A usual I ignored my alarm clock that I set for 7am and got up about 10am which wasn’t too bad. I was still alone in the car park but there were a few more cars about. Luckily I didn’t get busted, but it would have been just another fine to ignore. Back on the road I just drove all day. Stop for coffee, refuel, keep going. Mum texted me to say the shuttle was still on schedule, Britni kept me updated when the UK went to bed. I ate up the miles but had a break when I saw a walmart to get some supplies. If I was going to be sleeping on the road for the next year I would need quite a few things, cooker, inflatable mattress, pump, pots and pans so I started stocking up on those things when I could find them. It was a warm day and by the time I got to Georgia I was ready for shorts and sandals. The temperature seemed to keep creeping up and at 4pm it was 28 degrees according to the cars sensor. The car had a cool little panel that would tell you the temp/direction, mpg, distance travelled, stop watch etc which you could reset as you went. Hours of fun :p According to that I was getting about 22 mpg at 75 mph, which wasn’t that great. At least the broken AC meant I wasn’t tempted to make it worse.

Eventually I got to Florida late in the evening but was pretty far from my goal. I stopped off in a few Holiday Inn car parks to steal their wifi and check my email. God bless em, I would be stuffed otherwise. Maybe I should spend my last night in the States in one as payback :) A quick search on google turned up a site that said you could see the launchpad from only a few places.

“The NASA causeway is the closest and best public viewing site for Space Shuttle launches; tickets are required and they sell out fast. Titusville is the second best viewing area, and is the closest off-site location. An option that is between the two in terms of distance, but with no direct view of the launch pad, is the Kennedy Space Center Visitors Complex.”

Well I didn’t have a ticket so Titusville sounded like the best option and it was pretty close to the I-95 too. I got off on the right junction but it didn’t say where it was so I went down to the next one and doubled back. I was getting tired, but at least I would soon be sound asleep. It was 2am by now. I cruised through the town and followed the directions on the website I had saved on my laptop. People were camped out already, so I went until I got turned back from the wildlife park (closed for the launch) and picked a spot. In the distance they had a searchlight pointed into the sky, silhouetting what could only be the shuttle about 10 miles in the distance. I pulled the planks out to set up my bed, watered my horse and clambered into the back for some well earned sleep. I was exhausted! bzzzzzz. Damn, mosquito in the car. Something was sucking on my ankle…. and my elbow… and my neck. I turned on the light. I had the rear windows open as it was now about 28 degrees and the heat was stifling. However the car was *full* of mossies. I hid under my sleeping sheet but who was I fooling. They would eat me alive even through that.

I had some spray buried…. somewhere. God dammit! I jumped into the back seat and drove back to Titusville. Happily CVS are open all night so I grabbed repellent, knockdown spray (and some lighters) and went back to my camp spot with the mossies not even realising they were now dead as I drove.
I climbed back in the back but now with all the windows closed the heat was killing me. I didn’t even have the advantage of being cold from the AC as I dropped off. Frank had advised me to get a new battery as the one in the van was 10 years old. hmmm. I turned on the fans as low as they could and lay down. I would worry about that if I made it through the night.



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