Florida March 1984

In March 1984 Rod attended a business conference near Hollywood Beach. He added a few days to the trip and used the time to visit around southern Florida.

Rod lived in Miami for a year in 1957/8 thus the first side trips took him around Miami area where he visited some "old haunts". He started by visiting the Miami Seaquarium on Virginia Key which he had previously visited with his grade 2 class and his family. Leaving there he went on to Key Biscayne where he stopped at Crandon Park Beach which had been the family's favourite local beach. Of course he visited his old neighbourhood on SW 7th Street near SW 42nd Avenue. He discovered that all the houses on his side of the block had been absorbed by the expansion of Anthony Abraham's Chevrolet. They owned the place we rented at 4220 and probably most others. He also made a stop at Kinloch Park Elementary School where he had attended grade 2. The last stop on the Miami visit was the Parrot Jungle which was still in South Miami.

Another side trip included a quick visit to the Epcot Center to enjoy a couple of attraction and to pick up some items requested by the "wife left home".

Rod always was a big "space nut" especially during the exciting Mercury, Gemini, Apollo era thus a visit to the Kennedy Space Center was in order. There was a wonderful display at the visitor center and they ran 2 tours. One visited Complex 39 on Merritt Island where the Apollo flights were launched and which had been converted to launch the space shuttle. The other, which only ran once or twice a day, visited the historic launch sites on Cape Canaveral. This was a special treat that was eventually discontinued.