Kennedy Space Center

Wednesday morning we went to Kennedy Space Center. I have some friends that live in Titusville, FL and work at Kennedy so they were able to get all of us in for free. When we got there, they also told us that we were going to be eating lunch with an Astronaut! How cool right?! Since lunch wasn't until noon, we walked around a little bit and rode a simulator ride. The simulator was the stimulation of a space shuttle taking off. It was rough! It was like in a car with no shocks going over thousands of bumps! But it was an amazing experience to feel!

After the ride, we went into an area with a bunch of interesting facts about space and space shuttles, plus they had information on the Rover Curiosity that just landed on Mars. One cool thing about that, my father-in-law actually helped work on that, so he was excited to see it too! After we went through that exhibit, we headed off to lunch with an astronaut. There were about 150 people there. Astronaut John McBride came and spoke with us about his adventures and answered some questions from the audience.

Once we were done with lunch, we headed off to the bus tour. The bus tour took us around the complex to places that you wouldn't be able to just walk on to. This was my favorite part of that day. We were able to see all of the building that the shuttles were made in and got to see the launch pads (from a distance). After seeing the launch pads, we went to the Saturn V complex. What an awesome complex! First is started with a little movie, then another movie in the control room where there were stationed when the shuttle took off. When the different controls spoke, the desk where they were sitting at would light up so you would know where they were at.

When the movie was over we were sent into a big atrium with the Saturn V shuttle above us and different space objects and information. There was one last movie that we saw about Neil Armstrong landing on the moon. Overall it was an amazing experience!!

After we left Kennedy Space Center, we went to Ron Jon Surf Shop at Cocoa Beach, then to Chilli's for dinner with friends that I haven't seen in years!!