Sun, space and visiting family in Florida

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So having spent over 2 months in Latin America we flew from Bogota to Miami for a holiday on our holiday in the Sunshine State. I'd been to Miami before with Office Angels three years ago and I was keen to stay near where we stayed on Ocean Drive, we found a place that does small apartments a couple of streets back and it was perfect walking distance to the beach.


After a couple of days in Miami we hired a car and were ecstatic to have seat belts again and our lives firmly in our own hands to drive to Cape Canaveral to go to the Kennedy Space Centre. David was the most excited person ever, running down the walkway used by the Apollo astronauts to access their capsule, checking out the rocket garden, salivating at the sign for a Star Trek play and touching a rock from the moon.


From a distance we saw the space shuttle Discovery which was due to launch on Monday but has been delayed until next Thursday because of electrical problems. This is the second last launch mission that will leave from Cape Canaveral before they start using only from Russian shuttles. Being close to Orlando, the home of theme parks, the Kennedy Space Centre needed a ride to keep up with everyone else. So they had a ride which allowed us to pretend we were on a shuttle as it launched into space. Apparently shuttle astronauts helped design it so it was supposed to be pretty realistic, but we didn't think it felt anything like the real deal would!


After the KSC we headed south west to Sarasota to visit Cheryl and Lon who moved here 6 years ago from New York. The house was gorgeous, we felt like we were going into Wisteria Lane as the gate to the private community opened! Cheryl kept us busy taking us to Siesta Key beach. Much more beautiful than Miami beach, it has the finest quartz sand, it feels like fine sugar between your toes.


The next day we went to St Armands Circle where Cheryl works and browsed the luxury boutiques and cafes, then onto Myakka State Park which is massive and has lots of wildlife and rare birds. It was swelteringly hot here as we didn't have the breeze from being at the coast. When Cheryl had been here before there had been alligators everywhere but it seemed even too hot for them to come out of the water but we did see one big gator up close in the water just at the last minute. They didn't look too bad, not as scary as the monster crocodiles in Australia!


Lastly we had a dip in the swimming pool at the clubhouse and the next day waved goodbye to Cheryl and Lon and set off to Tampa to fly to San Francisco. All in all we had a great time in Florida with just one more blog to come as we'll be home on Monday, eeek! David's looking forward to reclaiming his tv back from MacGill and alphabetising his dvd collection like Lon!

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Photos

KSC
This is the shuttle which was due to launch on Monday but it's been delayed until next Thursday

Comments

[Lynn]

I'm going to miss your blog.. keep it up and describe your daily travels in Glasgow.. the sites and sounds of junkies! See you next week! L-x-