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Published: April 27th 2011
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FLORIDA – WEST PALM BEACH, PALM BEACH, KENNEDY SPACE CENTER NASA
That Morning Brain brought us to the Amtrak station where we had some time to stroll along Bay shore Boulevard before we would board the train to West Palm beach.
Rick and 2 friends of him picked us up from the station. It was good to see Rick again, I won't state here how long it has been but believe me it has been long 😊 But Rick hasn't changed a bit, in any way! Rick brought us to his house but unfortunately he had to go to work that night. So went to discover the neighborhood and would hopefully find the beach. But as everything in the US the place is bigger than we thought, we found water but the beach was on the other side of this bay and there the beaches where privately owned, as you must know the people in Palm beach have either a lot of money or unlimited credit cards.
After Rick got home later that night we went for an ice cream in town where we could catch up on the past year and he talked about his work a little. See Rick
has a very cool job, he is Butler, a real one. So he had some amazing stories about the places he worked at and we listened in awe about what people with to much money to spend do(and I am not talking about your common millionaire here) amazing. After the ice cream Rick drove us around West palm beach and Palm Beach. Palm Beach is pretty much where all the rich people live, big mansions exclusive hotels and the biggest private yachts you can imagine. On West Palm Beach live the people that work for the people living on Palm beach but West Palm Beach is still an uptown area compared to many other cities we visited over the last 6 weeks, everything is clean and in good condition.
Unfortunately Rick had to work the time that we were there 😞 but we kind of knew this in advance. So the next day we set out to take a look at West Palm Beach, so we strolled around a little looked at the Yachts from a distance, ate something and later that day went for a movie (two for the price for one because they were not watching us and
we could just walk in to a movie that just started😊)
We also searched for a diving school/excursion but were not very successful.
After a nice day in the sun a good movie and a conversation with Rick we went to bed.
The next day we went going for a dive (the other night Rick managed to find us an excursion) with “Narcosis Diving” The boat was managed by a laid back Captain and equal laid back Dive-masters who didn't ask to many questions and just wanted to know from you if you thought that you were ready to dive, of course I was 😊 ( it had been only two years since I last dove so what could go wrong😊)
We were with six other divers, a couple that was finishing their open water course, a couple who didn't talk very much and two other guys later to be identified as BiBi (who can do an excellent imitation of a pool side accedent see pic) and Hamish, the latter being a captain of a private Yacht.
The first Dive was superb! We saw a few very large turtles and a 12ft Nurse Shark, the biggest shark I
had ever seen during a dive just 3 feet away!!!!! they must have put a lot of air in my bottle because despite of me using a lot of air out of excitement we still stayed 55 minutes under. Super dive! The second dive could of course not compete with the first one but never the less a good dive with some large Sting rays (I didn't try to touch them this time) a large Turtle and a sea snake. In the mean time Dari remained on deck with the captain and one of the dive masters talking about what she would have seen if she would have come with us. They were lucky because a couple of sea turtles came up for a breath of air. We were out quite a while and were ready for lunch which we did with most of the divers of that day. Hamish invited us to his home to hang out with a beer and a dive in his swimming pool. He and his wife Kaja have a great house which Kaja decorated her self, we would have our house done by her any time 😊 later Bibi swung by and showed us
his pool side accident imitation, anyway we had a great time diving and hanging at their place. Thanks Hamish and Kaja for your hospitality! And Bibi thanks for the show 😊
That evening we had a great dinner at the Cheese Cake factory with Rick and completely over ate our selves😊 an had a good time with Rick, it was really a shame we couldn't do more together but it is how it is.
The next day we had rented a car because we were going to Kennedy Space Center!!!!!! It is about 150 miles from West Palm Beach to KSC, so we departed early. We made good time and arrived there around 10:00 am. It was not really busy at the entry gate so within minutes we were inside but not before we payed 140 dollars to get in, but that is the US, entry fees are so high everywhere.
The first thing we did was to take a tour to the launch area and the Saturn 5 sight. We were lucky because the space shuttle Endeavour was prepared for launch for the 28th of April for its last flight before being decommissioned and was visible
from one of the observation towers. The Endeavour was the last shuttle to be build and flew its first mission in 1992 and flew a total of 24 missions excluding the one planed and will be decommissioned as soon as it returns to be added to the collection of Kennedy Space Center so it can be viewed by the guests later this year.
The next part of the tour brought us to where the last (and never used) Saturn 5 rocked is put on display. This was rocket was used in the Apollo space program which put the the Americans on the moon. The one on display at KSC is one of the 2 Saturn V rockets that were build but never used.
After the tour we visited different display such as a mockup of the shuttle (later this year to be switched by the real thing) and a launch simulator in which you are suppose to experience the feeling of a shuttle launch as if you would be in it. Also was there an I-Max video show where they showed what the Huble telescope is really able to see and what they have learned from it. The time
went so fast while we were in there that before we knew it the park was closing, although we still had many things that we wanted to see. But the whole thing was really interesting and we wouldn't mind going there again to attempted to see the rest. Great place KSC!!!!! Dari still wants to be an astronaut ehh sorry Cosmonaut that is 😊
We took the scenic route back which took a little longer but was not as boring as the free way. After telling Rick of our experiences we went to sleep, we had to wake-up early the next day to get to Miami.
Rick, thanks for having us you are the perfect host! We are really sorry we couldn't spend more time with you but we will be back, and now a little sooner!!!!!!!
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