Visiting the folks, with a trip to Kennedy Space Center and the Florida Botanical Gardens.
Deictic deicer. There, that one!Southwest had a whole fleet of such Icemen.Reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.Nice bike with a basket.Champa flowers.Big plumeria.Hibiscus.Snakes! The two had been entwined, as if mating.Trespassing birds.It's about time people started talking about these things!Blue jay.Inspecting the Nifty Lift.Do not operate while slumped over.Look at all the terrible things that can happen, do not operate this machine if you know what's good for you.Driver's seat.The impassive gnome stands ever vigilant.Bunny rabbit.T. rex at Dinosaur World.Espresso martini with coffee beans in it.KSC Vehicle Assembly Building visible from a loooooong way off.Arriving at the Space Center visitor complex.Parking permit gantry shaped like a crawler-transporter.The old launch countdown timer. We would see the current one later. The bus tour guide said the time of −03:00:00 has no special meaning.Huge giant screen, rocket garden visible in the background.Bas-relief in front of Heroes and Legends.Deke Slayton's Mercury survival knife.Cool reproduction of Mercury mission control.Interior of a capsule with seats for two.The downward-facing part of a capsule. I believe this one had actually flown.Inside the Gateway building. That's a Dream Chaser Tenacity and a Falcon 9, I believe.Astronaut glove simulation game.Mars—the red planet.Dippin' Dots are called Space Dots here.Mural of the International Space Station.Inexplicable dead fish in the bus tour line.Back side of the space shuttle Atlantis building.Kennedy Space Center headquarters.A rocket on a launch pad. There was a launch scheduled for that night.Another rocket on a launch pad.Tour stop at the VAB.Bus.This CBS building, they say, is where Walter Cronkite sat as he reported the Apollo 11 landing.That's the current countdown clock, face visible from the news buildings.Me with the VAB.Crushed stone on the crawler-transporter path.Another launch pad, you can see the zipline escapes.A sphere of liquid methane, not unlike the planet Neptune.A gopher tortoise, apparently they inhabit burrows all over.Found the emblem of STS-118, the space shuttle launch I witnessed.Launch pad.Lengthwise view of the stone crawler path from the VAB.Training capsule.This fragment of a U.S. flag painted on the ground is to the same scale as the flag on the side of the VAB.That flag.Foot for scale.Armored escape vehicle.Gantry you can walk on.Apollo/Saturn V Center.There's a Moon tree garden. The trees there now are descendants of trees grown from seeds flown to the Moon.Saturn V engines. This had had a deep emotional effect on me the first time I saw it in 2007.Letter "U" taller than I am.Engines for the second stage.Top of the first stage.Moon rover.Lights in the cafe ceiling arranged like rocket engines.Lander.A real actual Moon rock you can touch.The floor was pressure-sensitive, with a projector overhead, and you would leave footprints as you walked around.Even the wheelchair wheels would leave footprints.Astronaut van.Bus tour lineup area.Back at the main visitor complex, after the bus tour.Gnome park bench.These pinks are red.Snake basking.Holophane light embedded in the pavement.Nifty Lift in action.Freeze-dried ice cream sandwich from the Space Center.At the Florida Botanical Gardens. "In grateful appreciation to master gardeners and volunteers for dedicated service."Wild coffee plant.Butterfly crossing.Nice mosaics in the sidewalk.Kalimba.Pineapple plants.Banana tree. (Bashō!)Who knew dragon fruit plants look like this!Eagle Scout Project. Derek Sawyer Boing, Troop 468, Largo, FL. Summer 2018.View of lily pads in the river that cuts through the gardens.This spot was the inspiration for the Living Forest stage in Mortal Kombat II.Rubber plant, look at the pink flower.Beach ball.Itty bitty crabs by the shore.Weird-looking duck.Tiny woodpeckers, seriously they were like finches.
