Monday - Homosassa Spring State Park

Today we drove over to Homosassa Spring State Park to see the wildlife refuge, so that we ould make sure that we ha seen all the Florida animals. We saw Florida Panther, Bobcat and Black Bear, which we had missed in the wild. We saw a much clearer view of the Manatee as they were being fed in the beautifully clear water of the spring fed river, Ron and Carol also watched the Manatee from the underwater viewing area. The Ranger giving the talk this time was much clearer and the Manatee were much more responsive.

We also went to the animal encounter and all touched a Virginia Opossum and a large Indigo Snake.

Returned home weary but had a steak BBQ, which we ate outside, with a campfire, but had to come in sharply when we had a quick shower of rain. It is now much cooler, Sally had to put on a cardigan briefly. I don't know if that is good or bad.

Sunday Move to Lake Griffin State Park

Up bright and early today to pack up and move on to Lake Griffin, a campground that Sally and I had been to before and very much enjoyed. The journey went very smoothly and we set up in plenty of time to relax, walk around the park, shop, to sit out, have a BBQ, a campfire and a sing around. We even had time to phone the kids!! Who all seem to be well (poor Emma has an upset stomach though).

Saturday - KS Day 2

We have just spent an excellent day at the KSC, this time we concentrated on the Shuttle and the Imax cinema. We had a tour round a full scale model of the shuttle and it is surprisingly large inside. The Imax cinema showed 2 3D films, one about building the space station and the other about what people did on the moon. It was very realistic. Carl and Ron went to meet a shuttle astronaut, we had a cup of tea.

The weather was pleasantly warm, so in the evening we had a beefburger BBQ and a sing around, before retiring to bed in preparation for our move on tomorrow.

Kennedy Space Center

Today we all visited the Kennedy Space Center, we decided to take the Up Close tour, which takes you past the launch pads (sadly no shuttle on them), but it was really interesting (Sally said that as well as me). This tour finished at the Saturn V Building, where they have one of the few remaining Saturn V rockets laid out and displayed in its own building. It was fascinating to see the history of the lunar landings come back to life. We were also able to touch a piece of moon rock.

We are retuning on Saturday to see the rest of the Space Center. Hope that it is as good.

Getting a view on Dropshots

I have now uploaded a few of our pictures onto my dropshots account
www.dropshots.com/terryfy

On Safari Again

Today we wanted to see more of the Titusville area to the North. Our first stop was at the Prichard House – a famous local landmark. To us it looked remarkably like the house on the hill from Psycho.

Moving on from there we called in at the Merrit Island Wildlife Refuge Park, which surrounds the Kennedy Space Centre. While we were there we went to the Mannatee Obervation Deck, where we had a good view of up to four manatee swimming in a channel which linked 2 lakes. While we were there a pod of dolphins swam up the channel. Then Ron spotted a racoon foraging near the waters edge on the far bank of the channel. When we left there we followed the backwoods trail (another word for rough road) along the Inlet shore line, looking for alligators and wading birds. The trail was about 5 miles long and for about 4½ miles we saw nothing much of interest apart from Osprey hunting for fish in the inlet, we must have seen about 6 – 8 pairs as we drove along. Circling slowly, hovering and then plummeting down to grasp a fish in their talons – very impressive sight. Eventually Carol spotted our first alligator, floating with just the top of its head out of the water. After that Ron spotted a large alligator basking in the sun about 20 feet away from us. This was followed by seeing a huge alligator sunning itself. In all we saw 5 alligators up close. We also saw a number of waterbirds, ibis, glossy ibis, little and large herons, a wood stork and egrets. On the roadside we saw several hawks, which we have identified as Roadside Hawks.

We were also hoping to see Roseate Spoonbill. We had a casual conversation with a lady in a car coming the other way. When we mentioned this she, somewhat condescendingly said something like “Oh you poor dullwitted foreigner. My dear boy, its far too early for Spoonbills”. 100 yards after she passed us Carol spotted a Roseate Spoonbill flying by (yes I have the photo evidence to prove it). This was a very enjoyable day, although a bit long and tiring.

