Saturday, February 11, 2023

ROCKET TIME

Did a puzzle of a picture of a cat in space.
On Jan 9th stayed up to watch Artemis go up. The moon was full.
It was rather cloudy so all we saw was the dot of light.
Another rocket launch on Jan 13th

and another on the 18th

 I never get tired of watching the rocket launches, but I miss quite a few.  For our 20th anniversary we decided to go to the Kennedy Space Center. We  haven't been there for at least 10 years.

We arrived about noon at the visitor center. The first thing we did was get on a bus to take a tour.


You can see this building miles away. It is the tallest single story building in the world.


We drove around the building learning many interesting things. The doors on the left are so big it takes them 45 minutes to be opened. If you touch the picture and enlarge it, at the bottom of the little white column are the doors for people to go in.
We then stopped at the Apollo building.
The control center for the flights. They showed a film about the race to the moon and then what it was like in this room when the first rocket with astronauts took off for the moon.


After that room we went into a long building. This gentlemen told us all about the Apollo rocket. This was a rocket that was built to be sent into space but the program stopped before it went up.
He explained all the different stages.
It is very long.

The little white cone in the front is where the astronauts were and what came back to earth.


We walked on the moon.
Larry touching a moon rock.


The lunar roving vehicle. It was taken to the moon on Apollo 15,16, and 17. This one is full scale,  built for display purpose from surplus parts.
The tires were a metal mesh for the surface of the moon would have melted rubber tires. 
One of the Apollo capsule that the recovered.
Alan Shepard Apollo 14 vehicular suit. It is covered in moon dust.
Alan Bean went to the moon and in 1997 he came back and painted this mural.



Our bus tour then returned us to the visitor center and we went to Atlantis bulding.
Today and the future.



Large enough to hold a crew of four along with cargo to the moon and eventually Mars.




Cargo Dragon was the first commercial spacecraft to deliver cargo to and from the International Space Station on May 2012.

We left Kennedy space center and went to Titusville to Pier 220 for our anniversary meal.



A nice view from our table.
Roses for every year.
February  6 we watched another night launch from our back yard. 

Again there was a full moon and the sky was clear.

Wednesday, January 4, 2023

SUN OUTDOORS

We took the RV over to Sarasota to Sun Outdoors on December 26. The weather had turned really cold at Christmas with lows in the 30's. If we hadn't had reservations we may not have gone.
 
It is a very large resort and the first place we were parked the people were seasonal and very friendly. But we had to get help and extra hose to connect to water and then the electric didn't work. We either were moving to a better site or leaving. They moved us over to here to this nice paved site. We were only here for three days.


Bob gave me a puzzle for Christmas. It was 4 little puzzles of cats. Good size for the RV.

I never did a puzzle before that I ended up with extra duplicate pieces.  On Monday evening and Tuesday we stayed warm doing puzzles and watching videos we had gotten from the library. We did walk around the park for some exercise. If you were staying here for a while there was plenty to do. There is an inside pool and outside pool and water slide. ( never thought about a swim suit) lots of pickleball courts, lawn bowling, shuffle board, disc golf, wood working and stain glass shops.
Wednesday we went downtown Sarasota and took the Bay Runner trolley to the beach. We weren't sure how to dress but the sun made it warm. 
I could have dressed cooler. 
We walked along the beach and Larry felt sure we could just walk back to the road and get the trolley.
Yes,  we took a path, the shade felt good.
Eventually we would come to the road and homes.
One block more and we were right at St. Armands Key where the shops are and a trolley stop. We had some ice cream, found the trolley stop and went back and had a late lunch at O'Leary's

 On the way back to the campground we stopped at Yoder's in Pinecraft. I thought they might have some dried beef but they didn't. They don't use horse and wagons, but large three wheel bikes to get around. 

Thursday morning we left and  back at the house by noon. Gas was $3.09 at WaWa when we  filled up.