3…2…1…

We chose this year and even this specific week to take our Florida trip because the Space Shuttle Discovery was supposed to make it last launch into space.  Both Scott and  had always wanted to see a shuttle launch and being as it is one of the last launches ever, we really wanted to take the kids to see this historical event.

The launch was originally planned for Mon Nov 1st.  So, we flew to Florida on the 31st.  We had read that launch dates can be postponed and changed so we flew the day before the launch and even planned a flexible vacation plan so we adjust accordingly.

The Friday before we even left for Florida, they had delayed the launch from Monday to Tuesday.  No problem.  We had a flex date in there, we’d just use Monday to visit the Space Center (not part of our original plan but something we had wanted to do).   But, before we even left for the airport on Sunday, they had moved it to Wed.  Still ok, as we had planned to surprise the kids with a day in Magic Kingdom at the end of our trip, we’d just do it at the beginning and shift our schedule a bit (this worked out really great as you will see in a later post). 

Well, Wed became Thurs and we knew if we didn’t hit the road Wed, we’d risk missing out on our planned National Park trips for the rest of our vacation.  So we gave up.  But, when Thurs became Fri, we started toying with the idea of still trying to squeeze it in.  If we drove back up to KSC from Everglades NP( 9 hrs round trip in one day) we could see the launch and still be back down to southern Florida with time to see our last 2 national parks. 

So we woke at 5:30am on Friday and checked the shuttle status.  They were proceeding with the count down and things looked promising.  We woke the kids, swung in to Starbucks for a potty trip (and some much needed coffee for Mommy and Daddy) and we hit the Florida Turnpike.   2.5 hrs into our trip, we learned they had scratched the launch.  We turned around, took another potty break and headed to Biscayne National  Park.   (The poor kids went through 5 hours of driving when they had really only needed to go 1 hr).  They were troopers though! Later in the day I learned that the launch has been scrubbed till Nov 30th.  Hope was lost.

While we are disappointed in not being able to see the launch (and to have put the kids though several unnecessary hours of driving on what was going to have been a light driving day), we had (and are having) a wonderful time here in Florida.  We have been able to do all the things we wanted to do short of the shuttle launch.

We had fun at Kennedy Space Center.  We actually went 2 different days.  I learned a lot.  (like where the phrase “The eagle has landed” came from).  And we did get to see the shuttle from the observation tower (something which can only be done the week of a launch)