Tuesday - Discovery is Launched

Well we have seen it. This morning we went down to the water side with our chairs and binoculars and cameras and settled down to watch the shuttle Discovery take off at 11.38 a.m. A number of people had radios, so we could to listen to live broadcasts. The launch was a very impressive sight. You needed binoculars to see it properly, but I managed a couple of pictures. The only problem we had was that there are 2 shuttles on launch pads, one obvious, the other hidden by trees, so of course we were almost all watching the wrong shuttle, still we realised the mistake in time to see it lift off.

If Sally feels well enough we plan to tour the space centre this week. In the afternoon we went to Cocoa and Cocoa Beach to do some sightseeing. (Me, Carol and Ron, John and Anne), then we had a BBQ in the evening. A very pleasant day.

Move up the Coast to Titusville

Sunday

We packed up and headed north to Titusville in preparation for the shuttle launch. We have camped in Manatee Hammock Campground right on the edge of the Indian River and directly across the water from the Shuttle launch, only about 10 miles away. Sally is not feeling very well and has found the journey difficult. Amazingly and quite by coincidence an English couple, John and Anne, who Carol and Ron had met at Tampa East RV were again camped right by us.

Monday

Washing Day

Today we intended to relax and recover, but we also did a laundry wash, which was quite exhausting as it is still warmer than it should be for the time of year. I don’t know whether to complain or not!

Saturday night out at The Log Cabin

Sandy and Don, a very nice ouple that we had met originally in April at the bluegrass weekend and who first introdued us tothe Log Cabin, came over to our campsite in the afternoon and after a BBQ we drove down to the Log Cabin for an evening of Gospel Bluegrass Jamming. Once again we were all made to feel really welcome and had a great time. Some people remembered us from our previous visit in April. Half way through the evening the pastor welcomed us and congratulated us on our wedding anniversary (34th) and Ron and Carol for their Ruby wedding anniversary. They all sang ‘Happy Anniversary to the tune of happy birthday.
It was quite a special evening.

Friday

We hit the beach again today, this time to swim. On the way we stopped to say ‘Hi’ to our favourite local alligator. We went to a local beach where there were real life lifeguards and real life beach babes. The sun was hot and the sea was warm and quite rough, (we are on the Atlantic coast, not the Gulf Coast) so we found it quite tiring and came home for a nap, as we were eating out in the evening. Sally and Carol went and did an Auto Tour of the State Park, where you get a cassette with a tour guide giving information as you drive round the park, they enjoyed this a lot.
We had asked the local rangers for a good place to eat, the consensus seemed to be that ‘Harry and The Natives’ was The Place to eat, so off we went. There was a fabulous sky, it had been building all afternoon. Half the sky (inland) was filled with a huge thunder cloud, while the other half (coast side) was still blue and clear. The cloud was slowly moving towards the coast, against the wind. It filled the sky, not because it was over us, but because it went so high. We could see lightning in the distance. We had a lovely meal at Harry and the Natives. It seemed to be a bit of a local institution, it had been there since about the fifties, run by Harry’s Mum (who still worked there part time, at 93). It had been a café, a motel a gas station and then back to a restaurant, all under the same ownership. The food was good as well. Carol and Ron had a Philly Steak Sandwich each, with salad as a ‘side’, (which always comes before, not along side), Which Carol says was more like a meal for six, Sally had a chicken breast coated with bourbon sauce and crushed pecan nuts, while I had a Prime rib beef. While we were eating the storm broke and the heavens opened.
The puds were not so good, still you can’t have everything (why not?). We had to wait for the rain to slow before we could get back to our car, which would have meant walking about 10 feet in the open, we would have been soaked.
We came back and watched the John Candy film ‘The Great Outdoors’ which I had found when we were in Wal-Mart. We all found it very funny, especially after our experiences with Racoons.