Kristina's Blog

Our Trip to Florida
Our first evening in Florida we spent on the dock behind my aunt’s house and then showing them all the legal stuff from the wreck.
For your reference, the pictures will include any combination of the following people. Myself, Eric, my parents, (my mom is little and has short hair, my dad is tall and broad shouldered with salt and pepper hair) my cousin Jamie (she is 18 and a little taller than me), her mom, Jody, (my mom’s sister, taller with dark hair), or Jody’s husband Jim (tall with blondish hair).
The next day, which was Monday the 11th, the one year mark since the wreck, we went to Cocoa beach. It was an overcast afternoon, but still very warm and very humid. We splashed in the ocean for a while, and then started building a sandcastle with a moat around it. We are look like four-year-olds playing in the sand. We also found lots of neat creatures to examine including a cute little crab that we probably scared silly. We also found more crabs and some tiny clams that would burrow into the sand to get away from us big scary creatures.
The next day was our trip to Sea World. It was SO hot that day! Jamie joined us for our Sea World trip. We saw the Shamu show and it was fabulous, a little over-hyped and more videos than I needed, but the antics of the whales were wonderful and exciting. We got some awesome pics of them! We saw so many amazing creatures. There are like 300 pictures from Sea World, but I’ve pared it down as best I could. Most of the pictures are self explanatory. We fed the sea lions, (it was frozen fish) and there are several pictures that show us making faces about touching the dead frozen fish. We also saw a Sea lion/ Otter/ Walrus show that had a pirate theme. It was absolutely hysterical! It was raining during that show, just a light drizzle. The rain cooled things off a lot and we were glad. I did have to give in and get the wheelchair (they rented them there) to make it through the day. It was just too much walking.
The next day we went to a race car track for Dad and Eric to drive the go karts. They had a blast. There are also some pictures of Mom and Jamie being silly. We ate some great Italian for lunch, and then hung out with Jamie and Aunt Jody for the afternoon. That evening was the Mystery Dinner Theatre in Orlando. It is hard to explain how the dinner theatre works, but basically it’s a play that involves the audience, and since this is a mystery, the audience also helps solve the mystery. There are just a few pictures from that, but there is one picture from after the show that shows Eric and I with the cast. It was light hearted and silly and loads of fun!
The next day we went to Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral. That is just a few miles north of my aunt’s house. In fact, we can see the NASA buildings from Cocoa Beach, including the launch pad. We were supposed to have a special guided tour that was supposed to show us buildings that normally are not part of the basic tours and other locations that are not open to just everybody. The issue was that they were wanting to launch a rocket that morning, so some of the buildings were closed because of that. But our tour guide was going to make sure he got us front row seats for the launch to make up for it. Well we waited in the hot sun, being eaten by hungry mosquitos, waiting for the rocket to launch. Then we were informed that the launch was delayed by 45 minutes so we went inside the nearby building to wait it out. At about 8 minutes to launch time we went back out to our positions along the fence. At 6 minutes til launch time we were informed that the launch had been canceled and they were going to try again the next day. So we went back inside to find our tour guide assuming that our tour would pick up where we left off. We (and about half or more of our tour group) were informed that our tour guide and the rest of our tour group had gone on, and we were to catch the next bus. So we finished looking around the building, and watched the videos they had there and then went to catch the next bus. When we were waiting in line for that bus, the people directing the crowds asked why we were not with our group (we all had special stickers on our shirts noting that we were on the up close tour). We told them what had happened, and they shrugged their shoulders and sent us on. At the next stop (which was the last stop for the normal tour come to find out), another Kennedy Space Center public relations worker noticed our pink stickers, along with about 10 or so of the rest of the group. She asked us why we were not with the right group and we told her what had happened. She was very distressed and asked us to wait and she came back a few minutes later and told us that we needed to go on back to the visitors center and go to the guest services desk and tell them what we had told her. She was very sorry that we had missed out on our special tour. So we passed the word along to the other members of our deserted tour group, and saw the sights at this building and then went on back to the visitors center. We spoke to the guest services desk people and they sent us to the manager of guest services and she refunded our tour costs! That doesn’t make up for what we missed out on, but at least they were trying to make it up to us. We had a good day though, we saw some neat exhibits and saw a cool IMAX show about the international space station. Eric and my dad got to do what is called the “Shuttle Launch Experience”. It is a brand new ride they opened a few weeks ago, and it simulates what it is like to launch in a space shuttle. They were thrilled with that. Mom and I passed on that experience. We also got to tour the inside of the life size replica of the space shuttle Endeavor. Again, before the day was over we ended up getting a rental wheelchair, but they were free rentals there, which was nice.
Our last day in Florida we went to the beach again, this time it was just Jamie and Eric and I. I was worn out from all the sight-seeing and opted not to get in the water, so I was wearing shorts and a tee-shirt. We saw some dolphins jumping out a ways, and I got a short video of them, but in my excitement I got a little too close to the water and a wave came up higher than I anticipated and I was a wee bit soaked. We got some awesome sea shells and saw more clams as well as a few more crabs.
When we got back from the beach, we were waiting for supper to be ready and Jamie and my dad and I went out in their canoe. There is a canal behind their house and often they have manatees in the canal. In fact we saw a few that last evening, but they never came close enough to pet. (They often come close enough to pet, but according to Florida law, you are not supposed to feed them or anything like that, so there isn’t much you can do to entice them) So we went out in the canoe, I have several good pictures from that. We also ate out on their dock for supper, it was a beautiful evening.
I noticed in the late afternoon that I had managed to burn the tops of my feet, of all things! We had been slathering on the sun screen our whole visit, SPF 50 cause of all the scars and stuff. I guess I just didn’t get the tops of my feet thoroughly, and they are still very red. My flip flops rub and sting too. Some aloe helps with that though.
We left for Mississippi right after supper on Friday. We drove until about midnight and stopped in Tallahassee at a hotel to sleep. We got home around 5pm Saturday, and my parents headed on to Illinois, stopping in extreme southern Missouri to sleep. They got home mid-way through Sunday.
Here is the link to the pictures-
http://mrsweather.tripod.com/index.htm
We just had an awesome visit. Hope ya’ll enjoy the pictures!!!

this is my favorite of all the pictures! :)

~Kristina