Another Day At The Beach!

Isaac watching Daddy put a fish in his bucket.

Isaac's reaction after he touched the fish. He loved playing with the fish in his bucket. I don't think the fish enjoyed quite as much.

Isaac trying his own hand at fishing. The pole was about three times his height but he loved helping Grandpa and Daddy fish.

That is a true fisherman's pose if I have ever seen one...well, except for maybe holding mommy's hand.

After conquering fishing with a pole, Isaac decided to try using a net to catch fish. He actually had quite a good time just dragging it along the beach.

Here is a large jellyfish that washed up on the shore where we were fishing. We had to be careful that Isaac didn't try to touch them.

Gary and I fishing off the beach near their condo. We had a pretty successful day. We caught a Bluefish and some Whitening. I caught both a Bluefish and Whitening that were about 17 inches.

Here is my Bluefish. I also caught a nasty sunburn that day, not something that I wish to catch again. The worst part was on my head, damn receding hairline!

Gary found a crab in the shallows as he was wading out to cast.

Mr. Pelican after I gave it a small Whitening that I had caught.

Family picture on the beach. We had to include the net in the picture otherwise Isaac was going to throw a fit.

Isaac trying to catch Mr. Crab after we let him go.

The crab started to bury himself in the sand to avoid capture.

Mr. Crab gone!

Daddy digging up the crab so Isaac can say one last goodbye. As you can see Mr. Crab wasn't too pleased about this and was giving me the finger.

Gaylord Palms Hotel and the Return of the Isaac

The Koi fish that I mentioned earlier. You could tell when it was feeding time because they would all gather together and look to the surface as people walked by them. Quite an odd feeling to be ogled by fish.

They looked almost fake but there were indeed real alligators in the center of the castle.

This guys was just enjoying the beach.

A pond in another part of the hotel that you could eat lunch on a boat that was sitting in the water.

The return of Isaac! Here he is trying to fit inside the storage compartment in the sofa.

Gaylord Palms Hotel, no joke!

Quite the name for a hotel. I figured I had to take a picture of the sign to prove that this was indeed the name of the hotel. This was Heather and my vacation within a vacation. We took a 24 hour vacation to this resort and left Isaac with the grandparents. Korrin gave us the idea of using one of the travel Internet sites to see if we could find a good deal on a really nice hotel. Jackpot!

This hotel was incredible. This is the view from our room which was on the ninth floor. We had a little patio that we could site on and enjoy the view and atmosphere. The ceiling of the hotel was a big glass dome that allowed all the sunlight in during the day.

This a picture from our patio. This hotel was enormous! There was a castle like structure in the middle of the hotel with jungle plant life in the surrounding area.

Another picture from our balcony. This is what was directly below us. It was a little grotto with a pond with Koi fish. (think extremely large goldfish)

Another picture of the castle. You could walk on the lower or upper level depending on what view you wanted of the surrounding foliage.

This was the view to the right of our balcony. The "open" sign sits atop a building that looks like a shack but contains a five star steak house. We ate dinner here that night. Not only was the food delicious but we both got to eat our meal at the same time. We haven't been able to do that since Isaac learned to run. I also tried "Lucid," which is a drink where they pour 1.25 - 1.5 oz of absinthe into a glass. They placed a sugar cube atop a flat, perforated spoon and slowly dripped 4-5 oz of ice cold water on top of the sugar cube, which slowly dissolved into the Absinthe. The cold water caused lucid to louche ("loosh") into an opalescent cloud as the herbal essences emerge from the Absinthe and perfume the room. My bartender also set the drink on fire to warm it up. This was the first time I have consumed Absinthe but I don't think it is the same stuff that people used to hallucinate on. It was good anyway.

Some baby alligators hugging.

This one wasn't in the mood, so he was just mooning everyone.

It is not often said of turtles, but the bottom turtle looks like he could kick some ass! I believe he is none to happy about the other turtle trying to catch a free ride.

A really cool tree underneath the steak house. I am pretty sure it was fake, but it was cool anyway.

The view from our balcony as the sun was setting.

The glass dome.

A couple of times each day a locale alligator show brings some of their older animals to be handled by the guests of the hotels. They are a lot heavier than they look. They are all muscle. Much like me..... yeah right!

