** Note: I made several posts about our trip to Florida while it was happening, but those were mostly submitted via my phone and only told a part of the story.  This is meant to provide you with the full story, including some details and funny bits which never made it into the previous posts.  I hope you enjoy it…  **

Joel and I have always wanted to see a Space Shuttle launch.  A couple years ago when NASA announced they would be retiring the Shuttle program, we decided that we were going to go see one of them.  As the remaining missions dwindled, we had yet to follow through on our dream.  But that all changed in the middle of January.

With a mere 5 launches left on the schedule we realized that it was now or never.  We heard from several people that if you could only see one launch in your life it should be a night launch, and the February 9th launch for mission STS-130 was the last night launch on the schedule, so that was our target.

We quickly researched airplane tickets and found a great deal on Continental that had only two tickets available for the price, so we snapped them up on the spot…  And with that, our plan was hatched.  We wanted to see the launch from the NASA Causeway because it is the closest viewing area for the general public at 6.5 miles from Launch Pad 39A (where the Shuttle launches).  NASA sells these tickets for $56, including two days admittance to the Kennedy Space Center and bus transportation to the Causeway, and because there is  “limited availability” they sell out in about 10 minutes.  Naturally, given that we had decided to pull the trigger on this trip as late as we did, we were too late to buy those tickets.  Undaunted, we decided to look to eBay for tickets, where we found many Causeway tickets available for prices ranging from $130-$800 dollars per ticket.  We waited for a few days hoping to get a real bargain but in the end we wound up paying $200 a piece for our tickets – right at the maximum price we had set for ourselves and slightly more than we paid for our plane fare.

Our friend Ansel was headed to Florida a couple of weeks before us so he could spend a few months with his girlfriend, Tiffany, and they graciously said we could stay at Tiffany’s apartment with them – an offer made even more generous when you consider that Tiffany had never met either Joel or myself.

With the accommodations taken care of the only trouble spot thus far was work: this would be the first time that both Joel and I would be unavailable for an extended period, and it was a very busy time:  we were set to launch our new corporate website at the end of that week, the National Auto Dealers Association convention was taking place the following week (a venue that translates into a significant portion of our yearly sales) and we were in the final phases of releasing our new product upgrade.  Needless to say, there was a lot of work to be done.

We promised that we would be able and willing to work remotely, assuring our bosses that we would not only keep up our normal work load but also pick up some extra while we were at it, so Lon agreed.  And work we did: we worked in the airports between flights, in the car using our 3G cards, and even from the NASA Causeway in the dead of night, taking support calls, closing cases via email, and working on the webiste.  Just about the only time we weren’t working was while we were sleeping (which we did not do a lot of) and while we were flying.

But that’s not to say that we didn’t have a good time, because we had a blast!

We had a 6am flight so we met Joel at 4:30am (Mom was gracious enough to drive us to the airport before the butt-crack of doom).  Naturally both of us went to bed around 1am, so we were bleary eyed when we got to the airport.  We tried to sleep on the airplane, but the flights were packed and space was cramped so a few catnaps were the best that we managed.  We took the support line for a couple hours while we were laid over in Houston, which was convenient timing because Tim was left alone to cover Support and he had a conference call to attend during those same two hours.  We also discovered the Clyde Drexler sporting goods store while we were in Houston, which we did not know existed.  By the time we found it we only had a few minutes before our next flight boarded, but being good Portlandians we took a quick tour through the store just to see what it was all about.  Much to our dismay there was not a Blazers pinwheel to be found.

We landed in Orlando about 4:50pm (Eastern), just in time for a company-wide conference call.  We listened in while I retrieved my bag, then we found a quiet spot with a couple of tables to finish up.  After the work stuff was taken care of, we picked up our car from Hertz and set out for Tiffany and Ansel’s in St. Petersburg, about 2 hours away on the western coast of Florida.

