Day 1 –Space Shuttle

We flew in on Saturday the 9th and all we could talk about was seeing the space shuttle lift off. The day before there was only a 30% chance that it would take off that night, but as the day went on the percentage increased. After we landed I headed over to the car rental place to get the van while Rick waited on the luggage. That’s when I found out that Rick would have to physically be at the car rental place in order to be included as a driver. Naturally the car rental place was a 10 minute drive from the airport! After Pops and Mimi D landed safely and got their luggage, we headed back to the car rental place. It took forever!! So then we headed down to All Star Sports for check in – another nightmare! I think I stood in line for about an hour only to find out that my request for connecting rooms was unavailable and I had to settle for rooms next door to each other. After we got settled we left Pops and Mimi D at the hotel and went to the McDonald’s drive thru because the kids were starving. We didn’t realize that the roads around the resort area are all a bunch of circles, and we drove around aimlessly for a bit. Then we missed the first turn for the 417 toll road. So by the time it was time for the shuttle lift-off, we were about halfway to Titusville – it’s 60 miles between Disney and Titusville, and we made it about 30 miles down the interstate and pulled over (along with several other cars). I didn’t have the camera on video at first, so I missed the very beginning of take-off. The video is not that great, but watching the lift-off was awesome! It’s so amazing that you can’t find words to describe it, as you can tell by my incoherent rambling during the video (why didn’t I keep my mouth shut?).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9F6Vm6n0Wns

After the lift-off we drove back to the hotel, and although we didn’t get super close, we were thankful we didn’t get stuck in the purported 2 ½ hour traffic jam in Titusville. We found out that Pops and Mimi D were able to see the lift-off from the courtyard at All Star Sports so that was good news, however, All Star Sports did not thrill me at all. There was some kind of teenager in heat convention going on there and we swapped over to Coronado Springs the next morning.