Orlando to Key West

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Now DDN had its well deserved rest of four days, while Regina and I enjoyed our stay with Steve & Marga: one day the Cocoa Beach, then Manatees and alligators in the wilderness of the Blue Springs of the St Johns river. Next day we went with Bob and Glenys to the Fantasy of Flight airplane collection - many beautiful and rare airplanes in an exhibit in Polk city near Orlando. A great airplane museum, although the founder Kermit Weeks sees it more as an entertainment park.
And yesterday we went with Marga to the Morse Museum in Winterpark, which has the largest collection of Tiffany art. Each of these events was a nice vacation in itself, and we enjoyed our stay very much. Steve & Marga, Bob & Glenys, please visit us in Leiden when you are in Europe.

This morning we had to get up very early to see the last landing of a Space Shuttle. We had missed the launch by a few days, so we wanted to witness at least the last Shuttle landing ever. We got up at four, and got to Kennedy Spaceflight Center at 5:30 just in time to have found a nice spot by 5:45 - together with many other curious people. At 5:55 came the LOUD sonic booms from the Shuttle passing overhead, and a few minutes later we actually saw it falling out of the early morning sky - it was just barely bright enough to recognize the Shuttle on it steep approach for landing. It was just a short moment, but I found it very impressive.

Less impressive were the mosquitoes which were not interested in the Shuttle but converged to the many visitors - Regina & I got numerous bites this morning.

After the Shuttle landing we woke up DDN and flew all together further South to Key West, the western-most point of Florida with a very high concentration of tourists. It is just about 2 hours to fly, and interesting to see the agricultural interior of Florida changing after a while into the empty Everglades, and then to the coastal marshes and finally the Keys, a string of small islands (over 800 all together, but only 30 habitated), connected by 42 bridges,.

Key West is the last of these islands, but probably also the most busy one. But the atmosphere is very friendly, and its ideal here for some snorkling - planned for tomorrow. This afternoon it got very humid, but a small thunderstorm has just relaxed the atmosphere and the evening promises to become quite pleasant.

After a few drinks, it was time to see the sunset. Although we missed the actual event, the lights on the clouds after sunset was spectacular. Some thunderstorms at the horizon were casting long shadows on the sky - we had never seen that before. I thnk the picture shows it quite well.

In the end, its a very pleasant island and many friendly people here, but its also quite noisy and sometimes to full. So as it looks now, we'll leave tomorrow already to fly to Asheville in the Appalachian mountains in North Carolina. But maybe we'll decide different again tomorrow, when we get the latest weather reports.

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Photos

Alligator
in St Johns River

flight track to Key West
in nice VFR conditions

Florida Southcoast
no people at all

Key West
the last of the Keys with most people

writing blog in Key West
during Happy Hour in our hotel

sunset in Key West
shadows from the thunderstorms at the horizon

Comments

[Gilles]

Icebregs in the South
Martin, I always wanted to have a chat with a crocodile ... just to see if it talks likes bosses. New cartoon on your professional mail box, Cheers, Gilles