We got into St. Petersburg about 10pm, just before Tiffany got home from work.  We visited with them for a while and then Tiffany offered to show us a little bit of the local night life.  Being aged like fine wine, we continued past many loud, raucous night clubs with young girls wearing basically nothing and settled on a mellow bar that served some fine craft beers.  We wiled away the hours discussing politics and the differences between Oregon and Florida until the bar closed, then we went back to Tiffany’s apartment and carried on for a while longer.  Eventually we ran out of gas around 3am and went to sleep.

The next day we got up around 8am and went to a little diner where we got a great breakfast for four bucks.  Joel ordered fresh squeezed orange juice and was shocked to learn that they only had concentrate.  It didn’t make any sense to us that in the state where the bulk of the countries oranges were produced, fresh squeezed orange juice would be unavailable.  The lady working there was less than impressed by our argument.

We hit the road for Kennedy Space Center, all the way on the other side of the state.  I drove so Joel could work, and Ansel and Tiffany kept us company and provided interesting tidbits about the area.  We got to Cape Canaveral around 1pm and made our way quickly to the Kennedy Space Center.   Ansel and Tiffany had gone through the Center before and decided not to go through this time, so they took the car and headed into Titusville to grab some lunch and relax for a few hours.

Joel and I only had a few hours to tour the Space Center, but we made the best of our time and saw just about everything, including mock-ups of much of the International Space Station, the ISS Processing Center (where modules are sent and worked on before being transported via space shuttle to the ISS), the Vehicle Assembling Building (the 4th largest building in the world, by volume) an actual Saturn V moon rocket – the size of which is nearly impossible to describe if you haven’t seen one yourself –  a full-scale mock up of a Space Shuttle and a Space Shuttle Launch Simulator.

The coolest part for me was the simulation of the Apollo 8 launch in the Saturn V area, which took place in the actual Firing Control room used in 1968.  All of the controls, computers, panels, monitors and various other equipment was not only authentic but was in fact the very same equipment used the day that the first “moon rocket” launched.

After you file into the room the lights are dimmed and you are taken through a recreation of the final launch preparations for the Apollo 8 mission, starting at t-10 minutes.  Recorded audio from Firing Control was played over the rooms speakers and as each person spoke on the recording a spot light would shine on their station.  That was all very neat and added a fantastic sense of drama, but the neatest part was when the rocket boosters ignited:  the ground shook and the large “window” behind us glowed red and rattled and shook with increasing intensity as the large display showed the the Saturn V lifting off.

That was truly awesome.

The Space Center closed at 5:30 and we stayed about 15 minutes after that until we were gently urged to leave.  I thought it was sort of strange that we had to leave, given that we had to be back in a little less than five hours to queue up for the bus to the Causeway for the launch that night, but whatever.  Rules are rules.  The amazing part was that the launch was scheduled for 4:39am, more than six hours after we were supposed to arrive back at KSC.  Craziness.

Tiffany and Ansel picked us up and we headed back to Titusville for dinner.  Anywhere and everywhere there was an unobstructed view there were people lined up in cars and motorhomes and camp chairs waiting for the launch.  A shocking number of people were not lined up and waiting however, and were instead cramming every single restaurant and coffeehouse in the city.  We managed to find a Mexican restaurant that served us Margarita’s while we waited for a table to open up, which happened surprisingly quickly, taking only about 45 minutes.  We ate and visited a little later than we probably should have, but we still got to KSC about 10 O’clock… along with 10,000 other people.  That is not an exaggeration, the actual estimate was 10,000 people, all of whom would be loaded onto more than 200 charter buses.  When we saw this gargantuan group we had to wonder about that whole “limited availability” claim about Causeway tickets.  It didn’t seem to us that they had limited it very much.

Thankfully Tiffany and Ansel were dropping us off, so we didn’t have to actually find a parking place.  They took the car back to Titusville to watch the launch over the water and we made our plans to meet up afterward.

