What a day what a day what a day, this is long, but quite a bit to relate. Got up early this morning, and watched the sunrise. We were planning to go Kennedy Space Center or as it’s called again now Cape Canaveral. (today I actually learned the real distinction between the two) We headed out and drove Rt. 3 North into the visitor’s center. Let me preface all this with, I had a great time, but I am appalled at how poorly run/managed the Space Center Visitors Center is. Please don’t think I am negative about the Space Center experience, but given 6 months as manager, I could improve the operation by 600%. We arrived and got in line to pay for our admission. Of about 16 or 18 possible booths only about 8 were open. The lines were fairly short but extremely slow moving due to the complexity of the purchase transaction at the window. I was also not real impressed with the price--$38.00 per person general admission and $59.00 if you took one of the special tours. We decided we wanted to take the special tour, and had a coupon for $3.50 off each, so we went for it. I figured, we might not be back any time soon. As it turns out it was worth it. But then in the meantime, you had to go through a rough parody of airport security. What another circus. NASA could certainly learn a few things from TSA. Of course they are both government agencies—who would ever expect them to talk to each other. We finally got inside, and jumped on the 11:30 showing of the #1 IMAX movie. All sounds pretty good to here, but reality of it is getting everyone seated in the IMAX Theater was akin to the confusion of buying the admission tickets. They could have opened the doors on both sides, and filled the theater quickly and efficiently. But, they insisted on having an entrance and exit side, and yelling steadily at everyone to move all the way to the right to make room. Well the folks that got there early and got the good center seats were not about to move to the right, so they promptly ignored the yelling lady, and so all the late arrivals ended up crawling over seat backs to get to the seats on the right side of the theater. Finally everyone managed to struggle to a seat, and the movie was great and very inspirational. This one was made by Tom Hanks, and was so incredible. The movie finished up about 12:15 and we needed to get something to eat prior to the next 1:00 movie. We went directly across to the food court, and once again, confusion reigned. They had three lines, one for burgers and stuff, one for Italian stuff, and one for the salad and wrap carousel. (which was a pretty interesting idea, it continually rotated at they kept stocking it with salads, wraps and stuff behind the wall) Only problem with all this was 1 they didn’t have enough trays. 2. All the lines backed up and blocked the check out lines. 3. The lines crossed over and blocked each other 4. The lines blocked the drink stations 5. You could walk out past the cashiers without paying if you we re dishonest (or tired of waiting) cause they were so covered up by the intersecting lines they didn’t have any idea who paid and who didn’t. Vickie and I got 2 pretty good-looking salads (not real large) and 2 medium size drinks. The bill was $24.17. But then a hot dog was $7.99. We stuffed down our lunch (which was quite good) and then went through the same circus filling the second IMAX Theater. We got out of the second movie in time to check out the Missile Garden of old space missiles. Soon it was time and we headed over to the bus loading area. Once again we stood in line waiting on our particular bus for the special tour. Boy were we ever in luck. As it turned out the shuttle is due to launch on March 15, and was just rolled out to the launch pad this week before we got there. We got to see everything as the tour says "Up close and personal". Our guide was very knowledgeable, and the expanded tour is definitely worth the money over the standard tour. Also, since Cape Canaver al is a 250 square mile nature preserve, we got to see all kinds of water birds, wild boars, alligators, and several bald eagles. The eagles were worth the trip alone. One of them was sitting on a light pole, and when the bus came by started zooming and swooping all around the bus. Guide said it was probably just showing off. All this space stuff is unbelievable when you see it in the flesh, so huge and larger than life. Make the trip sometime if you haven’t, you won’t be disappointed. The tour concluded with dumping us off at the Saturn V building. The Saturn V building holds a full scale moon rocket that was never used, not a model or mock up—the real thing. It is so big as to be incomprehensible. They also have the real original mission control room, just as it was during the last moon flight. Looking at all this (60’s) technology, it is staggering to think that men got in that stuff, and flew to the moon. The guide said the first Apollo computers had less memory than a hand hel d calculator today. I’m a believer. The astronauts are all VERY brave people. Another interesting thing, they are in the final construction stages of a Disney World type shuttle flight simulator, which will hold 45 people at a time. They used astronauts that had actually flown on the shuttle as consultants, and the guide told me, they (the astronauts) said, they had really nailed the experience. Of course, given our experience with the whole Visitors Center thingy, you’ll have to stand in line for 3 hrs to get in, and then crawl over the seat backs to get into it. After visiting the Visitors Center, you have to wonder how NASA ever manages to launch anything. Hopefully the guy running the Visitors Center is not in charge of anything else. We were quite late getting out of Kennedy---oh yea, the distinction. Cape Canaveral Air Force Base (which still exists) was the site of all the manned launches up till Apollo 3. All manned launches after that moved to Kennedy Space Center, which i s on Cape Canaveral (the landmass). (confused yet?) Then recently the Government decided to change the name back to Cape Canaveral Space Center, but they have not changed the signage or anything else. But then it’s the Government, so who would expect anything less. As I said, we were late getting out of there, it is really a full day if you see a lot—2 if you see everything. So we jumped on I95, and I defended my turf in the fast lane at 85 mph for about 60 miles. We got to Vero Beach, crashed at a Best Western, and walked across 4-lane Rt. 60 to the IHOP for dinner. Will see our friends in Vero Beach in the morning, and then head south on A1A.
Wes & Vickie
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