their loss... was our gain…

Well we made the fast dash into Florida but we had decided to leave after work on Tuesday to shorten the 800 plus mile day we had planned on driving Wednesday. So we drove into Lafayette, La and spent the night before heading out on Wednesday. Since we were passing through Lake Charles we decided to stop by the casino L'Auberge du Lac and take a break. This is the nicest casino in Lake Charles and we needed a bit of fun before moving on. We are not big gamblers but for $20.00 or less we feel we get adequate entertainment by gambling a wee bit. Well the omens were starting to tell us this was going to be a good trip as we played for about 40 minutes and we turned our $20 into $100! Good for gas money for the trip!

 Day two of the trek ended with us in Lake City, Florida. Along the way we stopped at Berryland Campers in Ponchatoula, LA. Here we saw our first 2006 Suncruiser Class A Motorhome 35U by Itasca by Winnebago RV.  I had always thought this model might work for us and being able to walk through one just convinced us that this model can also make our short list (another good omen). Now I will have to read up on it too see what the web wisdom has to say about its drivability and track record.

Day three put us in DeLand Florida where we got to watch the Atlantic Sun post season tournament.  Our daughter had a good tournament but unfortunately the team lost both their games and were thus eliminated from further post-season play. This will be the first year our DD won't get to play in the NCAA regional's.  But as I said in the title... their loss turned into our gain. But first we had a nice dinner with our DD before they headed back to campus the next morning.

So what were we going to do now that our daughter’s team lost and she had left?  We have a few days to kill before going back home so we had to figure out what to do in Florida. Well as the omens were telling us this was to be our lucky day. I was watching the morning news on day four and guess what was going to happen today that we just had to go see? The shuttle Atlantis was going to launch into space on its last journey at 2:00 pm. We just had to go see this and it was on my bucket list! So we left early and headed to the Canaveral National seashore, packed a lunch and some adult  beverages, and spent the day on the ship channel by a draw bridge. Another omen appeared as we were gazing over the blue green waters and spotted large groups of manatees... something that was on my bucket list to see also. Score! So we laid in the sun and had lunch and watched the manatees and kayakers share the water with million dollar yachts and the like... as 2:00 o'clock got near we made our way up to our vantage point on the draw bridge where you could see the launch pad off in the distance.  This was as close as we could get without entering restricted air space.  As an added benefit the draw bridge tower blasted out live radio of the launch which made the day even better as we now knew what was going on and could participate in the countdown... and then  it began...  10...9...8... and then 3... 2... 1... and then "We have liftoff"... and then simply AWESOME... AWESOME BABY…