Florida Hooooo!!!!

Well, a couple of weeks back while we were talking about road trips... I was planning one to Lake Erie to see the Marblehead Lighthouse... a friend of mine suggested that on the Independence Day weekend, we should journey down to Florida, to catch the launch of the shuttle Discovery STS-121. I was like, "Cool! Why not?" Then he also mentioned that his colleague has a place not too far from the Kennedy Space Center. Road trip with free lodging? That sealed the deal! Florida... HERE WE COME!!!

After checking out the launch time and date (Saturday 3:34pm), we estimated the 1060 mile trip there would probably take us 16 hours of non-stop driving to make it on time. We have two drivers to rotate, I volunteered for the night shift/overnight drive.

It was a long drive, but good fun. I did nearly run off-road once, if not for the wake-up strips at the side of the highway! That was around 5am I believe... I was kept up mostly by music, chewing gum and industrial strength caffeinated Thai tea!

Of course, as most of you know, the launch date of Discovery was cancelled, TWICE. So we spent our time mostly hanging around the beaches. It was great! To be close to the ocean... listening to the waves lapping the shores... man, I've been away from Singapore for so long... this almost feels special!

When it came to the actual launch day, 4th of July, I used my Canon Powershot A530 to capture a small video (hosted by YouTube.com) of the shuttle launch... as far away as we were, the sound of the rockets could still be heard, and despite the shuttle being nothing more than a brightly lit blip in the sky... the excitement and energy in the air was infectious!

We had a few other stop-overs near the end of our trip as well... check them out in my uploaded photos - the entire photo album of this FL trip can be found in Flickr! (Just follow the link)

Hope your summer holidays/vacation/trips are also fun and real interesting! I look forward to listenin' about yours too! Cheers!