Date:10/31/2020-11/8/2020
Destination: Orlando, Florida
Goal: Orlando Parks, Cape Canaveral
Distance: 961 Miles
Means of Travel: Flight
Potential Credits: 24
Day 7
No more coasters, Dr. Jones! Ben and I had one more place to go, however. Somewhere I had been as a kid, but not when I was nearly old enough to appreciate it. That's right, I'm talking about Cape Canaveral! I love space and all things rockets, as we saw back at Hollywood Studios, now time to go end this trip with a blast!
On the drive, I got a random text from my buddy Drew out of nowhere. Attachment: 1 Image, it said. I tapped on it, and saw that map of the US that the whole country had been watching, now with Pennsylvania in dark blue! Biden had won the election, Trump was out! Ben and I celebrated briefly and had a good laugh over his childish Twitter meltdown before we finally got to Cape Canaveral!
Let's toast some propellant! That's the VAB across the water, some of NASA's most legendary spacecrafts began their lives in there.
Oh yeah. One thing that wasn't here when I went as a kid? Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin (they claim they compete with SpaceX and ULA while making bottle rockets) now sits right across the street from this.
Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex feels very much like a mashup of a park and a museum. Imagine an outdoor theme park, with architectural choices matching a specific theme, but instead of walking to different rides you walk to different exhibits.
First up Ben and I saw a 3D film about the state of human space travel and the technology we might use to go to Mars. Some pretty cool stuff in there, namely spacesuits that sit outside a craft to keep all the dust picked up during extravehicular excursions from getting tracked everywhere.
Okay, enough beating around the bush, let's get to the main reason everybody comes here in 2020!
The big reason we came here was for Space Shuttle Atlantis, now on display after the end of the shuttle program. Everything about this exhibit alone made this day worth the journey out here. There are set times to see it and you're moved through two rooms where you watch films about Atlantis and what it's done, but at the end they go full theatrical with the reveal, as the image of Atlantis on the screen slowly turns transparent to reveal the real shuttle behind it. It was amazing, I had chills watching it. Atlantis itself is an incredible piece of engineering, it's about the size of a plane, maybe a little smaller, but just seeing something that sophisticated that spent that much time among the stars was super special.
After this we checked out the stuff downstairs, which included a very sad exhibit about the Challenger explosion where you walk through a quiet hallway and end looking at a piece of the debris. There was also a ride, the only ride we did there, called Shuttle Launch Experience. It was akin to a flight simulator like Star Tours, not unlike the ones I rode at USS Yorktown in Charleston or at the USAF Museum back in Dayton. However, Shuttle Launch Experience included testimony from real astronauts that helped them create the most realistic simulation of actually being aboard a space shuttle. So you're in this thing, it can tilt upwards 90 degrees, and you actually feel the engine rumbling as it jostles you around, completely timed for when the boosters would kick off and everything. And at the end it tilts you forward into your single seatbelt to simulate zero gravity as the shuttle bay doors open above you, revealing Earth floating among the stars. It's completely free, lockers and all, I highly recommend not missing this. And it's the closest I'll ever get to willingly flying into space.
It was a windy day, Ben said it felt like there was a tropical storm offshore. Those nasty gusts had a field day with these plastic queue railings!
Two types of drivers. I would get over into a parking orbit and wave the Martian invaders past, Ben would be leaning on the horn (if there were sound in space) and cursing at the satellites in his way.
We did Heroes and Legends next, which was largely about the astronauts themselves. Friendship Seven had some cool stuff here which I really appreciated after seeing the film Hidden Figures recently. There were like personal items on display, similar to the early life of Neil Armstrong exhibit at the Armstrong Air & Space Museum in Wapakoneta, but for many different astronauts. At the end of this exhibit is the Astronaut Hall of Fame, where I found Jim Lovell of Apollo 13 fame, portrayed by Tom Hanks in one of my favorite films of all time.
We headed out after this, with the complex closing on us, but it was a great day! Kennedy Space Center is super cool, if you're even the slightest bit interested in space it's worth making your way out here. The cool bus tour wasn't running due to COVID but there's still enough here to do a good, relaxed afternoon.
