We focused on three areas along the space coast:
- Barrier Islands from Melbourne to Sebastian along A1A
- Kennedy Space Center
- Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge and Cape Canaveral National Seashore
We spent a full day driving along A1A and stopping at several excellent points of interest - Indian River Lagoon Preserve, Sebastian Inlet State Park, Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge ( the first wildlife refuge in the US) and the Archie Carr Environmental Center and Wildlife Refuge. You'll learn about the barrier islands and how they are changtles and their struggle to survive, local history of the area at the fishing museum and the treasure museum. There are also quite a few walking trails and interpretive signs along the way. We saw a wild bobcat at the Pelican Refuge while we were hiking to the boardwalk! You just never know what you'll see, do you!
Kennedy Space Center
We visited the space center with our son 25 years ago and there wasn't much there except one museum and the launch pad and assembly building. What an incredible change since then! Not only has the technology changed but there are MANY new exhibits to see as well as two really good 3D movies - one about the space station and one about landing on the moon. You can even take a tour of the clean room where they assemble components of the space station and attend a talk with an astronaut. There are lots of "hands on" exhibits where you can try your hand at landing the lunar module on the moon or landing the space shuttle- I crashed and burned, Gary as a former pilot did very well - it was lots of fun! Admission is for 2 days in a 7 day period. If you're interested in this sort of stuff, you can easily spend a day and a half there. If you're a flying enthusiast like Gary, we recommend the Astronaut Training Experience. You actually go through astronaut training and fly a mission to the international space station! Plus you get to tryout two of the simulators that the astronauts use for training.
Canaveral National Seashore/Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge
We thought we might spend an hour at each of these and we ended up spending all day! The Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge has a 7 mile wildlife drive called Black Point. It is well worth the time! We saw 1,000's of blue winged teals, wood storks and roseated spoonbills!
he north district ( Apollo Beach) portion of the Cape Canaveral National Seashore has many interesting areas to explore. You can hike to an indian mound, tour Eldora - an early settlement in Florida, walk on miles of beaches and take a pontoon boat ride with the ranger through Mosquito Lagoon. The name of the lagoon sounds forboding but if you visit in late fall, winter or spring you won't meet any of the critters it's named after!
When we were there in January it was unusually cold for Florida. The sea turtles were washing up on the shore in "shock" from the cold water. The manatees were huddled into little canals trying to stay in water that was 68 degrees or higher so they wouldn't die. It was distressing to watch as a nat lover but comforting to know that the rangers were doing everything they could to protect these endangered species.
Now we're busy planning our REALLY BIG trip though British Columbia and the Yukon to Alaska! We'll continue our blog in May with our next adventure! We hope you'll follow along and just maybe it will peak your interest in planning your own trip to Alaska or at the very least you'll be entertained by our "mis- adventures and get a Real perspective of what it's like in western North America's last frontier! You can see our planned route on our website http//www.travelguidetothecountryside.com.
