Key West – well worth the 3 hour delay

There’s only one road in and out of Key West – which is part of its attraction. And what a road it is !!!! Featuring the iconic Seven Mile Bridge it stretches over 100 miles through the Keys from Key Largo at the top to Key West at the bottom.

Obviously, having just one road means there is absolutely no alternative route should something to wrong.

Unfortunately something went very wrong coinciding with our recent visit.

About half way through Key Largo the traffic ground to a halt and it became apparent we were eight miles out from an incident of some sort. Being eight miles out turned out to be a fraction of the 30 mile tailback it became.

The information from the local Monroe County Sheriff’s office seemed uncharacteristically sparse and simply said the US1 was closed south and north bound.

So we waited, and waited and waited and crept through Key Largo as traffic ahead bailed out. The amazing beach front hotels, restaurants, dive shops and gift stores were passed agonisingly slowly as I checked for updates and looked up the traffic cameras to see if I could work out what was happening. All I could really see was vast stretches of empty road beyond the boundary of Key Largo and solid lines of traffic backing up right beyond the top of the Keys.

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5th Visit to The Kennedy Space Center

I first visited the Kennedy Space Center in 2007 and found it so inspiring that I’ve taken every opportunity to return since.

These last sixteen years have seen many twists and turns in human spaceflight.

When I visited KSC in 2011, the space shuttle programme had just finished – with the final mission landing the week before.

The tour bus guides were noticeably upset about the demise of the shuttle and the whole place had a bit of a downbeat feel to it.

It was therefore a joy to return again in 2013 and visit the recently opened Atlantis exhibition – a fantastic celebration of an extraordinary machine that made 33 journeys into space and back over a 26 year period.

Given I am currently on a 7 day road trip around Florida I could not pass up the opportunity to visit KSC again 10 years on.

Wow – what a decade it has been for the evolution of human spaceflight, with the commercial sector rising to NASA’s challenges to provide more cost-effective ways to get beyond Earth’s atmosphere – and back too when required.

It seemed a poignant time to revisit the Saturn V rocket exhibit that is the centrepiece of a building devoted to the Apollo moon missions.

Artemis I completed its second orbit of the moon on the day I headed over to the US and I watched the splashdown live on TV 6 days later on December 11th.

I was also keen to see Atlantis again and it was every bit as good as the first time.