Part one of our Southern Road Trip begins in the Space Coast to see some rocket launches from the Kennedy Space Center. We then drive up to Georgia and visit Stone Mountain.
Only one hour late this time. We spent the last few days packing up the travel trailer, doing laundry, taking the dogs to the groomers for my parents to dog sit and cleaning up the house before we embark on our 10 day Great Southern Road Trip. I was trying to not over pack the trailer and at the same time make sure we had everything we needed. It was pretty stressful because on top of that I asked my dad to build me a little desk that would fit right in front of the couch so I can work from the road. Rob already had this time off for a cruise we were supposed to take bit I work for myself and if I don’t work and get orders out on time then I don’t make money. Packages were cutting it close, coming in at the last hour but luckily the supplies came in earlier than expected so we were able to get on the road on Friday at 6pm, just an hour after Rob clocked out of work.
Part 1 of 3 – Titusville
Rob and I had tossed around our road trip route many times. We wanted to go here and there and all over the place but when we sat down to calculate drive time and how often we needed to stop, our trip got a little smaller and closer to home. Even though we both are perfectly capable of working remotely these days, we just couldn’t leave our pets for this long and most importantly, we didn’t want to risk our old Tahoe getting broken down all the way in the Dakotas.
SpaceX as well as ULA planned for 3 launches out of Kennedy Space Center that weekend so our first stop ended up being the Manatee Hammock Campground in Titusville FL. I have yet to see a Rocket Launch and Titusville is a great place to do that in because Cape Canaveral is directly across the Indian River.
Our campsite was a decent spot and a short walk to the water. We can’t expect much when we are booking these sites just a day or 2 ahead of time but Manatee Hammock Campground is a nice place and really cheap. After setting up, making dinner and working for a couple hours, we took a nap to get ready for this 2am launch of the Delta Heavy. By 1:30 am there were a lot of people streaming over to the Indian River and setting up chairs with their cellphones playing the livestream. We made a few friends while waiting around. Most of us never saw a launch in person and a few were showing videos of past launches. One guy even knew one of my neighbors.
At about Tminus 4 minutes they stopped the clock to double check some temperatures and after about an hour of constantly refreshing our twitter feeds, they finally announced that the clock is being set to 25 minutes and we are a go for launch! Yay! I was so excited! Rob was telling me that is is a pretty rare launch. They don’t do very many of the Delta Heavy launches and this was supposed to be a very large and powerful boom that we were definitely going to feel miles away.
T-minus 5… 4… 3… 2.. abort. Wait what? The launch got scrubbed at tminus 2 seconds! It was 3 am! We were so disappointed! The sky was perfectly clear and they had a great weather window but it got postponed for another week. Not to worry, there was a SpaceX launch at 10am on Sunday morning when we check out. Just kidding, that got scrubbed too. Not to worry, it was still a relaxing couple of days and a good start to our road trip. Saturday we drove around this small city called Melbourne just a half an hour from Titusville. It is supposed to be a little local hidden gem and we wanted to see what it was all about. The marina was where we parked. It was right next to the downtown area which was absolutely adorable and charming. We made friends with the owner of a country bar and had a beer to wait out the rain before we walked around some more to discover the cute old homes in the historic district right on the creek.
The next morning we packed up bright and early to make our way up to Georgia but made a quick pit stop to Destination Daytona to pop in to the Harley dealership and get some BBQ at Colt’s Pig Stand.
After driving about 400 miles, we arrived at our campsite in Stone Mountain late at night and in the pouring rain but we still managed to set up a little bit. When we woke up the next morning we saw how fantastic the view really was. Our campsite was right on the end of the lake but a short walk and we were able to see just how lovely the park was.
Next stop: Mississippi and Tennessee
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