Beach House

Yesterday was spent partially in the NASA Beach House for a full morning of meetings, followed by a late business lunch, chores at home, and then a movie at my friend's house.  I was quite busy, hence the lack of a post. 

The NASA Beach House is this quaint yellow and peach structure on the beach at KSC that the astronauts frequent when they are in town.  They come to the beach house to visit with their families before a launch and to pop open a celebratory bottle of wine after they return safely.  It is an iconic structure at KSC and yesterday was the first opportunity I had to actually visit it.  We held our TPS meetings in the upstairs conference room area and then half way through took a break to go play out on the beach.  I did a bit of wandering on my own and found an incredible conch shell that was quite large and still in one piece, which is pretty rare.  I also found turtle tracks and saw the signs of a turtle nest up on the bank.  After our second session of meetings we hung out on the large deck overlooking the water, chatting until we had to pack up.

The weather was a bit overcast, but it made the temperature outside much more bearable.  Add in the sea breeze and it was actually enjoyable.  The beach house is also ideally located such that all of the launch pads are visible, notably the Atlas and Delta unmanned rocket launch pads as well as, of course, the shuttle pad:

It was a wonderful day of "work", and I'm really glad I got to spend time at the beach house before I leave KSC...