Fun In The Fort: November 2010

Per the previous teaser post, Spencer and I made a surprise trip to Florida on Halloween. For a couple of months, I had made plans to surprise Spencer by taking him to Florida to see the Space Shuttle Discovery launch on Monday, November 1st. The flights had been scheduled, the hotel room booked and the car rental reservation all set. Leading up to the day we left (Halloween day), I had been checking daily the current status of the launch. If you follow the space shuttle at all, you know there are almost always delays of some sort. However, I figured after 26 years of doing it, those guys at NASA would have their sh-tuff together. Yet, when I made a last minute check on the shuttle website the Friday afternoon before we were to leave, my stomach dropped. They had found a leak during the filling process of the external fuel tank. The launch was now pushed back one day to Tuesday, originally the day we were supposed to come back. So, Christine and I made a quick decision to stay with the game plan and add the extra day to our trip. I promptly got on the phone with Expedia and proceeded to spend the next half hour rearranging our return flight, adding another day to the hotel and the rental car. Now, we were still leaving on Halloween day and returning on Wednesday, 11/3. Fingers crossed, knock on wood, rub a lucky rabbit's foot. No more delays, NASA!

Friday night and into Saturday morning, I finished packing, got the camera and video camera batteries charged and finished up all the little details before we left Sunday morning around 8am. Saturday afternoon I was watching the Spartans get beat up by Iowa. I was in a bad mood because of that. Then I popped over to the shuttle website and guess what....another delay! I won't tell you what I said at that point...use your imagination. I think I sat and stared at the computer for 10 minutes before going outside and grabbing a cold adult beverage. I couldn't believe what just happened. Two months of planning, then last minute scrambling to change our plans (more time, more $$$) all down the drain. After I came back in the house from cooling down outside, we again decided to make it a go for the trip. We wouldn't be able to stay for the launch, now scheduled for Thursday, 11/4, but I could have a special "guys" trip to Florida. It was going to be fun for Spencer anyway, as it would be his first ride on a jet plane and his first time going to the ocean.

Long story short, we did have a blast, just the two of us on our adventure in Florida. He loved the airplane (except for the decents which hurt his ears) and our rental car. We ended up going to the Kennedy Space Center on Monday for most of the day. We got to see life-size rockets and a life-size space shuttle. After spending the day there, we had some dinner and decided to go find the beach. We were staying in Cocoa, FL which is about 25 minutes from the beach (Cocoa Beach, FL). Spencer absolutely loved the ocean. We had no intention of getting wet Monday night, but a large wave took Spencer down. Then it was a battle to get him out (I think the moon and stars coming out did it!) We decided to spend Tuesday at the beach. It was a bit overcast and sprinkled on & off in the morning, but we had a great time anyway. We found a bag full of seashells, swam lots, and then ended our day by walking on the Cocoa Beach pier.

Although our trip didn't quite turn out as I had planned and we didn't get to see the shuttle launch, we still had fun. There were many other families in town that had the same plans we did and ended up going home without seeing the shuttle launch as well. At least we weren't the only one who left a bit disappointed. As of today, the shuttle is tentatively scheduled for Nov 30th-Dec 5th launch window. I doubt that we'll be back to see it, but at least we tried. Hopefully I was able to help burn a little memory in Spencer's brain for the trip. Here are some photos. We have loads more photos and I'll be happy to fill in details when we talk/see you next. Stupid NASA.