Abbie's Real Life Blog

Tracy & I are headed to Orlando for the weekend, leaving tomorrow afternoon.  I have to remember to check in for the flight tonight because we’re going on Southwest and I like window seats.

Neither of us have been to Florida since her parents moved there in late December, so this will be fun.  Also fun is that Tracy’s sister and Tracy’s sister’s fiancee are both coming down for the weekend.  I have not yet met her fiancee, so that is also exciting!  They are getting married in northern Virginia at the end of March.  I have not yet decided what I’m going to wear to the wedding, though I bought shoes yesterday.  I am planning to find a dress!  Actually, I bought a dress yesterday too but I haven’t decided that it is really very appropriate for a late March afternoon wedding.  But it was on a big sale and I haven’t liked a dress on myself in a very long time.

Anyway, I spent most of this week running around, so tonight I have to do laundry and pack for the trip, plus we always seem to have three hours’ of  Tivo to watch on Thursday nights.  I think I’m going to leave my laptop at home for the whole weekend, which is like, what?  I’m never separated from a computer.  But the iPhone is a reasonable approximation.

I think our Florida trip should involve some good vegan food and maybe a trip to Cape Canaveral and a stop by the beach, though the temperatures are supposed to hover around 70 degrees.  T-shirt and jeans weather, probably a cardigan, but I’m not digging out any shorts.

Cape Canaveral facts:  it was only known as Cape Kennedy from 1963 to 1973, even though people who were in grade school during that time might be surprised to know that.  The place name Cape Canaveral is actually one of the three oldest surviving European place names in the United States, so it makes sense that they wanted to change it back.  The Kennedy Space Center has retained the Kennedy name.  

Wow, I just read that admission to the Kennedy Space Center Visitor’s Center is $38 for an adult.  I do not think we will go there after all.  I am too cheap for those kind of prices, especially after living in DC for awhile (most of the museums are free or very cheap there, especially if they’re run by the Feds like this one is).  There are rocket launches and a space shuttle launch scheduled for next week, though.  It might be worth the $38 to see something like that, but I bet you have to reserve tickets or something crazy.  (Yes, you do.  And it costs more than $38, even for kids.)  Ooh, if I had kids or even a mildly excited nerdy spacegeek traveling companion, the Lunch with an Astronaut sounds like it would be worth the price.  I hope that if I ever have kids, they’ll be the kind who would rather have lunch with an astronaut after a tour of the Space Center instead of spending a day at Disney World.

Last night I went to dinner at my grandparents’ house.  My grandfather started to get worked up about how much he hates the stimulus bill just signed by President Obama, but I am pleased to tell you that I did not take the bait.

I didn’t post at the photo blog on Tuesday, did I?  I will do that today fer sure.  I had a backlog of stuff to post at Flickr, and I’ve been doing that this week.  I think I’m nearly caught up there.  I haven’t taken any new photos in weeks, but I should be snapping away this weekend and then I’ll have a lot to post next week before I dive back into the California pictures.