The motorhome's first outing

Just back from a weekend in the Shenandoah Valley, at Yogi Bear's Jellystone Campground. Seriously. Lovely hangout with our friends Maya, Darrell, Liam and Alia. The kids ran free. We grilled good food. And the motorhome behaved impeccably. More of course much more on His Blog, but here are a few photos...

The launch...

... left me in awe. I so hope the seven shuttle astronauts come home safe and sound.

Florida - Easter Sunday

CHOCOLAAAAAAAAAATE!
I'm not sure Tom got the full meaning of Easter Sunday. He did get two visits from the "Easter Bunny", the first in the tiny garden of our rental home, the second in the luscious grounds of my new friend Marcia Gaedke's granny's home. I interviewed Marcia for our NASA feature a couple of weeks back. She's not only a lovely woman, she's the Titusville President of the Chamber of Commerce. And she wasn't having us spend Easter Sunday lunch without family - in this case - her entire family. We had a grand time.

Worked off a few of the calories with a kayaking expedition. I had no idea that Kennedy Space Centre is in the middle of a wildlife refuge. We had a beautifully serene paddle through lagoons and mangrove swamps, with the towers of the Vehicle Assembly Building shimmering way back on the horizon. We saw birds - I'm useless at this, but I did identify snowy egret, heron and kingfisher - and at the very very last minute - a manatee which swam up to my kayak, and dived right underneath!

Florida - Saturday April 3rd

Saturday 3rd April

Excellent fun. We all ran out of reading books, so found the only bookstore in town - Dave's Books - which was exactly what we needed, a second hand store run by alittle old man with a big welcoming grin, and floor to ceiling bookcases stretching waaaay back into the building. Right now, as R and I wind down for the night, I've just put down Charles Kurault's "Life on the Road", and Richard is absorbed in a very crinkled paperback copy of Michael Crichton's "Sphere". Perfect.

We meant to spend our day at the Canaveral National Seashore National Park, which you get to in New Smyrna by driving to the ocean, turning right, and keeping on going until the road runs out. We got there all right, but we were met by a row of traffic cones and a hatchet faced uniformed park ranger who smugly informed us that he was at 120% capacity and we should Turn Back Now.

Somewhat crestfallen, we pulled a u turn, but then spotted a parking space right by the side of the road. So we unloaded our beach gear and cut through the posh houses right onto to find... a gorgeous and deserted beach. We spent a few happy hours alternately boogie boarding in the surf, and lying around on beach towels reading our new books.
At one point I looked down the line of the beach as it stretched south. You could clearly see the wire and signs telling us to Stay Out of the National Park, and immediately behind.. you guessed it, a beach absolutely crammed with families and surfers who'd paid their fee before we arrived. Ha!

I'd been in phone touch with Joann, our friend from Nassau who's also brought her family here to see the shuttle launch. As we were staying an hour north of the Space Centre, and they were an hour south, we met at Titusville - at the cafe where Lara and I filmed a couple of weeks ago, the superb shrimp restaurant Dixie Crossing. Tom and 14 year old Alex got on really well, and R and I had a lovely hour or so catching up on gossip with Jo and Harry.

I really hope we get to see them again this year.

On the way back - Tom was SO thrilled to be up as we sped up the motorway in the dark - very very jolly. A great break so far, and if we get reeeeeaaally lucky, the shuttle will launch on time.

Florida - Good Friday

Full on day at the Kennedy Space Centre visitors complex - where I was even more thrilled than Tom by the space shuttle launch simulator, and by the IMAX film about the repair of the Hubble Space Telescope. I find it hard to believe that we get to witness it - the astronauts out there conducting spacewalks where the tiniest of tears in a spacesuit means death - replacing nuts and bolts and circuit boards up among the stars as we see the blue and green of earth drifting by gently below them. The fact that part of the space crews' mission was to make the IMAX movie is astonishing.


Down on earth, I was surprised by how few tourists were there. Perhaps it will be heaving at the weekend, as folks come into town before the launch date for Discovery on Monday. I hope so. I'd hate to think that space is now officially a bore.

Later... we were heading home so late we dropped our "eat in" plans and went to a "shack" of a fish restaurant called Dolphin View. And so it proved....

Thursday 1st April.

The beach, the beach. We headed up to the tip of the peninsula, parked for a fiver, and set off on a long boardwalk to the dunes and the sea beyond. Beautiful talcum powder sand. A boy thrilled to be boogie boarding. And unbelievably frigid water! Whiled away a few sweet hours splashing, sprawling around and reading our books, then headed back around the boardwalk. Discovered that this is turtle country - and rattlesnake country - though thankfully only witnessed the first.



V late lunch at a cool place named the "Heavenly" beach shack - astounding corn and crab chowder. Richard cooked us grouper in a tomato and almond sauce, with roasted corn, for supper. Again pretty much all asleep by ten.

To Florida. Wednesday 31st March.

Awoke to a cold and cloudy Washington DC. A ten a.m. flight to Orlando. Sunshine and palm trees. Ah lovely. blue skies. We drove east towards Kennedy Space Center and then an hour north to Smyrna Beach, where Richard had located a tiny house for rent. To our
great relief, Jim's place tucked away in a leafy residential street is lovely - a small and comfy new age hippy haven whose little back deck overlooks a quiet waterway.
After a few frantic days scripting and editing (my NASA pieces to go this weekend), I felt my pulse slow down.

By four, we'd walked to the beach, where Tom threw himself happily into the waves, and I found some agreeably sticky choc ices. It felt like family holidays in Cornwall
from a lifetime ago. Then to the local shopping mall, where we bought a load of groceries and found a nice seafood joint called "Off the Hook".


Home for Tom to fall fast asleep, and his parents to follow soon after.