This was a gift for purchase at one of the many stores. It was a rooster made out of beads and if I remember right it cost over a hundred dollars. Ummm, I think I will pass on this one.

Heather and I enjoyed the peace and quiet of 24 hours without Isaac. We got to sleep in and eat meals and fully digest them without doing wind sprints in between bites. It was glorious.

Back to the Beach

Isaac helping Grandpa with his fishing rod holder.

Look Mom and Dad, sand!

Kennedy Space Station

Here is a shot of the spaceman that hovers above the entrance to the Kennedy Space Center. The center in located in Titusville, which is about 30min from Gary and Margo's condo in Cocoa Beach. They can watch shuttle launches from the patio.

Here is the shuttle all prepared for launch. It was supposed to go up a couple of weeks before we got there but weather caused it to delay until after our vacation was over. It would have been fun to watch it take off. It is hard to grasp how large this complex is in the picture. As a guess, I would say the brown building on the left is a one story building.

Here is a wider picture of the complex. The white bulb to the left is where they store the liquid hydrogen they use as fuel for the shuttle. The white bulb on the right is the storage tank for the liquid oxygen that they use for fuel and breathing. The hydrogen is stored farther away due to its explosive qualities.

Here are the tracks that the crawler moves on to take the shuttle to one of two launch pads. The crawler moves about 1 mph loaded and 2 mph unloaded. It gets about 1 mile per 150 gallons of diesel fuel. That is some really bad gas mileage. The road is around 8 feet thick of crush granite, which is needed to support the massive weight of the crawler and shuttle.

This is the building where the shuttle is prepared for the next launch. They normally take the engines totally apart to make sure everything is in working order. Then they assemble the solid and liquid booster engines before connecting the shuttle. This building is 2 1/2 times the height of the Statue of Liberty.

Here is the tail end of a Saturn Five rocket that propelled the Apollo missions to the moon.

Here is one tread of the crawler belt. It weighs one ton.

You wouldn't believe our luck. They actually asked for volunteers to go to the moon from the audience and Heather and I were chosen! Here is a picture to prove that we were indeed there. Heather chose to play the accordion while she was there and I was putting some rocks in a white box.

Here is a picture of the next payload to go up to the international space station. This payload is from Japan. Everything is sterilized and then they put saran wrap around the entire package. I think they do this to piss off the astronauts. Can you image trying to remove saran wrap from a truck load of supplies in zero gravity? No wonder missions in space take forever. As a side note, the International Space Station is really not so international. I would say the U.S. has built about 85% of the space station with Russia adding 10%, Canada 2.5%, and Japan 2.5%. The other 10-12 countries have barely done anything.

Here is a replica of the booster rockets and shuttle that are currently being used. Once the International Space Station is complete, NASA is going to scrap the shuttle system and go back to the pod system like the Apollo missions.

Here is a picture of the heat tiles on the bottom of the shuttle. After every mission each tile is checked for cracks. If one is found they remove the tile and replace it. Each tile is cut to perfectly fit in the old tiles place.

Here is a huge granite ball that they had in the food court. It had all of the constellations on it. It looked like it was suspended on a thin sheet of water and rotated.

This is what they called the "Rocket Garden." It contained some of the past rockets they have used to launch satellites into space.

Heather and Korrin in the replica of the first pod to send two men into space. Not a lot of room to move. Although they did design it so that both people were slanted to the outside of the pod so they didn't have to fight about who got the window seat.

These next couple of pictures were taken by the Hubble telescope. Simply amazing pictures. Each one is a work of art. My pictures don't do it justice but you could stare at these for hours looking at all the vibrant colors and interesting shapes.

These pictures are nebulae that are million of light years away.

Really cool!

We learned a lot about the space program that day. A couple of things I will pass on to you. These are things I never knew and think every American should. The first one was that the first moon landing almost didn't happen. The computer failed on the approach to the moon. Armstrong had 17 seconds to decide whether to abort the landing or pilot the craft himself. He only had 17 seconds worth of fuel to land otherwise they would risk getting stuck on the moon. That takes guts to do something no other person has ever done and be risking your life at the same time. There would have been no way to rescue them. The second thing I didn't know was that we landed on the moon FIVE times. I thought we landed on the moon one or maybe two times. Nope, Five times. Ok, the lesson is over.