We got in line at 10:15pm and we were at least a 1/4 of a mile from the front doors.  The line moved surprisingly quickly and soon enough we were at the security checkpoint.  At this point it is probably wise to tell you that while we were in Titusville we had stopped to buy a few libations to help lubricate our evening.  We bought a couple six packs and Joel picked up a bottle of Belvanie Scotch Whiskey.  Now, we never saw anything that said alcohol was prohibited, but we still knew that was undoubtedly the case.  Nevertheless we were confident we could get them through.  Joel went through the metal detector before I did so we wound up with different inspectors looking through our bags and that proved to be our downfall.  I got a guy who truly didn’t care if I had been carrying a bazooka.  He literally ran his hands around the outside of my softside cooler, gave it a gentle, almost tender squeeze and declared it OK.  Then he unzipped one of the six compartments on my back pack, barely glanced inside and with that I was I free and clear, wondering why we had to waste our time with that sort of inspection.

Joel had a whole different experience.  They went through his bag like he was a guy named Muhammad with his heart set on a tour of the Oval Office.

Needless to say, they confiscated our Guinness and Belvanie.  Sucky.

Much to our surprise, the whole Space Center was up and running.  All of the displays were open and operating, the shuttle launch simulator was running, everything.  We followed the sign to the correct line (there were six different lines based on the color of your tickets, ours being the most-prized Orange group), and the people there told us that we could get in line if we wanted but we weren’t going to be loading the buses until 1:30.  We decided we might as well get in line early, so we got in line and setup our chairs and did a little a work.  At about 12:30am – still more than an hour before we were supposed to load the buses – I decided to go take a walk about and maybe get some pictures of the Rocket Garden, which I hadn’t been able to go through earlier, I had only seen it from outside the gates.

No sooner had I gotten there then Joel called and said the line was moving forward really, really fast and he was dragging all of our shit along with him as best he could, having been given no warning that we were starting to move an hour ahead of schedule.  I hightailed it back there only to discover that we were separated by at least a billion people… and  I had the tickets we would need before we could actually board the bus.  A few quick mental calculations confirmed that it was time to start cutting, so that’s what I did.  I was really quite surprised at how few people objected to me blatantly pushing past them:  perhaps 30 people said something or made faces.  The other 982,029,387 people that I cut in front were totally cool with the whole thing.

I found Joel amidst a pile of our detritus off to the side at the final ticket-check point.  We’d lost probably 150 spots in line, but we were still very far in the front.  We queued up in this new area… and waited for another hour at minimum.  We never did figure out exactly why we couldn’t have loaded up this area to start with, but apparently NASA has some kind of plan that mere mortals can’t understand.

In the end we wound up on the 8th bus out the door, which put us in front of at least 192 other buses.  Not bad.  We got to the Causeway around  2:30am, right around the T-60 minute mark due to the number of built in holds.  While we were in line the weather had been steadily deteriorating.  By the time we got to the field there was a thick cloud cover over the launch range, all three European emergency landing sites were “no-go” for rain, and the likelihood for launch was down to 30%.  Not good.

The next couple of hours were spent preparing the camera gear, testing the camcorder – which we borrowed from Kyle and somehow broke in transit – and marveling at the mass of people crammed together in the middle of the night.  If was shoulder-to-shoulder as far as the eye could see, in every direction.  Thanks to our primo position in line, we were at the very front though and sitting right on the ropeline.

At T-9 minutes the launch enters its last built-in hold, a 45 minute suspension in the count down to verify that all two million systems are actually ready to go.  Mind boggling.  At the end of the hold is when each station is polled and calls out “Go!” or “No Go!”, like you hear in all the movies.  The NASA TV feed was being played on loud speakers so we could all hear the progress of the poll, and our hearts sank when we got to SRO and heard “No Go.”   That was it, the launch was officially scrubbed due to poor weather at Kennedy Space Center.  The next launch window would open up for nine minutes beginning at 4:09am the following day.

We packed up our crap and trudged back to the bus.  The ride back to the KSC Visitor Center was almost totally silent, everyone disappointed and exhausted.  It was after 5am at this point.  When we got back to the Visitor Center we learned that we had to purchase new bus tickets for tomorrow nights launch attempt, for $21 dollars, and they had to be purchased before 9am or else they wouldn’t be guaranteed.  We were very, very tired and did not want to stand in line again, but we also needed to get the tickets so we manned up and got in line.  We paid for our new tickets about 7:15am and went to find Tiffany and Ansel.

