The traffic after the launch was legendary, as expected, and we arrived back at the hotel around 3am. We slept in and made it down to breakfast just before it was closing at 10am. There were a dozen men in blue T-shirts sitting around drinking coffee. On the back of their shirts was the hydrogen chemical sign. As it turns out, they are the guys who supply the...
We were eager to get back to the Kennedy Space Center to see all the things that we missed yesterday. Shuttle: A Ship Like No Other We stood in a theatre to watch an amazing movie about the shuttle. People made out of the box comments that at first seemed impossible like bringing it back to Florida on a plane. At the end of the movie, the screen in front of us opened...
The Kennedy Space Center is three things: an active working spaceport, a visitor center and a wildlife refuge – a very unique combination. Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge contains over 1,000 species of plants, 117 species of fish, 68 amphibians and reptiles, 330 birds, and 31 mammal species, of which 21 species are listed as endangered by the state of...
Rob has a birthday this month, and he wanted to do something special. I said,”Let’s go down and see the Artemis I launch.” What young man didn’t at one time want to be an astronaut. Rob even had a telescope. After some discussions Rob made some hotel reservations and we mapped out our road trip of 12 hours. We started at 8am, packed our...
Today, the time falls back and we turn our clocks back one hour. When I set the alarm at 12:00 to get up at 6:30, I was anticipating the smart phone to tell me that I would be sleeping for 6½ hours but it said 7½ hours. They really are smart phones!! Daylight savings seems to be a hot topic. Shall we do it? No one is talking about that on the numerous prolific ads on...
Chesapeake Bay has 64,000 square miles of watershed. The shoreline is 4,000 miles. For context, that would be to Alaska and back. Smith Island was named by John Smith in 1608. (I am sure that it already had a name!) Old Elizabethan language is still spoken on the isolated island. Watermen is an Elizabethan term and they mostly dredge for oysters. When you sell...
The Maryland Blue Crab is the state crustacean. The claws of the females have red tips on them. On the underside of the female is the top of the Capitol Building The underside of the male crab has the Washington Monument. Female Male St. Michaels is a harbor town. It is on the water but near the forest which is ideal for shipbuilding. We docked at the maritime museum...
Cambridge is another working waterfront town. Oysters are the biggest industry. Today they also embrace tourism. The oyster boom began in the 1870’s. People harvest oysters from November 1- March 31. Oysters are milky soft and spawn in the summer so they don’t taste good. They are firm and juicy in the winter. Oysters can tolerate wide swings of salinity...
Our boat docked at the working waterfront town of Crisfield, MD, the self-proclaimed crab capital of the world. We have learned that every town on the Chesapeake has a unique story and long history. Beautiful Swimmers by William W. Warner is a great nonfiction book about the crab industry and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1977. The whole town of Crisfield celebrates the...
Rob and I had been to Yorktown in February for our anniversary so we knew the town a bit. We stayed at a charming Bed and Breakfast called The Hornsby House. The town can be walked in a day and most everything closes at four except for a small pub with TV screens. (Sidenote: the TV on our ship stopped working today which was most unfortunate for those wanting to...