Sunday December 10 - A bright sunny day, temperature 46F, after a very big change in the weather since we last posted. We went to bed on Friday night almost needing the aircon, and last night had the furnace on. Rain came in Friday night, for most of the night and yesterday morning, but it cleared out and now we're heading back to normal temps as we look ahead to the coming week. We're not complaining, especially given the weather in other parts of the south, and especially in view of what's been happening in California with their terrible fires.

We're still in the Titusville area. Friday saw us exploring the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, which is adjacent to the Kennedy Space Center. We'd never been over to the island before, and found it full of shore birds. There's a board walk, and several walking trails, but the main difference from many other such areas is that you can drive a lot of it, which we did. There are two main tracks, unpaved, fairly rough, that took us out into the marshes, dotted with hummocks and little islands, and full of birds. I think we saw nearly every species we're familiar with, including roseate spoonbills and even a lone wood stork. Our old favorite, the great blue heron, was also fairly common here.

So for we who pursue the feathered fellows, it was a fine day. Then the rains came, so we opted to spend the day at the Kennedy Space Center, which we had never done. If you haven't done it, ,,,do it. It's extremely well organized, full of excellent displays, to the extent that one could spend two full days there in order to take everything in. A bus tour takes you out to the launch sites, where the moon flights and the space station flights were launched, and where SpaceX now has facilities to provide flights to the space station with needed supplies. Elon Musk is right in the middle of it with his SpaceX dream, and will no doubt play a part in NASA's goal to be on Mars by 2035.

After the bus tour, you go back to the Visitor Center, where there are several buildings, including an IMAX Theatre (two excellent films), buildings housing an original Apollo rocket and antlantis ship as well. There are all sorts of interactive sites, a great place for kids. There's also a building that highlights the types of careers that young people can aspire to if they want to get involved in the space industry.

In short, we had a great day at the Space Center, and highly recommend it. Today, we'll probably just catch up on housekeeping. We're in a County RV park that was damaged by Hurricane Irma, so we can't go out to the beach, which is 100 meters from where we're set up. It's cordoned off as there is restoration work being done there, as well as to about 25 sites that were damaged by the hurricane. We talked to the woman at the reception office, who said it was 12 hours of howling non-stop roaring, with stuff flying everywhere. Her son is a firefighter, so was on duty. His wife is a nurse, so also had to stay at the hospital. And she, as a County employee, had to be at a local shelter for the duration. Good ol' Grandpa had to look after the Grandchildren. All came out okay, with no damage to their homes.

That's it for now. Stay tuned. More later.