We are in Cape Canaveral for one more night…just a little more about the house we are staying in.
Some history…the owners of this little house actually live right next door, but with all the trees you would not know they are even there. The house we are in has been in their family for over 70 years, although a number of renovations have taken place to help make the house modern and comfortable. Although you will still see some of the older characteristics as the window cranks are not anything I have ever seen in a house. The owner’s grandfather designed and built the house from the ground up and started his family living on sight. One of the famous guests that have been in this house was John Glenn. Before going over to the Kennedy Space Center Mr. Glenn spent a few days in this house. It really is a nice house to rent, peaceful property and great to be directly on the Banana River.
When we decided to come to this area so we could see a scheduled launch, David contacted his nephew (Tom) who lives in Naples to see if he wanted to come up here and either see a launch or go on a Cape Kennedy tour. He and his son decided to come up for the launch. On the drive from Naples last night, it was pouring rain and his little 2 seater car started to hydroplane on the freeway and they ended up in the ditch in the middle area of the freeway!! Tom called to tell us where he was and we immediately went to help him. He was pretty sure that his car would be totaled so we offered to bring him here to this house and they could stay, still watch the launch and then we would drive them back to Naples where they do have another car. So we went to meet them on the freeway and pulled up behind the police car which was really scary sitting there as cars are whipping by, not necessarily doing the move over that is usually required.
So if you are driving on the freeway, move over for stopped vehicles, police car, tow trucks etc., if you can!! Neither Tom nor his son Brandon were hurt, just pretty shaken up. The tow truck driver told Tom that this is a famous section of the freeway where hydroplaning seems to be the norm!
Today we did head over to a spot where we could see the rocket launch. We sat on the deck at Grills Seafood Restaurant and had a perfect view of the launch, although we were further away than we would have liked. There was minimal sound, which was somewhat disappointing, but at least fun to see it.
It was nice that we had a clear blue sky, so the rocket did not disappear into the clouds. There were other things going on before the launch that was also entertaining. One of the big cruise ships came in to dock and it was fun to watch it pull in facing forward and then turn around to back in. That enormous boat looked like it just moved exactly where the captain wanted to and was awesome to watch its maneuvers.
While sitting there, one of the fishing boats came in and the people had caught a small shark. So we watched as the crewman fileted that shark for the people. What was most fascinating were the pelicans that surrounded this crewman as he cleaned the fish. They actually got very aggressive jumping up on the cleaning counter where the man sprayed him to get him off the ledge.
At one point, the crewman through out some skin and 2 pelicans were fighting over it and were in about a 5 minute stare down trying to get possession of this piece of skin. Finally the one pelican pulled it and flew away while about 10 pelicans followed him trying to get a piece of that skin!!
Tomorrow we will drive Tom and Brandon back to Naples and we will either stay there or head back towards Orlando. Our rental in Orlando starts on Thursday night with the Jens and the girls arriving some time on Friday!
TIFN
As you can see Jaxen is doing better after his pink eye fiasco!! He was very excited that it was “sghetti night”!!
Dandy Ventures 