Ben swung by the Cocoa Beach Walmart to recycle his phone I so graciously busted up at Seaworld yesterday and we headed back to his place for one final night in Florida before I had to leave!
Citywalk was our destination for the night, though it was packed we did get to see someone taken away by security on the way in so that was interesting. Looking at the restaurant offerings, I had wanted to do Cowfish but it wasn't open when we were at Universal, but it was open tonight! So Ben and I got a reservation and just hung around Citywalk. We went to Rising Star, the karaoke place. Honestly, it looked fun and I'd have sung if I wasn't so out of practice from my musical theater days. But you don't go to Rising Start to sing, according to Ben. You go to watch others sing. Some of the employees there that would sing in between were actually pretty good and entertaining to watch because they had good voices. But then there was this one guy in a Trump shirt that just looked drunk and depressed as all hell that kept getting up there and singing horribly, so that was absolutely hilarious.
Also, in 2020, no matter how good la cerveza mas fina sounds, you can't order a Corona in a restaurant without it being awkward. Learned this the hard way.
Our table was good for Cowfish so we went over! I had this fruity berry and rum drink while waiting on our food so that was delicious, although I was disappointed on the quantity somewhat.
Cowfish, named after the saltwater fish with two horn-like extensions from its head, serves just that. Burgers and sushi, cow and fish. So it's a pretty interesting fusion combination but they had this bento box that had both on it, and man it was good! California roll, a slider, fries, edamame, and cucumber salad, all things I like and nothing I don't! This was so delicious!
We headed back to Ben's place after this and I made sure I was all packed and ready to fly home tomorrow.
Day 8
All good things must come to an end, sadly, and today this trip was one of them. I woke up to a dreary, rainy Florida morning and threw my airplane clothes on before Ben drove me to the airport...turns out it was a madhouse that day! I struggled to obtain the tag for the bag I checked at the kiosk so I had to go to the counter, and turns out they had no record of me checking a bag even though I did it on my phone when I checked into my flight. So I showed it to them and they printed me a tag and I dropped it and headed to my gate, grabbing a Wendy's breakfast sandwich along the way in a mad dash to make the APM.
I had a decently long layover in Charlotte, so I elected to get lunch in the form of Carolina BBQ in the terminal. Pulled pork, fried okra, hushpuppies, and mac and cheese with a beer, you can't wait for a flight any other way.
From there, I caught my flight back to Dayton. It was official, Florida 2020 was one for the books.
I needed a ride home from the airport, but slight problem: my parents would be driving me and I had just spent the entire week around all sorts of Floridians that didn't have to follow any COVID protocols. But my dad just told me, "we'll figure it out." Well my father's version of "figuring it out" was picking me up at the airport with his Porsche 911 with the top down since it was nice out back at home! I rode home from the airport, masked and outdoors, to my parents' so I could get my car and give them the souvenirs I bought them.
This region trip might not have been the beautiful solo trip where I learned about myself, that was Pennsylvania 2015. It wasn't the effortless glide through the credits like a hot knife through butter, that was Great Lakes 2017. And it wasn't the chaotic mess that was somehow beautiful in the end, that was Texas 2018. This was Florida 2020, and Florida 2020 was just a laid back week of chilling, making the best of a less-than-ideal situation during a pandemic, and growing an appreciation for things I didn't expect to make an impression on me. Pandora, Everest, all of IOA, Tomorrowland, Hollywood Studios, and Seaworld I was content with just as products on their own even without rides. That being said, while the coaster that made me want to do this trip in the first place couldn't make it, it was still full of hard-hitting thrill coasters like Space Mountain, Hagrid's, Mine Blower, Mako, and Manta. And even simple things like enjoying a meal with friends at Mama Melrose's are memories I'll never forget from this trip. Possibly the last region trip for a while, I don't know where the world is going with this pandemic or where we'll be allowed to travel, but I'm keeping my head up. Like Walt said, there's a great big beautiful tomorrow shining at the end of every day!
