I got through to Thursday before the next disaster happened. Thursday my pants went through in the crotch. By this time I knew my class well enough to admit this happenstance to them. Immediately, several of them mentioned a particular store name. I figured that this was similar to a Moore's store in Canada: a menswear store, not too terribly expensive, with a wide range in stock. And, generally speaking, a seamstress on site who could do minor alterations. Like hemming pants. Which I tend to need rather a lot, being shorter than average.
I didn't have a chance to put this to the test in Cleveland. They told me you could find this particular store pretty much anywhere. Although they didn't know where to find one in Cleveland. And, as the travel office has made good on its promise, I was leaving fairly early after I finished the seminar on Friday.
So, I finished the seminar, drove back to the airport as fast as I could, and got on the flight to Florida. It was a bit more difficult picking up my rental car in Florida, but I eventually got it, and drove to Cocoa Beach. Where I have been told to book a hotel, and the travel office had. By that time I was pretty tired, so I went to bed, and figured that I would search for this particular menswear store in the morning.
In the morning I looked out to a lovely summer day, in November, looked down the street, and, two blocks away, saw a sign with the name of this particular store. I figured this was a promising indication. I drove down to the mall that had this particular sign. I parked the car. I started walking to this particular store. As I was walking towards the store, it looked a bit less promising. It looked fairly small. And it looked less like a Moore's than a Value Village. As I got up to it, I determined that, yes, it *was* a Value Village. It was a thrift store. And a small one at that. The odds of being able to obtain dress pants, in my size, at this store, had, in my opinion, plummeted.
But, having come this far, I walked in. I found the section of men's wear, considerably smaller than the section of women's wear. I walked to the only rack of pants. I walked down to the end of the rack, where my waist size should be. There were a few pants in my size. One of them was black. I figured this was it. I picked up the pair of pants, and took them to a fitting room, first to see if I could get them on, and then to see how much I would have to have the hem taken up.
I put them on. They fit. Not just for the waist, they fit for length. What are the odds?
So, I went back to the hotel. And realized, on the way, that I could, in fact, visit the NASA visitor's centre, since I didn't have to find a dry cleaner to get my pants hemmed. So I asked how far it was to the visitor's centre. And got directions. And drove there. And parked.
And, walking across the parking lot towards the gates, noted various packages, at various prices. And figured this is the only time I'm going to be able to do this in my life, so why not go whole hog? So I got to the gate, and asked for the most expensive package. The cashier started throwing slips of paper at me, and as she threw one of the last pieces of paper at me, said, "And, of course, that's good for tomorrow as well." I had no idea what she was talking about. I took the various pieces of paper, got to some place where I could sit down and spread them out on a table, and started reading. Because I had picked the most expensive package, my entry was good for two consecutive days. If I had decided to wait until Sunday to go, it would have been of no use to me, because I would have been teaching on Monday, and I would not have been able to take advantage of the two consecutive days. But, as it was, I could spend the entire weekend at the NASA visitor's centre. So I did.
It is rather impressive that, taking what is arguably the greatest single technological achievement of mankind, in the entire world, they have turned it into an amusement park. It takes some doing to trivialize an event like that down to a theme park.
But, I enjoyed it as best I could. When I stood under the Saturn 5 rocket, in the Saturn 5 building, I started to cry. I just couldn't help it.
Now, of course, you cannot walk to the Saturn 5 building from the visitor's centre. You have to take a bus. There are buses that run you to some tours where they can walk you through some of the other buildings, but while you can walk in the Saturn 5 Hall at will, you cannot get there at will. Cape Canaveral is a military installation. They have a .50 calibre machine gun at the gate, for anyone who thinks that they can just drive in.
But Meares Island, which is also Cape Canaveral, is a wildlife sanctuary. In case something blows up, they need a lot of room. But as long as things aren't blowing up, they need the space, but they have no use for it. So, it's a wildlife sanctuary.
Americans are very big on seeing the American Eagle, which is what they call a bald eagle. There are, apparently, fourteen nesting pairs on Meares Island. But only one nesting site is close enough to a road that the buses can use. And it's a fair distance from the road. And when the bus driver calls out that we are stopped so that they can see the nesting pair, in their nest, at the tree on the left side of the bus, everybody rushes to the left side of the bus, and the bus rocks, heeling over to the left.
I think it was the same trip, and I was seated right behind the driver, when the driver, somewhat carelessly, let out the comment that, "Oh, there's an alligator in the ditch." Once again, everybody in the bus rushed to the right side, to see the alligator. I could hear the bus driver mutter, under his breath, "Ten billion dollars worth of technology, and everyone wants to see the alligator in the ditch."
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Introduction and ToC: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/10/mgg-introduction.html
Next: TBA
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