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Mel's Overseas Trip
Hi Everyone,
We are now back in the land of the USA in Miami, Florida. Miami is a fantastic place, we are staying at South Beach in the Art Deco area and all the buildings look like something from the 1950's all painted in pastel colours. We spent 2 days here just shopping the area and then we heard there was going to be an Atlantis shuttle launch in Orlando in the next couple of days so we quickly got on the internet and booked a train to Orlando. We arrived and organised our tickets for the launch, we were so excited. The next day was a 5 am start to get there intime for the launch, but on waking and turning the TV on, we heard that the shuttle was scrubbed due to a faulty fuel cell, what a wake up call, but we still went to the Kennedy Space Center and spent the day touring the site, it was very interesting to learn the hitsory of the NASA space program, they had some great IMAX movies!!!
Next day we decided to let the big kids in us run wild and we went to Disneyworld Magic Kingdom. We practically ran around the park the whole day to try and fit in all the rides, and we achieved just that. We went on every ride including the Snow White Ride and the Winnie the Pooh ride. We watched 2 parades and even got photos with Mickey and Minnie and Donald Duck.
We stayed till 10pm at night for the Fireworks and Tinkerbell flew out of the castle all lit up, very cool!!!
Next day we were scheduled to go back to Kennedy for the launch attempt again. We had a 3:30am wake up this time to get out there, we waited for 3 hours in the sun on the grandstands 6 miles from the launch pad with the Atlantis Shuttle in sight and the count down had begun. We were getting very excited, but with 25 minutes to go it was a NO GO due to a faulty hydrogen sensor!! We were a little disappointed as this was our last opportunity to view it with our VIP tickets, but better to be safe than sorry for the astronauts.
So this morning in the hotel we saw the launch on CNN TV at 11:40 am, the Atlantis Shuttle took off into space safely.
This was apparently the first launch attempt since 2003 when the Columbia Shuttle had a terrible ending on re -entry into Earth's atmosphere.
Now we are back in Miami and fly to New York tomorrow.
Take Care
Love Mel xoxoxx
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