Odie the Roadie: Catching up *People Notes*

We showed up at Cape Canaveral along with a few thousand of our closest friends to watch the night launch of the space shuttle. Here is Paul & Odie on the west bank of the Indian River, which is directly across from the launch pad. Check out all the sailboats that were jockeying for position to watch the launch in just a few short hours...

...ummm... well that didn't happen! The launch was scrubbed, but we got to see a most impressive moon rise over the launch pad!

This is what we saw...

This is (not) what we saw. Compliments of the Associated Press.

So as not to waste a good trip to the east coast of the state, we spent the next day at the Dunes Beach on the Atlantic. It was an incredible, beautiful, and nearly vacant beach north of Cape Canaveral. The sand dunes in some places were 10' - 15', clear water, dolphins - gorgeous!

A week later the launch actually did take place, and we watched it from about 150 miles away (rather than 10) from the street behind our condo! Honestly, it was most impressive and we felt fortunate to have witnessed a magnificent sunset launch. We could clearly see the launch - it looked like a giant roman candle shooting into the atmosphere. Due to the absolute perfect reflection of the sun, we could also see the booster rockets as they separated from the shuttle. We watched it arc into space - very impressive indeed! These are two pictures taken several minutes after the launch...well, not my best work...but take my word for it - it was cool!

The pink is from the shuttle, and the white is where the booster rockets separated.

We ventured into Tampa Bay for a day and poked around Ybor City. It is known as Tampa's Latin Quarter and is a National Historic Landmark District. It was originally settled by Cuban immigrants and became the cigar capital of the country.

Of course, Paul was especially excited to purchase some fabulous Cuban cigars...yes, it is legal to buy them in the US as long as they are rolled/made in the US. Or something like that.

I was happy to eat at Mema's Alaskan Tacos (we first stumbled upon that little place when Deb & Hunter were in town...yummmmy...how can you go wrong with a FRIED taco?!).

And don't ask me what this random NYC statue of liberty, t-shirt, pizza place was doing in Ybor City...weird.

We further ventured inland to explore the natural springs of Florida. Apparently there are hundreds of them. Rainbow Springs started as an attraction in the 1920's and grew as a tourist attraction with glass bottom boat tours, zoo, rodeo, gondolas, waterfalls, gift shops, etc.

When the large amusement parks (aka Disneyworld!) arrived on the scene, this park was closed and fell into disrepair for several decades.

It reopened in the mid 90's as an eco-friendly state park and National Natural Landmark and aquatic preserve. Long gone is the tourism aspect, replaced now with magnificent serene beauty, wildlife, fish, 'cooters', eagles, and yes, alligators!