STS-126 Endeavour Shuttle Launch 11/14/2008

We drove down from Daytona Beach to the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. We figured we were about 10-12 miles from the shuttle launch area and it was getting pretty close to 7:55 pm which was the launch time. We pulled off the road onto a side road. We only waited a few minutes before we saw a glow on the horizon. The glow got bigger and brighter.

A few minutes later, the shuttle could be seen. A little while later, you could hear the thunder of the shuttle.

When we got back to the resort, we found that other people had already posted video on YouTube. It appears that while they were a little closer (just across the water), their video was soon hidden by the clouds.
From where we were, no clouds were visible. This may be because we were north of the shuttle launch site and I believe their video was taken from the south. Or because we were further away than they were.

Baked Alaska

One of the things we took some time to do was to make a Baked Alaska. We used a brownie base, baked in a tinfoil muffin pan. Then froze them, added ice cream, made the meringue. Froze it some more. Then put it into the oven to brown the meringue.
Yummy!

Is that Alligator Alive?

We drove the Black Point Wildlife Drive on
Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge near
Titusville, Florida. We saw some great birds as well as some small and one very large alligator. Greg & Justin were sure the big alligator was dead, until it moved, and then they could not get into the car fast enough!

Lots of Ibis, gulls, herons. a couple of kingfishers, a roseate spoonbill, osprey, and a bald eagles nest, and more.

Volusia County Fair

Went with Greg, Justin & Shelli to the Volusia County Fair. Enjoyed a "blooming onion."

We figured at a State or County Fair almost anything deep fried would become an instant hit at the food stands. The ultimate would be a deep fried fat. Take some fat, margarine, lard or something like that, dip it in a batter and deep fry it. What could be more greasy than that?

In the Blue Ribbon building, we say a table setting exhibit. One of the first prizes was for a contrasting table. One side for someone like Greg. Plastic cutlery, camp dish, outdoor warmer vs. lace, china and silverware.

And we saw a whole lot of cute and harey animals.

I'm all FOUR it

There I was driving out of the office in the van, I looked down and saw the odometer. Wow, where's my camera.

Mini Butternut

Here are some of the fruit we bought at the roadside fruit stand just before entering Fig Tree Road. We had seen at another stand some butternuts squash. But they were very small-tiny in fact.
I felt like stopping and saying, "How come your squash is so small? My friend from Panama says everything grows so much bigger there, I thought your squash would be huge here, too."
So when we were in a grocery store, we saw some of the small squash, thought we need some vegetables to eat anyway.
Cooked it today, taste was okay, but the squash was so small it didn't have any seeds inside. I guess size isn't everything.


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Antigua Pigeon Beach

Spent one day at the beach here at the resort. We weren't on the the beach for more than 5 minutes when some one came by to sell a catamaran trip. We told Myron we didn't think we were interested. A few more hawkers came by at regular intervals to sell jewelry, baskets, more trips, seadoo rentals. Unfortunately for them, lucky for us, we didn't take any money to the beach.

Monday, we drove down towards English Harbour. We stop at Darkwoods beach and another one were there were horses wandering around.

We passed through Fig Tree Drive. This area is quite rain "foresty". Reminded us of the road to Hana in Maui (but much shorter). Stopped at a fruit stand to buy some mangoes, papaya, pineapple, and custard apples (locally known as honey apple, or as Moya or cherimoya).

At English Harbour we came to the site of the National Historic site of Nelson's Dockyard. We weren't quite ready to do the history stuff yet. We glanced at a tourist guide. Pigeon's Point has a great beach it said. And the map showed it to be right near English Harbour. Went down a side road and found a very picturesque beach. Quiet water, nice sandy area with fig trees for shade. We could sit close to the water and yet still keep an eye on the car. Only one hawker came by but since we were hungry, we were happy to pay for a couple of Roti's.

We saw a starfish near the shore. When it was out of the waves it curled up its arms as if trying to go back to the sea.

Later we did go to spend couple of hours at the Dockyards.