Space Shuttle Endeavour STS-127

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Trip Start Jun 12, 2009 Trip End Jun 14, 2009

  Cape canaveral, Florida
Saturday, June 13, 2009

We (my brother and I plus our kids) purchased tickets to witness the launch of the Space Shuttle Endeavor (STS-127) on June 13th   (http://www.kennedyspacecenter.com/) from the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex (http://www.ksctickets.com/maaclavifrke.html), and we booked a 2 night motel stay at the Super 8 motel in the Cocoa Beach area. I have never seen a live shuttle launch and with the shuttle program now coming to an end I decided now would be the time to do so and how cool will this be for the kids to see and feel. STS-127 is the 29th shuttle mission (Endeavours 23rd) to the International Space Station.

We departed on Friday the 12th and we rented a minivan to make the drive more enjoyable for us all (especially the kids) who got to enjoy some movies for the long haul up and down. We experienced horrible traffic departing the Miami area and made it to our motel 2 hours behind schedule at 10pm.

The launch was scheduled to take place at 7:19am and we were required to be at the Visitor Complex by 5:30am. This meant a 4am wake-up call, which went suprisingly well considering that the kids had gone to bed so late the night before. My friend Peter and his eldest son Alex joined us on this trip.

On our drive over to the Visitor Complex we stopped at a Mini-Mart (convenience store) to pick up some food and drinks for the kids, and this is when we learned that the launch had been postponed due to a hydrogen leak on one of the shuttle's external fuel tanks. How dissapointing !!!! The launch had now been rescheduled for June 17th.

So we headed back to the hotel where we all caught some more zzzzz's and later that day we went back to the Space Center and toured the facility. The kids enjoyed themselves with all the rockets that were on display. After spending a few hours there we all went back to our hotel and enjoyed the pool for a few hours before heading out to dinner, where the kids had breakfast for dinner (I-HOP) and loved it  :o)

The next day (Sunday) we departed early back home, but made a stop in Boynton Beach to visit Grandma and Grandpa, where Grandma took all the kids (including me) to the pool.

So although I am dissapointed that we did not get to see the launch we still ended up having another fun filled weekend. I am still going to try to make it to a future launch - lets see if I have better luck then.

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More Pictures

Kennedy Space Center - map overview	Launch Scrapped	Kids having fun	vroom vroom
Check out the pose Rebecca is striking :)	Look at them goofy kids	what were we thinking? Sumo wrestlers?	Me and suit man
Kids with suit man	Launch is scrapped - shucks	The Hubester	kids cuddled up
crazy kids	texting and driving uncle Rusty? That's a no no	whatcha doing?	Traffic out of Miami was horrible
My princess who is growing up too fast	whats with the face Chris?	Look up in the sky, its astronaut man	Me and the kids
Rusty and Hubert	Los 4 amigos	The cuatro bandidos	Rebecca and Snoopy
Whats up kids?	They seem be having fun	My next motorcycle engine?	Rebecca with Snoopy
In the rocket garden	Chris and Hubert having some fun	my princess	capsule time
floor shot	taking in the sites	Peter and I	A ruskie satellite
Kids with the shuttle	Me with the shuttle	Sorry guys - u r all 3 too short :o(	Logo time
Some big ole gas tanks	Kids knocked out	Traffic early morning on way to KSC	Afternoon return
Lookout behind you	kids doing what kids do best	Next generation of kido-nauts	waiting for uncle Rusty with van rental
The Right Stuff	This is the money shot	Is that a Britto shuttle?	No Chris - no touchie touchie
Our group	Our group plus me	interesting angle	Peter and Alex
Only ride there and kids could not go :o(	Chris at hotel pool	Rebequita and me	Fishy Chris
On the chair dude - not through it	Ze winning picture	breakfast for dinner? why not?	Lovin it !!!
Wassup Hubert?	I think he had one pancake too many	Hubert going for gold	Chris with Grandma
The two cuz's	Rebecca gets them all again :o)	windshiled sign we never got to use	maybe again on July 11th?