Today I am off to the Kennedy Space Centre for a second day. I will be taking the 'close-up' tour, visiting a couple of pavilions and see 2 IMAX 3D shows. I leave the mo'tel about 0950 in time for my 1030 tour departure. I get free parking now that I am a 'member' but the parking lady is new and has to phone a friend to verify this, it is 1022 when I pass through the gate.

I had the foresight to purchase my tour ticket for today the day before, and with my membership badge proudly adorning my lanyard I was whisked through the VIP lane, through the metal detector, briefly questioned about handguns and explosives and directed to the tour bus line-up. My remaining challenge? My arch nemesis Kalvin. Every good story needs a villain, Kalvin is ours.

He saw me from 100 yards away, and as I approach he bristled and stood tall, preparing himself for battle. It was his DY assistant who broke the ice and said "he's back". The fact that I was wearing the same clothes may have helped the ID process. Typically I have 1 set of clothes to ride in and 1 set to live in. Because people at any given stop rarely see me twice, this is OK, but here my bright red Hawaiian shirt makes me a walking billboard.

I hand Kalvin my ticket, neon green today, and he makes a big show of peeling off the backing and approaching me for application. Then he breaks into a broad grin, his solitary brown tooth gleaming in the morning sun, and grabs a tour booklet and pastes the sticker on it! I obviously have made a connection with the guy!

I smile back and start to walk past him when he grabs me (now who's grabbing who?!) and gives me an awkward quasi man hug while simultaneously turning his head to speak to me. He says something about me the only person who doesn't have to wear the badge, which would have been kinda cute and endearing if his breath was not caustic, I mean knock a vulture off a carcass at 100 feet caustic. I mean wear a hazmat face shield and respirator caustic. I mean strip paint at 50 paces caustic. An unholy mixture of coffee & cigarettes, decay & gingivitis, maybe some bum and feet thrown in for good measure. It is like a hobo has died in his mouth!

I break free of the man hug and literally stumble sideways nearly knocking over the photo background nearby. I drink a lot, so I have some experience stumbling, and also experience recovering from stumbling, so I thought I did a pretty good job, but if the railings hadn't been there I might have actually hit the deck. I looked back and I shall never forget Kalvin standing there waving at me, genuine concern about my well being etched on his face, his single tooth gleaming brown in the sun, standing resolutely like an icon to our friendship.

I have been so delayed by these shena****ns that I am in danger of missing my bus, I sprint to the end of the line and am the last person to board. The tour guide asks all the passengers for our country of origin and when I say Canada he makes some remark about snow and igloos, but I am so rattled by the Kalvin-breath incident I let it go with an insincere smirk.

Off we go, largely in the same direction as the day before including slowing down as we pass the Eagle's nest and talking, with great NASA pride, how they have single-handedly restored the Eagle population in the area (despite the fact that the nest is currently empty). We drive out to the launch complex and go to many of the same places as the day before, but we do not go into the launch control centre. We may have gone to a couple of places we didn't the day before, but the 2 tours were essentially the same. And that is OK! I'm at the Kennedy Friggin Space Center! Repetition and thoroughness is welcome!

We do the same drill on the backend, the bus drops us at the Saturn 5 display instead of back at KSC. This is done so that you have to pass through the gift shop before you get a bus back, a very confusing gift shop where the exit is not very apparent. They often point out that no tax dollars are used running the KSC Visitor Complex so I don't begrudge them selling a few shiny trinkets to the natives!

We go back into the stand up theatre for the same presentation as yesterday and although I am a little disorientated in the dark I think I can circumvent this step and speed up my return. I walk boldly towards a marked exit, go through it and find myself in a service corridor, at the end is a rusty door, beyond that I find myself in the employee parking lot. The door slams shut behind me with a loud clang.

As it turns out I am only about 100 feet from the tour bus line-up and I only get maybe 2 suspicious looks from Deltayeller ladies as I emerge from an unexpected direction and try to blend in with the other tourists.

I get on a bus that takes us back to the KSC visitor centre, albeit with the obligatory drive-by of the empty Eagles nest and all of the hand shaking and back slapping associated with the bus driver & tour guide being personally responsible for restoring the global Eagle population back to its former glory.

I get back to the Visitor Complex in time to see a 3D IMAX about the International Space Station. It runs about 45 minutes and is incredible! I walk out of the theatre proud to be a human being, and proud to see what we can accomplish as a race when we stop hitting each other over the head and trying to steal each other's stuff for 5 minutes.

I walk out of theatre and and take a break for a snack. Although tempting, I do not go for the Turkey leg, I am seeing another IMAX and I don't want to have the turkey sleeps! I go for the corn dog instead.



After lunch I line up to see the 3D IMAX about the Hubble Telescope. Although it centers on the original flaw, the mirror had a 2200 nanometer (0.0022mm) error, and had to be serviced twice by the Space Shuttle, the final house call was created by Congressional Intervention as the Shuttle program had been cancelled by then. The final 15 minutes focused on imagery captured by the telescope, and the fact that it was looking 12.7 billion light years into out 13.8 billion year history.

I left the theatre feeling completely insignificant. I guess I should have seen them in the opposite order!

I go to the Discovery Pavilion, but find it is more for kids, although I do a docking simulation (successfully) and a lunar landing (unsuccessful). I also go through the Robot Scouts Pavilion, but it is also meant for kids, and not big ones either. I do not go into the Angry Birds Pavilion. There are 2 remaining Pavilions, one about nature and one that I can't remember what it was, obviously it did not make a big impression on me. I decide to skip them. I did spend some quality time in the Rocket Garden including this stunning panorama.



I head back to Cocoa Beach and spend the balance of the day on the beach enjoying some tasty adult beverages. I return, yet again, to the Thai-Sushi-BBQ restaurant to have some frog legs and more unfiltered Sake. Sadly the frog legs are not so good, they are battered, fried crispy then made soggy with sauce. The best FL's ever was in Truth or Consequences, NM where they were BBQ'ed crispy & crunchy!



I start going through the videos I have shot on my HD cam, but there is just so much! I edit a few compilations and try to upload them to the TravelPod site, but my internet connection is sucky at 0.16 MB/s upstream. Barely faster that dial up. I use this as my excuse for not completing the blog entry, but the truth is I am running out of excuses, I have used:

• My dog ate my blog
• My Grandma died and took my blog with her
• My internet connection sucks

What is left that is believable? Talk soon!