Full-time RVers talk about “chasing 70” — 70 degree weather, that is. We finally caught it in Cape Canaveral. After days of chilly, rainy weather, we arrived at the Cape on Friday to a balmy 77 degrees.
That warmth was short-lasting. The next three days were downright chilly and windy, putting a damper on many of our outdoor plans.
We stayed at the Jetty Park Campground, right next door to the Port Canaveral cruise ship terminal. Our spot bordered the waterway where the massive cruise ships started their journey. It was impressive to see these huge ocean-going vessels at a distance of less than 100 feet.
Saturday morning was cold and windy, but with no rain, so we decided to visit the Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge. It’s on the other side of the Kennedy Space Center, so maybe just a few miles as the crow flies, but a drive time of about a half hour.
The refuge has a number of short hikes, and we dutifully hit the first two, but they had little payoff. The prime attraction here is a 7-mile wildlife drive. As we inched along a causeway built through the wetlands, we saw dozens of different bird species including a flock of pink-hued Roseate Spoonbills, various egrets, ibises and anhingas, and a large Great Blue Heron. With all due respect to Sesame Street, this is the original big bird!
Other than an alligator, we saw no other animals. But it was midday and the best time for seeing critters is just after dawn or just before dusk. By late afternoon, the rain had picked up again, so we hit a few stores and headed back to our RV.
The Jetty Park Campground is also prime location for seeing rocket launches, and Space-X was scheduled to launch a Falcon-9 rocket carrying 23 Starlink satellites on Friday night. But as we gathered outside for the launch, we got word that the launch had been scrubbed, rescheduled for the following night. There was another rocket due to launch after midnight, but we weren’t going to stay up that late.
We had plans on Sunday to go paddling in the mangrove tunnels on the Banana River. But we woke to another cold, windy, rainy day and decided against it. Instead we drove into Cape Canaveral to the Manatee Sanctuary Park. During the warmer months, it’s a great place to spot manatees but when the water gets cold, the gentle sea giants tend to head inland to natural springs which emit warmer water. The park wasn’t a complete waste as the ponds there were home to several large turtles.
We planned to spend the rest of the day in downtown Cocoa Beach. We stopped at the Cocoa Beach Pier, which jets out 800 feet into the ocean, and features a number of small shops and restaurants. Despite the cold weather, there were people on the beach. A foursome of girls playing volleyball in their bikinis, others bundled up on the sand. Nobody seems to be going into the water, save for few kids. You just can’t keep kids out of the water no matter how cold it is.
We drove from the pier to the historic downtown section. It was a bit of a disappointment. There’s lots of bars and restaurants, and I imagine on a warm sunny day, the place would be hopping. But on this day, it was dark and dreary.
We returned to our RV to take an afternoon nap. We are, after all, retired.
The extra rest came in handy as the Space-X launch had been rescheduled for that evening. After dinner, we set up a couple of folding chairs in front of the water and watched the countdown on the company’s twitter feed.
I’ve never seen a rocket launch in person, and getting to see one at night was truly an amazing experience. From across the water, we first saw a bright flash of light on ignition, and then followed the thin line of the rocket as it arched through the night sky, disappearing behind clouds and then reappearing again. It was over in about 30 seconds but a very cool experience.
I followed up the rocket launch with a visit to the Kennedy Space Center. Mrs. 123 wasn’t as interested and with the high cost of admission ($90 for adults!) she decided to stay home. I got a bit of a discounted ticket through Groupon, but planned for a full day to get my money’s worth.
The visitor’s complex at the space center is a bit like a Disney theme park based on science and engineering. It’s very well done and worth the visit if you’re even remotely interested in space.
I started with the bus tour that takes you through the working portion of the space center, including the massive vehicle assembly building where they put together the rockets. It’s really hard to comprehend how big that building is, and even from a few hundred feet away, your mind can’t really process the size.
Many buildings at the space center are being leased by private companies, including SpaceX and Boeing. The bus tour drops you off at a building showcasing the Apollo space program, including an actual Saturn 5 rocket suspended horizontally, the length of a football field. The center shows videos that give you a sense for how risky space exploration was in the 60s, and how much of a crap shoot the moon landing was. If it wasn’t for Neil Armstrong taking control of the lunar lander and finding a place to land as their fuel was running out, the story would have turned tragic.
The bus tour drops you off in front of the space shuttle complex, which highlights the space program that I can remember from my youth. You enter into a large room with a movie screen on one end, showing the story of how the space shuttle was first envisioned and the challenges it took to get to launch it 12 years later. At the end of the 6-minute video, the screen rises to a grand reveal: The actual Atlantis space shuttle. Outfitted with the Canadarm, it’s displayed at an angle of 43.21. Apparently, that’s a space engineer joke: 4, 3, 2,1, liftoff.
Other than seeing an actual space shuttle orbiter, the highlight of the center is the Space Shuttle simulator. It’s supposed to provide a feeling of what it’s like to launch in the space shuttle, and astronauts who have flown on the shuttle say it’s more realistic that than simulators on which they trained.
It starts by tilting you back until you’re lying in your seat facing upwards, and then the rumble starts and you feel the entire simulator shake. The narration is excellent and you get a good understanding of why the vibrations and noise change during various portions of the launch.
There’s a small room that holds a tribute to the astronauts who died in the Challenger and Columbia explosions. Each hero is memorialized with a photo and some personal artifacts. It was notable to see how many displays included boy scout or cub scout uniforms. One astronaut’s memorial including a pair of Asolo hiking boots. I had owned the exact same pair.
There’s no shortage of interactive displays that help you understand what it takes to work in space. And you could probably spend two days there without seeing all there is to see.
I finished the day with an excellent IMAX movie about the Webb space telescope and its early discoveries. I would have liked to learn more about the Artemis mission that plans a return to the moon in the coming decade. Of note, the Atlantis space shuttle was displayed with a mock-up of its engines, as the originals are being repurposed for the Artemis mission.
Cape Canaveral ended up being cold and rainy while we were there, but there was enough to capture our interest nonetheless. We depart on Tuesday, headed for the Everglades.
Days: 10
Miles traveled: 1477
Next stop: Everglades National Park
