, it wasn't something we'd be writing home about--the mains were decent, but our sides (like the green beans), tasted like they'd come out of a tinned can.
Tomorrow we'll be going to Orlando, and while we'd initially thought we'd go to Disney World and hit up the theme parks, the price tag was rather eye-watering this time around... maybe next time! Fortunately we've been to a couple of Orlando's theme parks before, so we'll visit some of the surrounding attractions.