Rocket Launch and Canoeing

Like I mentioned in the last post, I was hoping to see a launch while we were camping nearby. Instead, we saw it from around 40 miles away. The launch was at 4:47 am.  Yes, we actually got up to see it. We knew we wouldn’t see it from the campsite, so we scoped out a foot bridge that had a good view to the north that was just a few minutes walk from our site. Unfortunately, it was partly cloudy too. Even with all that, we saw much more than I expected given the distance and clouds. We saw a glow at take-off and saw the rocket flames move up behind the clouds for a couple of minutes. Wahoo..our first launch! We tried to take pictures but basically they are just a small red light or smear in the dark.

While the rest of the country is freezing, our part of Florida is reaching the 70’s during the day. Was that too much? Anyhow, we’re staying at a campground that is on the water. Every campsite has a small area for a boat to pull up. We don’t have a canoe or kayak (many RV’ers seems to have them in this area), but the local marina has them for rent so we took one out for a couple of hours.

We saw dolphins playing in the distance along with plenty of birds nesting in trees or swooping the water. I was surprised to see an opossum at the waterfront on one of the islands. The current was pretty fast in places. There was one point we were desperately paddling for several minutes to get just a few feet ahead and out of the current. Other times we floated along with the current to pass small islands or travel channels. Pretty fun!