I made sure to have the car serviced and inspected by a diesel mechanic a few days before the trip. Once in the car Joel and I fell almost immediately to sleep, which was great for us, but sucky for Ansel who was driving.  Well, “idling” is probably a better term.  It took more than two hours to get from KSC to Titusville, only about 7 miles away.  Fortunately Tiffany and Ansel found us what we are pretty sure was the only room still available in the whole area, and it was wasn’t technically available until noon.  We pled our case and the proprietor agreed to clean our room quickly, asking us to come back in an hour and a half.  We had breakfast at The Village Inn, and again Joel asked for fresh squeezed orange juice and again the waitress looked at him as if he were insane.  Well, in truth he asked for “French… French… Frrrreeeench squeezed orange juice”, but I think she got the point.  Strike number two on the orange juice front.

We got back to the room a little after 11am and true to his word the proprietor had our room ready for us.  And what a room it was.

It was a total dive.  The carpet was dirty, the furniture cheap, the beds hard.  There was no heat, there was daylight showing all the way around every door and window in the place, it was tiny, and the shower didn’t really quite work.  There was no heater, a fact that we were constantly reminded of both by Joel’s never-ending complaining and by the abnormally chilly temperatures, and, most strangely, there were five doors.  Five.  There were more doors than there were walls.  And the strangest part of all?  Three of the five doors did not function.  In fact, the doorjam had been cut out of one of them and a bed was snugged into the spot and screwed to the door.  I thought that was very odd.

However, I was so freaking tired that none of that mattered.  All that mattered was that there was a bed, I was really tired, and I didn’t have to sleep in the car.  At that moment it was just about my favorite spot in the world.

We crashed hard, sleeping from around 11:30 until 5pm, when we had to get up and find a place to watch the Super Bowl before heading back out to the Space Center for attempt number two at seeing Endeavour blast itself into low-earth orbit.

I consulted Yelp on my phone and found a nearby sports bar that boasted about having a lot of TVs and mediocre service.  We setup shop there amidst a whole group of loud and roudy Saints fans, which was convenient given that all four of us were rooting for New Orleans as well.  We ate dinner and drank many a beer.  We also learned that they don’t serve fresh squeezed orange juice.

The game went fantastically well given that we were cheering for the Saints.  When Manning threw the interception at the end of the game and the Saints ran it back for the final TD, the place went nuts!  The six people at the next table to us were all from New Orleans (in town to watch the Shuttle launch, of course) and they were ecstatic!  The one lady started jumping up and down and screaming, and when the Saints scored the final touch down she ran around the bar kissing each and every person and gave us all Mardi Gras beads.  It was very cool, and was made even cooler by the fact that I didn’t have to show my boobies to earn them.

After the game we set out again for Kennedy Space Center, detouring this time to drop Ansel and Tiffany off at the room so they wouldn’t have to come pick us up.  The hotel was only a short walk from where they were going to view the launch, so it worked out better for everyone.

Immediately we knew that tonight was going to be a very different experience than the previous one had been.  Gone were the droves of headlights seemingly stretching to the far horizon, gone were the hordes of police and KSC employees directing traffic, gone were the parking lots full of charter buses, and the line of geeks and space junkies which had snaked around for a least half a mile now was only 1oo people deep.  What a difference a day makes!  Last night there had been 10,000 souls out in the middle of the night, tonight there was maybe 2,000.  We breezed through security – again sneaking some beer through – and got in line in what felt like record time.  We setup shop in the bus line and settled in to wait, somewhat shocked at how few people there were compared to the nut house it had been 24 hours earlier.

The more intimate setting really changed the whole atmosphere.  Everyone was friendlier and we chatted more with our neighbors, making friends with a couple sitting next to us who, coincidentally enough,  had been on the same bus as Joel and I the night before.  They had never seen a shuttle launch either and were just as anxious and excited as Joel and I were.  We did some work while we waited, but more quickly than we anticipated they moved us up into the main bus line again.  This time we were prepared for it, so we had our stuff buttoned up and we were both together when it happened.  While we were snaking through the line a fellow passed me and saw my Blazers hat and said he was a season ticket holder.  The line was moving quickly and thanks to the snaking we were headed in opposite directions, so I shouted back over my shoulder that I was too.  A few minutes and another S-curve later we passed again.  This time he asked if I knew if Roy was going to play in Tuesday’s game, and I said I didn’t think so.  We carried on this strange, one sentence conversation as we passed each other for about ten minutes, until eventually Joel and I made it onto the bus – the 4th overall bus this time, four better than yesterday.

