January 21 – 23 – Cocoa Beach and Kennedy Space Center

Yet another gloomy day with off and on showers.  We are driving from the center of Florida east to the Atlantic coast to Cocoa Beach.  The plan was to enjoy some beach time.  We will see.

On the way to Cocoa Beach, we stopped in Juniper to visit Loggerhead Marine Life Center where they rescue and rehabilitate injured turtles.  A few are permanent residents as they have injuries that don’t allow them to be returned to the wild.  However, many do end up being returned.  They large tanks were labeled with the names that had been given to the turtles.  Many were gemstone names. 

There was a brilliant art piece, Plastic Reef.  It was made solely from trash materials recovered from the ocean.  There were parts of flip flops, plastic spoons, medicine bottles, plastic water bottles, computer key pads, strip ties and a gazillion other items creatively assembled in a dramatic piece of wall art.

From there we drove to the Jupiter lighthouse.  Unfortunately, because it was raining the stairs were closed due to safety concerns.  But we did visit the little museum that was in the former naval quarters.  The museum covered early native American activities in the area, activities during the colonial development of the area and on through to today.  Some interesting information. 

We were able to get a photo of the lighthouse from the parking lot.

Then it was on to Cocoa Beach and our lovely room overlooking a lovely beach with the weather making it too cold and rainy and windy to go out and enjoy. 

We spent our first day here working in the room, going out only for meals.  We had breakfast at the nearby Waffle House.  At lunch we found a nearby shopping mall where we had lunch and then went to Penney’s’ to get a coat for Mary as it was so cold here.  What a way to spend a holiday in Florida. 

On the 23^rd we headed out for a day at the Kennedy Space Center…with gloomy skies, slight mists and cold winds.  The temperature was 54 but with the wind it felt like 43 (per the ever useful iPhones). Some random photos at the space center. 

We took the bus tour through the grounds.  The Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) where they put together the rockets.  The building has the largest doors in the world (four 456-foot tall doors).  

The bus dropped us off at the Apollo exhibition.  

Then took the bus back to the main center where we had a quick lunch, walked to another area that had the original Atlantis space shuttle.

The boosters and large red fuel tank used to take the space shuttles into space.

The space shuttle Atlantis.

The underside of Atlantis

The tour there took us to the command center that was in charge of the Apollo missions.

We wandered through many exhibits.  One of the more interesting was the space capsule for the Apollo 14 mission.  Looked a bit rough around the edges. 

Then it was two IMAX movies, Deep Space, about the James Webb space telescope and Space, The New Frontier.  By then it was four pm and cold.  So we headed out.  The Rocket Garden near the entrance. 

We did a bit of shopping then headed back towards the hotel.  We stopped at a local bar and restaurant…almost turned around.  It was really a bar with a bit of food.  Paul’s pizza was OK, Mary’s Reuben sandwich was very good.  We didn’t linger.  At the hotel we got hot chocolate.  We were both still a little cold.