Port Canaveral and KSC

Time for a vacation, and time for one of our favorite events of the year - the Star Trek cruise!  So excited to be back after a one-year delay.  This year we sailed from Port Canaveral, a nice change from Miami.

Even the cruise host hotel got into the spirit of it all:

Admiring the colorful local wildlife while walking near our AirBnB:

John found a pelican friend while on a morning beach walk:

The best part of sailing from here was another chance to visit the Kennedy Space Center.  Several Star Trek cruisers organized a whole day of activities, including a bus tour and lunch with an astronaut.  Super cool!

Wandering around on our own before our tour started, we came across a Lego Mars rover - I wonder if it actually roves:

Admiring Space Shuttle Atlantis, with a group of Trekkies wandering by under the Canada Arm:

The Shuttle Portable Onboard Computer, or SPOC - I will probably get a photo of it every time I come here:

Star Trek references all around us:

Checking out the rocket garden before lunch:

Our astronaut was great!  He told interesting and fun stories, made us laugh, and inspired us all.  And hung around for photos (ours is only slightly blurry).  And... I didn't make a note of his name, darn it.  Thank you sir, and hopefully I'll be able to update this eventually with a more personal note of appreciation.

The bus tour took us over to the Saturn V complex, and our tour guide helped explain it in more detail:

Looking over the water at the various launchpads, imagining someday getting to see a rocket launch in person (we were a couple days off on each end of the cruise):

There was a model of a Space Exploration Vehicle on display, and apparently the wheels (or "tweels") are the actual wheels from the SEV that was part of President Obama's inauguration parade in 2009:

So we have been somewhat close to these wheels (excuse me, "tweels") before, that's pretty cool:

Mission Control mock-up from 1962:

Group photo with a bunch of new friends:

That was an excellent day.

Next up - getting on a ship with a whole bunch more friends!