We got out to the Causeway and setup in a much nicer spot than the previous night, under a sodium vapor light and next to the rest rooms.  The only bummer was that we were also right next to a generator, but that wasn’t so bad.

It was still cold enough that Joel and I both snuggled into our sleeping bags while we waited.  The wind had died down considerably in the last 24 hours and while there were a few scattered clouds in the night sky, the weather report was much more optimistic for tonight than it had been last night.  The weather at the emergency landing sites was still sketchy and threatened to scrub this launch as well, but the KSC range was “go” all night.  Everyone listened anxiously to the periodic weather updates, hoping against hope that Endeavour would actually launch tonight.

The small group continued to be more friendly than it had been the previous night, and several people came over and spoke to us, including the Blazer fan I had been speaking to in line.  He and his wife had moved from Seattle to Albany and were currently on an extended month-long vacation.  Their next stop was New Orleans for Mardi Gras.  We also met a photographer originally from the Czech Republic and currently living in New York, as well as a fellow from Australia who had come just to see the launch.  Joel and I thought that we had come a long way, but our 3,000 mile trip paled in comparison to coming all the way from Australia.

Several other photogaphers, including the Czech guy, came over to me repeatedly to talk some shop and figure out what settings we should use for shooting the launch.  I had done some research on the internet and I had spoken with a professional from the area and he told me what he felt was the best setup to get good pics, so I passed that information along to everyone who asked – along with the caveat that I had never shot a launch before and really had no idea what I was doing.

Time passed very quickly and before we knew it, the 45 minute hold at T-9 minutes was almost over.  A hush fell over the crowd as we all listened to the NASA TV feed playing the poll from Launch Control, getting more and more anxious as we came closer to the weather officer.  That would be who decided if this launch went off or not.  Finally, after what felt like a life time the moment came.  “SRO?” the loudspeaker asked, causing every person there to hold his or her breath, our ears perked, our hopes high but cautious.  Every other station had responded immediately with an emphatic “go!”, but as the crowd listened with bated breath, the silence lingered.  Ten seconds, twenty seconds, and still nothing.  After about thirty seconds a voice finally came through the speaker, quiet and maybe a little uncertain, but clear nontheless.  “SRO, go.”

The launch was on!  The last couple of stations gave their consent, and just like that the whole thing was turned over to the computers.  The countdown clock started ticking again, and we found ourselves at T-8:59 and counting.  Cheers and applause filled the night,  and somewhere between the port-a-potties and the noisy generator a couple bottles of contraband Blue Moon clinked in celebration.

I’m not sure that nine minutes have ever passed that quickly in the history of time.  It seemed I barely had time to double check my cameras and get the cell phones ready to record before we hit T-60 seconds.  All eyes turned toward Launch Pad 39A, six and one half miles across the water.  At T-10 seconds, everyone started counting down.  At t-6 seconds the sparks started to fly under the Shuttles main engines, burning up any excess hydrogen that may have built up, clearly visible as a bright orange glow even at our distance.  I clutched my remote controls in my hands, waiting for the penultimate moment.

The loudspeaker continued its countdown: “3… 2… 1…  Ignition of Space Shuttle Endeavour!”  An incredibly bright speck of light burst into life, growing impossibly quickly, spreading out in the blink of an eye, looking for all the world like a nuclear sun bursting forth in silent, blinding intensity.  A huge cloud of dust, exhaust and steam billowed out, completely obscuring the launch pad and tower, and still the small sun continued to glow brighter, bathing the whole area in artificial daylight.  After a surprisingly long time, perhaps 6-8 seconds, the shuttle finally emerges from the cloud, climbing shockingly slowly considering there is 4 million pounds of thrust propelling her toward space.  My camera is clicking away like crazy as Endeavour continues to climb silently higher into the sky, riding a blinding gout of hot orange flame.

