The Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral
Trip Start
Jan 18, 2006
1
42
100
Trip End
Dec 2006
Fort Lauderdale to Titusville,
Florida,
United States
Tuesday, June 6, 2006
Walking from the petrol-station-come-Greyhound-station, we stretched our legs hoping to get a cheap stay for two nights. After a mooch around we arrived at a crappy looking place, which sadly seemed the best of a bad bunch.
While I walked into the office to get a price, Chris stayed outside with the backpacks and the following introduction was to be our best experience of generosity since St Augustine.
Chris was standing outside on the road, looking good with his tanned legs (so he claimed!) and the England patch on his packed caught the sight of an English guy driving past
The Kennedy Space Center 10
.The chap was called Gary and he stopped, not as Chris claimed "to tell him his legs looked good!", but to tell Chris that this end of town was the 'bad' area and not to stay here.
As I walked back to Chris, Gary told us that he was going to pick up some building supplies at the other end of town and could give us a lift. Remembering we were no longer in South America and that we could start to trust some people, we jumped in.
That was the start of a great relationship .. and some FREE lifts that are always important to us poor backpackers!
Gary took us to a great Bed and Breakfast and despite the price, we decided to stay at for two nights... we both thought it would be a nice treat for us both.
The bed and breakfast turned out to be a huge house filled to the brim with antiques and mad collector items ... with FREE (have you guessed we love anything that is FREE!!) beer, wine and soft drinks in a complimentary fridge... after our first five beverages each and after trying the massage chair and using the FREE internet, we knew we would have a great stay.
Realising the next morning that there was no public transport that went anywhere near the Space Centre we phoned Gary who had mentioned he had a friend who had a taxi company
The Kennedy Space Center 11
.As Chris was trying to get Gary's friends number, he proceeded to tell us that he would come and pick us up, as he was going that way today! What a great bloke!!
Within a hour, Gary's massive open-backed truck rolled into the driveway at the B&B and we were headed to the Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral. Once at the entrance we thanked Gary for what would be the last time and waved him off... a real gentleman indeed!
We planned to spend a full day at KSC and we weren't disappointed with our investment of $55 each. Armed with our badges and stickers to denote which group we belonged to, we began exploring!
Our day was excellent and considering that we aren't space tech geeks and that neither of use wear glasses, we generally kept up with the technical side of things and to be fair, Chris only fell asleep once to my knowledge!
We took our bus ride with all the other (mostly American) pilgrims and we were entertained by a former military man, who treated us all like we were about five years old... much to the delight of the Americans on the bus, but much to the annoyance of Chris and I...
"so guys... see that big platform over there... d'ya see it... yeah... well that is where those brave spacemen take off to our Space Station in space..
The Kennedy Space Center 3
. isn't that great folks... i sure think so.... (big smile)... would you like to go and see it.... would ya... yeah... lets do it... that'd sure be swell wouldn't it...!!After about an hour of that Chris was cautioned by a NASA official for trying to insert a miniature space shuttle into a painful area of our host... and so having already seen the launch sites and numerous large "important" buildings we hot footed it to see some actual space crafts and Imax films.
At the main center we watched the films... one narrated by Tom Hanks, the other by Brad Pitt and both were very good, made all the better with the 3D glasses that enable the pictures to literally jump off the screen and touch you.
The films made space exploration really come alive in a way that looking at imitation pods and gift shop space food never could. In 3D we were given a walk around the space station that is presently being built (they reluctantly mentioned that it is not just an American project, but many countries including Britain are contributing) and a mission to Mars gave us an indication of what NASA expect to achieve by visiting the red planet within the next decade.
Our day went very fast indeed and after getting our photos of large rockets and imitation space shuttles we were contemplating exactly how we were going to make it back to Titusville a clear 15 miles from KSC... this would need a cunning plan said Chris... the question was did he have one?
After sitting outside for a while, we had crossed off the following ideas for getting a lift; hiding in the back of a truck, collapsing in front of a moving car, faking an injury, hijacking a vehicle and standing at the side of the road and showing some thigh..
The Kennedy Space Center 4
. Chris not me!!Eventually Chris took the bull by the horns and asked an old couple for a lift... he came up with a fake story about us being stood up by some friends and obviously put on the worst fake British accent possible!
It worked!! and the old couple in question buckled under Chris's hard sell and despite the fact that they clearly didn't want to give the lift, they were pleasant enough and returned our pathetic attempt at conversation.
This blag got us halfway home and to the Astronaught Hall of Fame. Rather a boring addition to the KSC, but one that did come with a few rides and we were entertained by a virtual reality ride in space... something that shook Chris up far more than the prospect of asking for a lift from a total stranger!
After our virtual ride in space we again managed to blag a lift back to Titusville... this time from a really nice guy that was visiting his father in the town and so our attempt to get to the Kennedy Space Center and back for free was successful!!! Something that also saved us enough money to justify the luxury of the B&B so we were very pleased with ourselves!!
We finished our space-related day with a free booze up at the B&B... we did get pissed by we didn't take advantage too much... lets face it, after six months of not going out on the razzle in England we get drunk very easily!!
Happy boozing all you "bar flies" out there!
