highlander447
<font color=green>It's a dirty job but someones go
- Joined
- Apr 3, 2003
- Messages
- 3,389
Highlander
Main planner, grouchy at times Me : Steve (aka God "honest")
Slothful Trio
Peacemaker, maid, and chief : Jacquie (aka Wife puts up with me)
Chief spender, shopper, moody : Stephanie (15 aka Daughter & first born)
Chief pain, wind up merchant: Danny (13 aka the "boy" my heir)
Day 3 July 1st
5am rise, getting picked up at 6am for KSC trip, girls are still sleeping, me and Danny shower and get ready quietly as possible (they wish), I bought pastries and apple juice at Walgreens last night for breakfast, we leave room a little before 5:45 unfortunately I had to wake DW to secure the door when we left. Hotel lobby was mobbed, seemed quite a few people where going to KSC, tour bus after tour bus turned up but not ours eventually ours turned up at 6:30am, had to show ID as I didn't have any paperwork, we waited a further 30mins for another couple, but turned out they where waiting at wrong hotel, eventually by 7:30 we are on way to KSC, we received out tickets for KSC and our VIP tickets for viewing area we also received a T-shirt as a souvenir, surprisingly we arrived at KSC within 50 mins, security was tight no back packs at all where allowed in, but they where pretty efficient, we had to ensure we took everything with us as our coach was going to have to go through a security check as it was transporting us to a secure location later, despite long lines we only queued for 10 mins, the atmosphere was pretty amazing, the centre was heaving, a special stall had been set up selling souvenirs of launch plus chairs for use during viewing, I bought a chair and bought some pins & patches for Danny & Stephanie, me & Danny walked around centre before taking the bus tour, the bus tour today was only running to the space station set up today, Danny was not impressed and found it pretty boring, after the tour we decided to get something to eat, after waiting 15 mins in line Danny decided he didn't like the breakfast menu they where doing
, I saw on the map they had set up another food location in the rocket garden so we headed there, the rocket garden was like a concert area today with large screen set up and a stage where guest speakers where entertaining the masses and much to Danny's delight this place was doing hot dogs etc, so while DS grabbed us a table I joined the queue, while in the queue I met an Englishman and his son and we got talking about football (as you do), surprisingly he didn't rate England going past Portugal today (must have been clairvoyant), got two dogs and chips couple bottle of juices $17 must admit they tasted good, we then headed to gift shop and I bought a souvenir and bought Riding Rockets a book by astronaut Mike Mullane he was signing them today so I got mine signed as well ( DW could give it to me as an anniversary gift), while in the queue for getting the book signed I got talking to a guy from Troon in Scotland he had lost his wife 
he was pretty surprised that I had only secured my tickets on Wednesday night, the line in the store took ages and I'm not exaggerating when I say nearly an hour to pay for goods, as someone commented in the store had no one told there was a launch scheduled for today and believe it or not that was a recurring theme at KSC as they sold out of food and some food outlets where not even open 
, eventually I pay for goods and we need to go meet our tour guide as its near noon now, after our tour guide gets her group all together we join a queue to get on the buses to go to the viewing area this takes better part of hour, eventually we get on our bus and after 15-20 mins we are part of a convoy heading to viewing area, only takes about 10 mins to get there, we secure a decent spot and boy am I glad of that chair, with the help of our binoculars we can see the shuttle clearly on the launch pad, like I said previously the atmosphere was good even although we all knew it wasn't looking good for a launch, we could here communications between control and shuttle over loud speakers and the commander of the mission was not a happy bunny at all the messing around and it was him that pushed for a decision to abort or go, conditions where good for launch but the problem was if the shuttle developed a problem on take off there was too much cloud obscuring landing field for its return, within the viewing area there where food carts selling hot dogs at $1 each and juice at $2 each water at $1 per bottle, I had been expecting to be ripped off but these prices where amazing, plenty of portable loos as well, plus first aid stations set up distributing sun cream, it was actually quite relaxing sitting on my chair soaking up the rays. When they announced the mission was scrubbed we all packed up and headed for the coaches, felt really down as did Danny but hey we had to try and it was a great experience, now the fun starts I wont bore you with details but at 3:45pm we leave, we arrive back at hotel 7:50pm traffic was a nightmare enough said, although if we had saw a launch I'm sure it would have been bearable.
