Kennedy Space Centre

We had allways intended to visit the space centre and after seeing the shuttle launch we were especially keen to do so. For Tammy and myself it was much better than Disney and I think the girls even enjoed it a little too. The space centre has a great visitors centre and from there you can take bus tours all over the complex. We took one of the longer tours which let us go right up to the shuttle launch pads and landing strips as well as the gigantic assembly building. It was a fascinating tour with a great guide who kept us riveted talking about all the activity at the centre. KSC has about 1 launch a month of one sort or another, mostly servicing the international space station. The place is a hive of action.
Yesterday we took a slow drive down the coast back to Miami. We stopped at a beautiful beach in a reserve between Jupiter Island and Palm Beach but unfortunately had to make a dash for the car as a violent storm came in from the ocean. Rhiannon was devistated because it was one of the best shell beaches we have ever been to. The strech of coast leading north from Palm beach was quite interesting because it was originally all owned by an individual who decided that he didn't want it to end up looking like Miami and stipulated in his will that large tracts of the coastline that he owned had to be retained for he environment. As a result there is much more variation in scenery compared to the monotonous high rise developments between Palm Beach and Miami.
The storm that drove us off the beach intensified once we started driving and got so bad that I had to stop driving before my hair all fell out. The first place I found to pull in off the road happened to be a Mall in Palm Beach Gardens which is one of the more affluent areas in Florida. It was full of Gucci, Armani etc and we looked distinctly out of place racing in out of the rain soaked to the skin.
Last night was at an Airport hotel and I had an interesting time returning the hire car that I think is a sign of the times in Miami. When I went to top up the fuel the service station attendent only spoke Spanish and couldn't understand that I wanted to fill the car up (I had to prepay). Finally the manager turned up and seemed quite surprised that I couldn't speak Spanish. Then when waiting for the hotel shuttle to take me back to the hotel, two shuttles from the same chain turned up at the same time. Again one of the drivers only spoke Spanish and we couldn't work out wether it was the right shuttle or not. Luckily the other driver sorted it out. It seemed odd that ofter a month in South America the biggest incident I had with language difficulties was in Miami!