About now we begin to feel the ground tremble and the air vibrate deep in our lungs as the blast wave begins to wash over us, but still we haven’t heard a peep out of this awesome spectacle.

The shuttle continues to climb, moving like a scalded cat now, a gargantuan bottle rocket tearing its way skyward… and then the sound reached us.  Quiet at first, but deep and bass and menacing.  Then without warning it burst through the night, growling, ripping, groaning, the sort of sound you might expect to hear from an angry God just before raining damnation onto the Earth.  By now the shuttle is little more than a streak of yellow/orange light high in the sky, arcing from left to right and flying away at thousands of miles per hour.  As quickly as the light burst through the night, it is gone again.  The angry, growling sound wave winds itself down slowly and fades away.  Endeavour is little more than a fast moving star now.  A small flare up marks the separation of the solid rocket boosters, and slowly two tiny orange flames die away, leaving only the bright blue star of Endeavours three main engines.  About a minute later the blue light quietly fades to nothingness.  A minute after that, approximately 8 minutes after the whole ordeal began, the loudspeakers announced that the launch was successful: Space Shuttle Endeavor was safely in low-earth orbit, seeking a rendezvous with the  International Space Station

We were asked to head back to buses as quickly as possible, so we packed up our crap and headed back.  Last night the bus ride back to Kennedy was quiet and sullen, tonight it was raucous and jubilant.  Everyone was retelling the story, commenting on one aspect or another, showing videos and photos to their seatmates.  Quickly enough we were back at the Space Center.  Joel and I both decided to hit the souvenir shop again and pick a few last things before heading out.

We got back to the hotel about 6am and crashed hard, but not for long: we had to take the early shift for the Support line just shy of three hours later.  Fortunately there were not many calls that morning, but we still had to be awake for it.  We had to be out of the room by 11am, so we got our stuff packed up and went for breakfast at a small restaurant down the street.  Joel ordered fresh squeezed orange juice, and the lady looked at him as if he were himself a talking orange.  Our breakfast was pretty good except the “cheesy grits”, which turned out to be grits with a square of processed cheese dropped on top.  That was disappointing.

As we were leaving the restaurant Ansel realized that he had given the hotel operator the keys to Tiffany’s apartment instead of the room key.  He went back to make a trade, only to discover that the man felt he was owed $10 dollars for the mix up.  Ansel laughed at him as if it were all a big joke – which he didn’t think it was – quickly made the trade and hightailed it back to the car.

We had a couple of days to kill and we decided that we wanted to see the Florida Keys.  Tiffany had to work early the next morning so she said she had to beg out, so we set out for St. Petersberg to take her home.  While we were at the apartment the guys decided to put on some “Key West Outfits”.  Little did we know that these outfits would be sadly appropriate.

Ansel volunteered to drive so that Joel and I could both work, which we really appreciated.  The rest of the day was spent driving around Florida.  We stopped for a few minutes in the middle of Alligator Alley near sunset to finish up the last part of a all-employee conference call, and then I took some pictures because that is what I do.  I got excited for a minute thinking I had seen a ‘gator, but it turned out to only be a rock.  We were all bummed that we never saw any gators.

We arrived in Key West about 10pm that night and started trying to find a hotel.  A room was very hard to come by, but thanks to the fellow at the desk of one the resorts who found us a room at another place, we got a fantastic room with a fridge and a sink and a microwave for only $30 bucks more than we had paid for the room in Titusville.  To be fair, though, the room in Key West had no where near as many doors.

Ansel wisely decided that we should buy some beer for the room before the store closed, which we did, and in so doing discovered that we had foolishly purchased a lime but had no cutting utensils.  Never one to be deterred by adversity, Joel attacked the poor little thing with a fork until we had some rough wedges to stick in our beers.  We shot a video of that little episode for posterity.  (In retelling this story several weeks later it was pointed out to us that limes come naturally segmented into wedges.  All we really needed to do was peel it and everything would have been fine.  Not one of us had ever considered the possibility that a lime could be peeled until that very moment, regardless of the amount of blood present in our alcohol stream.)

