Spontaneous Florida trip - Part 2: Beach & Fort

Post-launch breakfast was at a Chick-Fil-A in Daytona Beach. Katie got almost her usual breakfast, but then she ate half of my bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit, so I found myself eating half of her breakfast, too. It worked out pretty well. She played on the playground, and we had an all-around good time for breakfast.

Though it can be said that the Atlantic laps at I-95, it was 11 miles to the water from the highway at Daytona Beach, so we went for something a bit closer.

The road to Flagler Beach (from I-95) is beautiful with oak canopies and Spanish moss hanging from nearly every tree. I would have taken a picture from outside the window, but a truck came by and I didn't want to lose my arm!

Katie took some time to warm to the idea of getting her feet wet, but when she did she had a blast.  When a wave came along and lapped at her calves, she darted to shore. She loved it.

For reasons only a young child can understand, Katie thought it would be fun to throw sand into the ocean. She got a shovel full of sand from the dry area, ran to the wet part and waited for a wave to approach. When it did, she cast the sand to sea. It was a rather small shovel, so I was not especially concerned about beach erosion.

We could not go so near Castillo de San Marcos, St. Augustine, Florida, without stopping since there are some stories of me when I was Katie's age from there. (Click for a bigger picture.)

It was at this site where the tour guide asked, "Does anyone know why this place was made of rocks?" I said, "I do!" They put me up on a table (being 4 I wasn't tall enough to see folks), and I proclaimed, "Because rocks don't burn."

On the way out, there was a little girl about my age crying. I walked up to her and explained, "I'm the boy with the magic kisses." I gave her a kiss, and she stopped crying.  (I wish it worked so well on Katie!)

Katie did not have the opportunity to go in to el castillo because it was nap time, so we hurried back to the car and got underway.

Admission has gone up since 1977. The above picture shows 50¢ for adults. Now it's $6.

I did not recall the architecture and other aspects of the city. It is a lovely old city and reminded me of Charleston, SC but with a distinctly Floridian (and Spanish) flare.

We had lunch at the White Lion Restaurant and Pub across the street. It took about three times longer than I'd hoped, but it was delicious. We then ventured over to the historic landmark and got a few pictures but did not linger because it was nap time.

We continued our drive up the coast; Katie napped through Jacksonville while I wished I could take a nap. We had dinner in Hardeeville, South Carolina at a McDonald's. I prefer Chick-Fil-A, but at least we got some fun toys out of the deal. Katie did have a good time on their playground. I think they ought to set up treadmills at such places for the adults to get some energy out, that or make hybrid cars that collect energy and get their "go" command by pedaling like a bicycle.

We stopped at a rest stop in South Carolina where Katie and I ran to the last trash can on the walkway alongside the (then empty) parking spaces. She didn't want to go back to the car. I told her we needed to go back to the car so we could get home. She wanted to go somewhere else besides home. I explained that I was very glad she'd had a good time on the trip, but that we needed to go home and get some real sleep. We did head home, but it took us two more stops. On one, we bought gas and stopped at Wal-Mart to get a cable I hoped would let me play sound from my phone on the car stereo (no such luck), and one more stop on a ramp so I could catch a 20 minute nap and refresh my attention. After all, we got home at 2:30. It took a bit longer for the return trip because we were tired.

Katie was an excellent sport for the trip. When we were tired, I explained to her that we would both have to work extra hard to be nice to each other. She certainly kept up her side of the bargain. She went to the potty without complaining time and again as we pulled off the road for a break. She watched her DVDs in the car and was polite when she asked me to put on another one. She sang songs and told stories when she wasn't watching a show. It was a magnificent trip.

Spontaneous Florida trip - Part 1: Liftoff!

It came to pass that the weather was beautiful for a Shuttle launch and the mission had not been beset by problems. At ten P.M. Saturday night, I decided to take Katie to see the Monday morning Shuttle launch. ROAD TRIP!

We found a quaint little place to watch, contacted the owners, and made arrangements to visit. They were great: in exchange for a donation to the American Cancer Society, they invited people to park in their yard, watch from their yard, AND provided coffee, donuts, and bathroom! What more could a space nut want? They were well prepared for the crowds and the kindest folks I've met. A real pleasure.

Katie made for a great traveler, too. We took a few rest stops but stopped only for one meal on the way down, and we arrived at 12:30 A.M. Monday in preparation for the 6:20 A.M. launch. We parked beside a camper and behind a van. We slept in the Honda CRV SUV. Katie loved that she got to sleep in the "trunk," all wrapped up in her sleeping bag. I just reclined the driver's seat and did the best I could. It took about half an hour to get Katie settled to where she could stop talking, but once asleep, she slept very soundly.

By morning, many more cars had arrived. Occasionally they were so close together we couldn't fit between them - there were many tightly-packed cars in this yard. Despite the number of people, the yard was perfectly arranged so everyone had a great view. People sat in lawn chairs and the topography was just like a theater, so it worked out perfectly.

College buddies Jeff Jackowski and Mike Lewis came up from Jupiter and Melbourne, respectively, to see the launch from the same place. Steve Mustaikis flew in to another launch viewing place, but we didn't get to meet up with him or his son Rigel who is about Katie's age because of logistics woes.

We all got together about 5:00 A.M. and started catching up as friends do when they haven't seen each other for years. Jeff took the above picture a few seconds before launch. It's a long exposure, so things didn't look that bright.

I got Katie up at 5:30 and she got to meet Mike and Jeff. Katie needed to go out with her sandals before she decided it was truly cold enough for her socks and shoes. We also put on her sweater, and she already had her pajama pants on from the night's sleep.

NASA had a camera in the right spot for the photo above, which came next in the story-telling sequence. At 6:20am the Shuttle lit up the night sky.

I took this picture of Katie entirely by Shuttle light. It was plenty bright where we were, 12.3 miles from the pad. This picture was before the sound got to us about 58 seconds after ignition. The sound was fantastic as usual, pretty much just like in IMAX movies, with rumbling and crackling and all. Katie was amazed by the sound, saying, "Daddy, it makes my heart beat." The rumble in her chest was a fantastic experience for her.

The Shuttle appeared to carry the light of the sun with it as it rose into the sky because twilight turned to dawn fairly quickly at the same time as launch. This NASA picture gives a sense of that. Launch was 6:20 and sunrise was 7:30. I was amazed by twilight when I could actually see the horizon instead of having trees or something else obstructing the view. My first assessment of this launch time and daylight was that is was pre-dawn, so it would, in my mind, be a "night launch," though technically it wasn't. In fact, those different sorts of twilight, astronomical and civil, are observable when you can see the horizon! Just before launch time, the sky was mostly black, with a thin strip of purple and blue on the horizon.

I have never seen such colorful smoke formations as from this launch. Jeff captured this picture of a fire-breathing dragon.

After the launch, our car was hemmed in pretty well, and there were rumors of a bad traffic jam on the streets (what with the throngs leaving the coast and going back to wherever they would spend their day). We opted to hang out at the site a little longer.

No visit to Florida would be complete without the plastic pink flamingo lawn ornament experience. Katie took a fascination with this one which was stashed sans legs on the tall greenery at the base of the tree there.

Katie played around Jeff's tripod, and we played hide-and-seek, but by Katie's rules. Katie has some funny rules for that game. In particular, she will tell you to count (counting is very important) and hide, leaving large portions of her body visible to the seeker. Then you switch roles, and she will probably tell you where to hide, quite likely to be where she just hid.