Part 1 of this series contained information about our leaving Cyprus for our Christmas holiday in the U.S. and the first day we spent there. It was at Universal Studios and was a lot of fun.
We then drove close to Ocala, Florida so we could pick up my son, Kyle, the next morning. I was very excited to spend time with him, as we only see each other a couple of times a year now that he is in the U.S. Army. We had three days planned with him, although I wish it had been more.
We first took Roc the Dog for a walk. Roc lived with us for about a year when Kyle first joined the Army, but moved to Kyle’s dad’s house about a year ago since we were planning to live on our boat in late 2022. It was delightful to see the old guy again. Here is a picture of him. I have no idea why we didn’t take a picture of him with us. Just not thinking!
Dear, sweet Roc.
After walking Roc, we went to an escape room. Little did we know that we had selected one of the most difficult rooms. Needless to say, we did not escape. However, they told us we were 90 percent of the way there, which is farther than most teams make it. So there’s that.
Note the 15 percent escape rate. Yeah, pretty tough.
We went to the Kennedy Space Center on our second day. It was incredible!! Got there when it opened and left when it closed. I highly recommend it, for both adults and children. Plenty to see and do.
The Vehicle Assembly Building. See that red circle? Those are human-size doors. Perspective!Each star on the flag is SIX FEET tall!!This lovely outfit is an RX-2 Extra-Vehicular Activity Spacesuit from 1963. This was a second design in Litton Industries RX series. It offered superior mobility and greater protection than fabric suits (at least, that is what the sign said!). This is an AiResearch Advanced Extra-Vehicular suit, made in 1967. NASA sought to develop highly-mobile, hybrid spacesuits in addition to the “hard suit” program of the 1960s. These suits decreased the wearer’s physical exertion. This is an Apollo In-flight Coverall Garment (ICG). It is the suit Commander Jim Lovell wore on the Apollo 13 flight, April 11-17, 1970.This is an A7-L Extra-Vehicular Suit. It is, in fact, Alan Shephard’s suit from the Apollo 14 flight in 1971. These soft and flexible suits allowed the astronauts to remove their bulky spacesuits during a mission and stow them away, ready to be worn again during their time on the Moon or outside the spacecraft.I am pretty sure you all know what this is. It looks *huge* in person. It reminds me somewhat of R2D2. 😉Atlantis space shuttle.Also Atlantis.The underside of Atlantis.Space toilet. I am pretty sure that Howard Wolowitz (from The Big Bang Theory) invented it. 😉Do my glasses make me look smart?We did this. Pretty fun.This gal is a concept vehicle designed for navigating the demanding landscape of Mars. It is quite large – about the size of a compact car, I would say. It would have a mobile lab. The massive wheels are designed to travel over dunes, rocks and craters. NASA approved the rover vehicle design but Kennedy Space Center points out (in bold print even) that no U.S. tax dollars were used to fund the building of this vehicle. Even NASA was in the Christmas spirit! Love it!
And that’s a wrap for this post. Part three will be our visit to the Sea Life Aquarium.
