We are going out of a port we have never used before, Port Canaveral.
Our flight on Allegiant left directly from Bloomington
airport at 8:24 and landed at the Sanford International Airport at 11:42,
basically a 2hour and 20-minute trip.
We picked up our rental car and headed to our hotel, a
Fairfield Inn & Sites in Titusville.
We are about 30 minutes from Port Canaveral but this Marriott was about
$200.00 a night cheaper that one close to the port!!
We had dinner at a restaurant right on the Indian River and
it was fun and had some good food.
It was a long day so we went to bed and watched on the iPad
the University of Illinois/Iowa basketball game and yea for the Illini!
Day 2
We woke very late to temperatures in the high 70’s
Finally it was time to leave so we went downtown to a restaurant
that we had read about and had their sampler patter of 8 different dishes. A couple were a little too spicy for Ed but
the rest were just fine. Barb liked them
all.
While we were walking around the restored downtown, we went
into the Titusville History Museum and they told us of a great spot to watch
the launch later in the evening.
After that we attempted to go view the Manatees along
Indiana River; however, the police had shut off the road because of the space shuttle
launch.
By this time it was 4:00pm so we came back to the hotel to
change our clothes and go back downtown along the Indian River to view the
launch. From our vantage point we could
look across the water to the launch site which was only 6 miles away and we could
see the rocket poised for lift-off.
Precisely on time, the rocket lifted off and we followed it
up and then in about 4 minutes the booster stage came down to land on a barge
just off-shore. It was amazing to watch
it.
We then ate dinner at a first restaurant before going back
to the hotel to watch the 2nd half of a very bad University
Basketball game which they lost. All of
our teams, Syracuse, Miami, and Illinois are now out for the Big Ten Tournament
and that leaves the major tournament, the NCAA tournament for us to watch.
The booster rocket return to a barge landing