With beer in hand (its legal to wander around with open containers in Key West) we set out for Duval street, with visions of crazy bars and Girls Gone Wild videos dancing in our heads.  What we found was a deserted street and a whole bunch of gay bars.  Turns out that Key West is a sort of homosexual Mecca of the Southeast and apparently goes on hiatus during the work week.  Who knew? (Turns out that just about everyone knew.  Apparently we were the only three people in the country who didn’t know this.)  Undaunted, we trudged on and sampled many of the local watering holes, including what I think was a drag bar, a Hogs Breath Inn, and a place that advertised “Dancers” but turned out to be a disco.  In the process we pretty much drank ourselves silly, killed an 18″ pizza in about ten minutes, got some advice on where we could rent cheap snorkeling equipment for the morning, and then went back to the room to kill the last of our beers.  We laughed and joked for about an hour and eventually we all passed out: each of us in our clothes and on top of our blankets, which is exactly how we woke up approximately 6 hours later.

We packed up our stuff, took our second shower of the whole trip, and set out for downtown Key West to buy some swim wear for Joel and Ansel.  As empty as the streets had been the night before, they were totally packed during the day.  It was craziness.  Joel and Ansel bought some clothes (Ansel apparently was really getting into the vibe of the city because he purchased women’s clothes for himself), then we set out for the beach to do some snorkling.  Sadly, when we arrived we were told that the storms that had canceled the launch on Sunday and dumped all that snow on the northern part of the east coast had also kicked up all kinds of sand and muck and made the water impossible to see through.  So no snorkeling for us.

We hung out on the beach for a while and watched the girls (we finally found some girls!) for a couple hours, then decided we’d had enough fun and set out again for Safety Harbor where Tiffany’s parents live, about 450 miles away.  Again Ansel drove so Joel and I could work.  After several hours poor Ansel was starting to fade, so we put away the laptops and wiled away the remaining hours by arguing about politics and generally solving all of the worlds problems.

Tiffany’s parents were very lovely people and offered us the use of their couches and spare bedrooms to shorten our trip to Orlando for our flight in the morning.  Tiffany’s mom also bought us all presents: chocolate alligators, because she heard that we hadn’t seen any yet.  And for Joel she had another special present: a gallon of fresh squeezed orange juice from the grove up the street!  We laughed and joked with Tiffany’s mom and dad for a while, then we swung by a birthday party for one of Tiffany’s worksmates (as it turned out we were the old farts that crashed a 22nd birthday party), downed most of a bottle of scotch, ate some Taco Bell, then went back to Tiffany’s parents house where we found a pair of couches turned out with fresh sheets, blankets and pillows.  We were very grateful for that, even though we had assured her mom that we had our sleeping bags and would be fine on our own.

We hit the sack pretty hard and slept for all of two hours before we had to get up and drive to Orlando to catch our plane.  I was so tired (and maybe a wee bit hungover), that I damn near stole someone’s iPhone before I realized that it wasn’t mine and put it back.  We hit the road and made it to the airport right on time, about two hours ahead of our flight.  We grabbed some breakfast, pulled out the old the 3G cards and closed some cases, then it was back on the plane bound for home.  As with the eastbound flights, our journey west was crowded and uncomfortable and did not afford much of an opportunity for rest.  On the plane I tried to add up how much sleep we’d had over the whole five day span, and I came up with about 20 hours total.  No wonder we were so damn tired.

We landed in Portland around 6pm and Mom picked us up.  We stopped off at Mo’s house and went to the restaurant across the street to eat some dinner and watch the Blazers stomp on Phoenix, then it was time to go home and hit the sack.

It was a fantastic trip both in terms of what we saw and the company we kept.  It was a hectic trip that definitely wore us out, but we had a wonderful time, we made some new friends, I got to know an existing friend a lot better, and we got to see the last night time space shuttle launch there will ever be.  What an awesome adventure!