45.7 mi / 15.0 mph / 218 ft. climbing
Home: Wickham Park Campground

Rocket launches were once a Very Big Deal. In a photo album at my parents’ house, there are multiple photos my dad took of our TV, showing a live network television broadcast of the Space Shuttle Columbia lifting off (in the pre-VCR days, that’s how you “recorded” TV!) It was SpaceX’s goal to end that “special event” status and make launches commonplace, and to their tremendous credit, they’ve succeeded. In 2024 so far, they’ve launched 82 times from this “Space Coast” alone, and if you add in their launches in California, in one year they may equal the 135 total launches of the Space Shuttle across its 30-year history! For locals living near Cape Canaveral, the twice-a-week roar of the rocket engines has become background noise, sometimes even subconsciously blocked-out, like the mentally-silenced sounds of the jets rumbling overhead every five minutes when I lived near O’hare Airport.

But we’re not locals, so these provincials were up two hours before sunrise in the freezing cold to gape and gawk at a rocket launch! Conveniently, rocket launches still have schedules and countdowns, and SpaceX’s success and regularity means they’re pretty dependable (though thankfully this launch was shifted from 3:29am to 5:13am a day or two ago). And surprisingly, there are still some completist nerds hanging on and dutifully running livestreams on YouTube (though SpaceX’s official stream has been whittled down to just 5 minutes before launch). This meant that I could set the alarm only 13 minutes before the launch, check the info to find the countdown was on schedule, and get both of us bundled up, out of the tent, down the dark driveway to the dirt road, where we walked 50 yards east to a spot with a clear view to the southeast.

We were too busy walking to be watching the countdown, so when I waved my arm to show Rett the general direction in which I thought we should be looking, we both laughed in surprise and delight when the perfect timing of my arm-wave appeared to cause a false sunrise to suddenly inflame the dark horizon. Yep, I guess this thing won’t be too hard to spot!

Almost no time passed before first light transitioned into a searing spot rocketing away, so that made it even wilder how much time elapsed before the sound reached us. I hadn’t really done the math, so by the time a minute had passed, I figured we were just too far away to hear anything. But that was completely wrong! At a minute and 45 seconds, the rumbling roar began washing over us, though it faded after only about 20 seconds; the fact that no audible lightning-to-thunder delay can be heard over anything near that distance shows how incredibly loud the rocket engines are. Even from 21 miles away it certainly would have been enough to wake us up if we had not already been standing in the cold dark night watching the rocket lead its sound into space.

We dove back into the tent and into our warm sleeping bag, and managed to get a couple more hours of sleep. The 40-degree temperature at 5am had risen to 64 by our 10:30am departure, which was already warmer than yesterday’s high. As we packed up camp on the tree-covered property, and then rode down the rural roads lined with jungle vegetation, there were multiple times when I tried to remind myself where we were, and “Hawaii” was the first place that popped into my head. “Crap, no, that’s not right! Florida! It’s Florida that we’re in!”

For much of the way into Titusville we were able to ride on the cross-state bike trail, and then it was US 1 the rest of the way after that. But continuing Florida’s best-we’ve-ever-seen state-level bike facilities, we were granted a bike lane for the entire 30-mile distance. It was rarely wide, and something novice cyclists would never even consider, but for us it was perfect, mainly because of its incredible consistency. Most bike lanes eventually disappear for brief sections, or route you awkwardly onto a sidewalk when there is a conflict with other road uses, or pinch away at intersections, but there wasn’t a single spot in this 30-mile stretch where we needed to do something silly to stay safe on the 4-lane divided highway. Even some of the most traditionally “bike friendly” states could clearly learn a lot from how Florida includes bike facilities in their highway designs.

After two days of excellent tailwinds, we were supposed to get less help today, but reality didn’t match the forecast, and somehow we ended up with the best push of the last three days. That (along with the good drafting that comes with a bike lane right next to a stream of high-speed traffic) allowed us to rocket to our 2nd-highest average speed ever (and now the last three days are all among the top 10 of our 400+ days of riding).

In Titusville we had stopped at a fancy bakery to pick up some 2nd-breakfast muffins, but weren’t ready to eat them there. We were riding along the Intracoastal Waterway where I could now see the Space Center buildings on Cape Canaveral (we sure would have gotten a good view of the launch from there!), so I was a bit disappointed when Rett decided to pull over to eat in the grungy parking lot of a closed donut shop on the inland side of the road rather than a waterfront park on the left where I could get a better view of the launch complexes.

An old sign on the window of the shop said “Hours: 4am-1pm”, so the fact that it was closed at our 11am arrival told me that it “closed” long before today (and, no one in 2024 operates a business that opens at 4am!) But then a guy in big pickup truck pulled in, asked us if they were open, and even tried the door (despite the piece of paper saying “Sold Out” taped to the window). He told us that it is in fact still a going concern, and their donuts are so good that he stops every time he’s up this way.

When I was a kid, on exciting Sundays my dad would stop at Amy Joy Donuts to pick up a half-dozen, and as Cub Scouts we got a “tour” to see the donuts being made. That’s the only old-school independent donut shop I’m aware of, but it’s been closed for 20-30 years now (yes, of course there is a new brand of Instagram-friendly non-Dunkin donut shops, but Tastee Donuts of Titusville (like Amy Joy!) doesn’t even have a website, and wouldn’t know a trend if it crashed into the boring brown brick of its well-worn building). So Tastee Donuts must be one of the last surviving members of its species in the entire country, and now we were sad that we didn’t (and weren’t able) to get 2nd-breakfast here!

Despite neither us nor the pickup driver getting to eat donuts, we both got value out of the stop via a really interesting conversation about Florida culture; he correctly stated that he looks like a “bubba”, though he moved to Florida from the Bay Area in California, so he has, um, “interesting” interactions with people who assume he thinks how he looks (“In Florida, they say the further north you go, the further South you go…”)

And via his interest in us, we saw the converse of the rocket launch. On a “boring” and “routine” day of riding like this, we’re the SpaceX, and he’s the gawking tourist. Both are a reminder that even if repetition allows extraordinary things to become ordinary, that doesn’t mean those “ordinary” things are unworthy of celebration!