Waking up to A Rocket Launch: My Day in Cape Canaveral
It’s Day 5 of my trip to the Florida Keys, and we’ve begun making the 16-hour return journey from Key West to Virginia. After a day in the Everglades (the buggiest, smelliest, most overrated national park- but I’ll save that rant for another day), and a night on Miami Beach (outdoor gyms! massive beaches! crazy nightlife! Versace’s house!), we pushed on into the wee hours of the morning to make some headway. After experiencing Miami and the Keys, my view on the rest of Florida was a chaotic swamp filled with spray tans and die-hard Trump supporters, so I wasn’t too concerned I’d be missing anything driving straight through the coast. A few hours later, we pulled into a small overlook at a remote beach, got out our sleeping bags, and slept in the shadows to avoid any eagle-eyed cops or security guards that may pass throughout the night. We were all looking forward to a night under the stars and a peaceful morning on this isolated beach before heading out of Florida for good.
Waking up to the sunlight, I check my phone. 10:15- thank goodness. After sleeping in Walmart parking lots the whole trip, I was relieved to have finally gotten a decent eight hours of sleep. Rolling out of my sleeping bag, I turn towards the isolated beach behind me, expecting to see the rest of the crew either still asleep or walking along the sand.
Instead, there’s a camper behind me. And another. And another. And about six or seven cars. Startled, I sit up, slowly taking in the entire scene. Behind our little makeshift camp are about fifty people sitting in folding chairs, staring directly at us. What on Earth is going on? The rest of my group, now all awake, looks even more perplexed than I am.
“Y’all finally got up.” A middle-aged man drawled, “We were worried y’all’d miss it. Best seats in the house fer nothin”
“Yup,” chimed in his wife, “And we thought we were bright and early gettin here at 7”
At this point I am completely lost. Am I in the Truman Show? Has my entire life been fake up until this point? With all my misadventures, I honestly wouldn’t be all that surprised. Then I do a 360 to face the water and it clicks.
We’re in Cape Canaveral, home of the Kennedy Space Center. And while the rocket ships are controlled from Houston, Cape Canaveral is where they are launched off. Directly across the water is the Space Center, where Spacex’s latest rocket, a Transporter 3, is about to launch. Seconds later, the crowd behind us oohs and aahs as Elon’s latest project fires off.
As the crowd watches the launch, I take a quick saunter to the road, and am shocked to see an even larger crowd. Cars stretch down the road as far as I can see, and hundreds of people sit in folding chairs, clutching binoculars and pointing up at the sky. But no one is as close to the launch as us.
So our random, middle of the night sleeping spot turned out to be the hottest viewing spot for the rocket launch. Spacex fans had come from all over the state to get a good look, and it was evident they thought we had camped there overnight just to see the launch. Thank goodness we woke up in time!
The launch was quite a sight to behold, and the whole ordeal lasted about 30 minutes. We decided to spend the day in the Cape, enjoying the unspoiled ocean at the Cape Canaveral National Seashore and stopping by the Kennedy Space Center, where I saw my first glimpse of the Space Force in action (I had to see it with my own eyes to believe it was actually a real branch of the military- and yes, the uniforms do strongly resemble those of Imperial Officers in Star Wars).
Altogether, it was one of my rare misadventures where everything worked out better than expected, and I learned two valuable lessons: 1) Mainland Florida may not be so bad after all, and 2) Never sleep past 10am- there may be a rocket launch you’re missing out on.