Main planner, grouchy at times Me : Steve (aka God "honest")
Slothful Trio
Peacemaker, maid, and chief : Jacquie (aka Wife puts up with me)
Chief spender, shopper, moody : Stephanie (15 aka Daughter & first born)
Chief pain, wind up merchant: Danny (13 aka the "boy" my heir)
Day 3 July 1st
5am rise, getting picked up at 6am for KSC trip, girls are still sleeping, me and Danny shower and get ready quietly as possible (they wish), I bought pastries and apple juice at Walgreens last night for breakfast, we leave room a little before 5:45 unfortunately I had to wake DW to secure the door when we left. Hotel lobby was mobbed, seemed quite a few people where going to KSC, tour bus after tour bus turned up but not ours eventually ours turned up at 6:30am, had to show ID as I didn't have any paperwork, we waited a further 30mins for another couple, but turned out they where waiting at wrong hotel, eventually by 7:30 we are on way to KSC, we received out tickets for KSC and our VIP tickets for viewing area we also received a T-shirt as a souvenir, surprisingly we arrived at KSC within 50 mins, security was tight no back packs at all where allowed in, but they where pretty efficient, we had to ensure we took everything with us as our coach was going to have to go through a security check as it was transporting us to a secure location later, despite long lines we only queued for 10 mins, the atmosphere was pretty amazing, the centre was heaving, a special stall had been set up selling souvenirs of launch plus chairs for use during viewing, I bought a chair and bought some pins & patches for Danny & Stephanie, me & Danny walked around centre before taking the bus tour, the bus tour today was only running to the space station set up today, Danny was not impressed and found it pretty boring, after the tour we decided to get something to eat, after waiting 15 mins in line Danny decided he didn't like the breakfast menu they where doing
, I saw on the map they had set up another food location in the rocket garden so we headed there, the rocket garden was like a concert area today with large screen set up and a stage where guest speakers where entertaining the masses and much to Danny's delight this place was doing hot dogs etc, so while DS grabbed us a table I joined the queue, while in the queue I met an Englishman and his son and we got talking about football (as you do), surprisingly he didn't rate England going past Portugal today (must have been clairvoyant), got two dogs and chips couple bottle of juices $17 must admit they tasted good, we then headed to gift shop and I bought a souvenir and bought Riding Rockets a book by astronaut Mike Mullane he was signing them today so I got mine signed as well ( DW could give it to me as an anniversary gift), while in the queue for getting the book signed I got talking to a guy from Troon in Scotland he had lost his wife he was pretty surprised that I had only secured my tickets on Wednesday night, the line in the store took ages and I'm not exaggerating when I say nearly an hour to pay for goods, as someone commented in the store had no one told there was a launch scheduled for today and believe it or not that was a recurring theme at KSC as they sold out of food and some food outlets where not even open , eventually I pay for goods and we need to go meet our tour guide as its near noon now, after our tour guide gets her group all together we join a queue to get on the buses to go to the viewing area this takes better part of hour, eventually we get on our bus and after 15-20 mins we are part of a convoy heading to viewing area, only takes about 10 mins to get there, we secure a decent spot and boy am I glad of that chair, with the help of our binoculars we can see the shuttle clearly on the launch pad, like I said previously the atmosphere was good even although we all knew it wasn't looking good for a launch, we could here communications between control and shuttle over loud speakers and the commander of the mission was not a happy bunny at all the messing around and it was him that pushed for a decision to abort or go, conditions where good for launch but the problem was if the shuttle developed a problem on take off there was too much cloud obscuring landing field for its return, within the viewing area there where food carts selling hot dogs at $1 each and juice at $2 each water at $1 per bottle, I had been expecting to be ripped off but these prices where amazing, plenty of portable loos as well, plus first aid stations set up distributing sun cream, it was actually quite relaxing sitting on my chair soaking up the rays. When they announced the mission was scrubbed we all packed up and headed for the coaches, felt really down as did Danny but hey we had to try and it was a great experience, now the fun starts I wont bore you with details but at 3:45pm we leave, we arrive back at hotel 7:50pm traffic was a nightmare enough said, although if we had saw a launch I'm sure it would have been bearable.
. After looking in some stores and buying some gifts we headed for City Walk we decided to get a pizza from Pastamore with AP discount only $15, I had a cocktail while waiting as well, we also grabbed a cinnabon and some cinnabon stix for desert with AP discount $6, once back in room I had a shower made use of the robe supplied and relaxed with my wine, truly a nice way to end the day
