To Infinity!

It's been a pretty fun weekend for us.  On Friday, Geoff had off and my day was really slow, so we decided to go up to the Space Center.  Annual Passes were only $5 more than the normal ticket, so we're now members of the "Commander's Club."  Something Geoff is really excited about!

Inside the Saturn V building

As a tip, if you're a family planning on coming down, it might be a great idea for one member of the group to get an Annual Pass.  With it, you can buy regular tickets and get $10 off.  It also gives you a 20% discount off food and 10% off merchandise at "The Space Shop."



We then did the Up-Close Tour ($25 for adults.)  The tour took us through some of the normal sites, but one of the things Geoff was really keen on seeing was the VAB (Vehicle Assembly Building.)  The VAB is where they put together the shuttles/rockets.  It's 525 feet high, and it's a single story building.  Geoff was telling me that it's so large that it can actually rain inside the building!  While inside, we heard a woman talk who was a quilter and came to work at NASA to hand-sew the thermal blankets that were used on the shuttles.  Pretty neat!

Inside the VAB

Looking up

NASA Airstream Trailer

Inside the VAB, a door

Looking up outside

VAB from outside

Because there was a rocket launch later that day, we weren't able to do one stop on the tour, so they took us to site 39, which is something you can do normally.  From there you can see the different launch sites.

Geoff and overlooking launch sites

Rocket engine in the center of the viewing platform

View from bottom

The tour ended at the Saturn V complex.  We watched a video about the birth of the Space program and another in the control room of the first mission to the Moon.

Mission Control

All in all, it was a neat day.  We didn't explore too much more than what was on the tour as we had a Vet appointment for our little Bandit.  Which was another reason we got the Annual Passes.  Now we're able to head back up anytime we want!  We're looking forward to sharing the experience with people as they come to visit.

On Saturday, we went back up to Cape Canaveral and found a place for lunch that overlooks where the Cruise Ships pass as they leave.  The restaurant is called Seafood Atlantic and it was SO GOOD!

Grouper Fish Sandwich

Geoff and I both got the fish sandwiches.  Mine was with Grouper and his with Mahi.  Everything was super fresh.  They also have a counter where you can buy fresh fish to take home, so we got some Grouper that I'll be cooking for tonight's dinner.  They also took the skin off for me, which was awesome.  It's definitely somewhere we'll return to and I would recommend checking it out!

Finally, today I checked out a new church in the area.  It's the closest ELCA church to our new house, but I wasn't totally feeling it.  I'll be checking out a few more before I put down roots.  I think what will be a difficult transition for me is to start going to a large church.  I really miss Immanuel, it's such a small intimate church that I know it's going to be hard to find a church like it.  I just need a little time to warm up to the idea of a large church I suppose.

Oh, and all weekend long there's been a huge concert going on at Wickham Park.  It's Runaway Country and we've been able to hear it from our apartment.  Glad I decided not to buy tickets!!