Day 132: Seaworld, Orlando, FL

Welcome to September! As Fall starts to roll in back home in Ottawa, we are still living up summertime in Central Florida. Our time here will soon come to a close however, and we will spend one final month travelling up the Eastern Seaboard to arrive home at the end of September.

We started today, our last in Orlando, with a breakfast of champions made especially for us by Uncle Chris. It is so nice to eat in a real kitchen on a ceramic plate.

This morning we made friends with all sorts of sea animals at SeaWorld Orlando. 

We started our visit by going on a crazy roller coaster called Manta (there was no line so we couldn’t resist!) where, instead of sitting upright, we rode in a face-down superman style flying position. The barrel rolls in this position were nuts since they flipped us on our backs facing up at the sky like an upside down turtle.

The pretty pink flamingoes were our first animal encounter of the day. They were so bright and beautiful. They must get fed lots of fancy shrimp.

Next we visited the rays at Stingray Lagoon. We fed them minnow sized fish that we held between our fingers. The stingrays came right up close so we could pet their silky backs. Then one would swim up over our hand and slurp up the fish with their mouth located on their underside. It was a bit shocking the first time since they were right up on top of our hand but it was also super cool to get to be so close to them.

We visited the manatees during breakfast time where we watched them crunch up iceberg lettuce and curly kale. The hugest manatee could fit a whole head of iceberg lettuce in his mouth at once!

American alligators were up next. We saw lots of juveniles and learned about the zebra stripes on their skin that fully disappear by the time they reach maturity at five years old.

The penguin pen smelled as fishy as we expected, though the penguins were incredibly healthy looking. The emperor penguins especially were very handsome fellows. They are all such amazing swimmers.

The best part of the day was next - feeding the sea lions. These guys were such characters, with so much personality. They sang, yodelled, and barked for their fishy snacks. Following the direction of the trainer, we made eye contact with a potential snack recipient and then “tossed the fish right at their face as hard as we could”. Seriously, these were the exact instructions we were given. Too funny.

It was beyond amusing to interact with these amazing animals. They were so funny and happy.

These wild sea birds hung around the sea lion enclosure trying to snag rogue fish snacks.

The shark tanks were worth seeing too. We watched scuba divers scrubbing the tank decorations. We loved travelling on the conveyor belt through the shark tube. We saw many different breeds of sharks and we even saw a huge sawtooth fish!

This leopard ray was huge; at least eight feet across!

We saw a wild pink spoonbill hanging around the SeaWorld lake. It was the most lovely blush colour.

After lunch we headed back for an afternoon of swim time in Winry’s backyard pool, which she so graciously shared with the boys. She even shared her inflatable slide and swimming goggles. She’s going to be a fantastic big sister.

That’s a wrap on the Orlando portion of our trip. This leg of our journey has certainly been a jam packed adventure. We are back on the road tomorrow heading through Jacksonville with a stop at Sweet Pete’s Candy Factory.

Day 131: Kennedy Space Station, Cape Canaveral, FL

We touched the moon today!

It was a long but chill day exploring the Kennedy Space Centre in Cape Canaveral. 

Family reunion! 
Our numbers swelled to 12.5 today. The more the merrier.

After a relaxing family breakfast at Megan’s Cocoa Beach hotel, we headed to the Cape. When we entered the complex, we first drove past Jeff Bezos’ Blue Ocean complex. Then it was off to the Kennedy Space Centre Visitor Complex to meet up with Megan and family as well as our Orlando dwelling cousins Chris, Raisa, and baby Winry.

Our first stop was the bus tour of the complex to see the launch pads and museums. 

The barge called Pegasus docked during our visit. This boat transports rocket parts manufactured in Texas and Louisiana, but too large to be driven by transport truck, to Florida.

This was old launch pad 39. We watched a simulated launch with lots of steam. How exciting!

 Next up was the enormous Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB). This is the largest single storey building in the world! It is so tall and is used, not surprisingly, to assemble rocket ships. The garage doors on the side are humongous.

This was the actual Launch Control for the Apollo 8 mission to fly to and orbit the moon. 

This was the capsule used for the first moon landing. Did you know that the pilots of this mission played a big role in manually landing on the surface because the ship was approaching too fast?

These are the locations of all the moon landing sites during the Apollo missions.

The capsule the brought the crew back to Earth.

Seamus touching a moon rock! Incredible.

The kids spent a lot of time in the playground. This was the highlight of their day (and Ian’s “lowlight”, lol).

We explored the collection of rocket ships on the grounds. They are so massive.

Next up, we attended a talk by a real astronaut, Ken Cameron, who has been to space three times! He told us about the technology behind the development of the current space suits and shared some of the realities of impromptu problem solving in outer space. His talk was a bit dry and adult focused but the boys were extremely well behaved.

Lastly stop of the day was to see the shuttle Atlantis. This ship was special because it took off like a rocket but returned to Earth landing like a plane making it reusable. It flew to space 33 times before retirement and now sits here. It was incredible to see the real shuttle with all its scuffs and burn marks from reentry.

Behind the boys are the Atlantis’ two reusable rocket boosters and the one time use orange fuel tank that burns up in the atmosphere upon reentry. The amount of fuel (liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen) needed for each trip was astronomical. This was certainly not a fuel efficient vehicle.

We rode the shuttle simulator to feel like what it would be like to take off from Earth into space. It was neat but after three days of epic roller coasters this trip felt like child’s play to the boys. They decided that a trip to space would be no sweat at all.

As you must at a space centre, we finished the day with space food. Freeze dried mint chocolate chip ice cream! It was a winner but very crumbly.

At 5 pm we were the last people at the Visitor Complex and were nicely escorted off the premises by security. We said goodbye to Megan, Grandma Cora, William and Elise, who are headed back to Toronto. What an amazing visit. We are not without family though, as we have been most generously invited to stay with Chris, Raisa and Winry for a few days to regroup before continuing on our adventure.

Our backyard view tonight. Pretty gorgeous.