Hello, everyone, and welcome back to my Adventures blog! Before I dive into the excitement of crossing off another bucket list item, I want to share with you a brief update on my DNA Journey. As I stated in my previous post, I wasn’t able to send in the 23andMe ancestry + Health report until this morning. After I completed the instructions, and closed the box up, I just got so, so, so nervous!

I am caught between wanting to know all my genetic predispositions, since I don’t know my biological paternal family health history, but at the same time, I don’t want to know, because I’m afraid of what I’m going to learn – especially if I learn I have the Alzheimer’s gene. However, knowledge is power. I also know that if I don’t do this, it will be something I will regret later on in life. So, today I took a step forward into the unknown, and mailed in the 23andMe test, and now it’s a waiting game for the next 4-6 weeks. I will keep you updated on what happens with the results!

With that said, and with keeping in mind what I recently wrote about my stargazing experience in an unusual way, I figured this might be a good opportunity to talk about my experience with crossing off Item #69 on my Bucket List of 200 Travel Adventures and Things to Do on the local, national, and international scale. As the title suggests, this item #69 is specifically going to be about visiting the Kennedy Space Center. After visiting my grandmother’s brother (who literally only lives approximately 7 miles from the Kennedy Space Center, which means they’re close enough that the old rocket launches shook their house!), my grandmother and I took a drive over to the Kennedy Space Center. After all, it was on my bucket list, and we were right practically there! It was on Wednesday October 4th, 2017, and my grandma will be the first to tell you how happy it made me.

You know the feeling you get when you receive a special, special surprise on Christmas morning, when you open that one gift of something that you really, really, really wanted more than anything, and when you open it, you just light up with so much joy that just glows from you? Yeah, that was me on that day! Even now as I think about it, it fills me with such a joy that I could cry. I actually can’t wait to go back, because I didn’t get to do everything that they offered the first time, but I will share a couple experiences, and show you lots and lots of pictures. If you’re a space nerd like me, or even if you have even a tiny interest in space and space-related stuff, you must put the Kennedy Space Center on your bucket list or list of Must-Do experiences; I’m telling you, you will LOVE it.

The grandma and I got to go into the Lunar Theater and watch the landing on the moon! We also got to see the actual Nasa Command Center station (a part of it) that is literally frozen in time from 1968 with the Apollo 8 mission! Old drinks, old cigarette packs, pens, notepads, headsets, all of it and more! We also got to see live footage replayed as if we were back in 1968. Not only that, but we got to check out the Apollo and Saturn V Museum with the actual parts to the spacecraft!

I’m the type of person who is very sensual, in terms of … I take everything in and study it all by smell and touch. It takes my imagination farther than anyone can know of my mind, and in the right circumstances, it helps me to understand how certain objects and other things work. So, when I was in the museum, I was really disappointed that I couldn’t touch anything, though I understand it’s all for preservation, so I’m okay with that. Instead, I just did a lot of standing around, gazing hard in awe for long periods of time, because I just couldn’t stop my imagination from taking me out of this world. This isn’t all we got to see, though …

We also got to see the ACTUAL space shuttle Atlantis. We saw a short film beforehand about it, but then in the grandest way ever, the doors behind the screen opened up. I could see it was going to lead us to the Atlantis museum, but as the doors slowly opened up, more and more it revealed something that didn’t seem as big as it appeared on a computer screen. It was so beautiful! It was … Atlantis! My mouth dropped as a huge gasp escaped my lips while the screen pulled up to reveal a clearer view of this amazing piece of work that humanity created to go into space!

This, my friends, this was my Christmas present of 2017, the one that lit me up with such a joy I can’t describe in any other way but childlike. Surprisingly, the shuttle looked like it was made of paper mache, but I knew deep down this was the real thing. This hunk of metal so beautifully crafted together was something that took us to space. I wanted to run my hands along it; I wanted to explore inside it, even though it was empty. My imagination was driving me wild with what it once looked like with all those pieces of equipment NASA took out when Atlantis was decommissioned.  Still, she’s a fine piece of humanity’s creativity, and I wish I could go back and see her.

I didn’t do everything at the Kennedy Space Center (such as Lunch With an Astronaut and Fly With an Astronaut), because there just simply wasn’t enough time, but really that just means I’ve got an excuse to go back. Even if I would have been able to complete everything in one visit, I still would want to go back. I absolutely love anything to do with space and the opportunities the human race has to explore and find new discoveries beyond Earth.

I will never forget this experience. And I really can’t wait to go back! With all that said, now I’d like to tell you that listed below are the pictures of my visit, as well as a couple surprise videos I have not mentioned earlier, so check it all out. I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed the experience itself. Until next time, peace out!

Apollo, Saturn V Rockets, and Other Treasure Gallery Pieces:

And now I have a nice, little surprise for you all who are still hanging on.
I hope you enjoy viewing the actual space shuttle Atlantis:

Here is Part 2, which made me realize just how big the engines truly were, and it just fascinated me, so I took a second video. I don’t know if that will do the same for you, but here it is: