About 10 minutes walk
away from Larry and Mary Anne was a fellow member of Winter Springs RotaryClub, and great friend of Larry, called Arndt (I don’t know his surname).
Himself of Norwegian origin, Arndt was hosting a DGE and his wife from Denmark.
In fact it was Arndt we first met at the airport, carrying the Danish flag in
honour of his guests. He and Larry had an arrangement between them that they
would share the driving of their guests to their various engagements.
Our first full day in Florida saw us take a 2 hour drive to
a retirement community called The Villages. It is a series of small townships
entirely for people aged 55 and over, and there are about 50,000 residents and
growing. Each village has its own
identity e.g. Wild West, Spanish etc and there are many golf courses and
recreation centres around the place. It is very popular for retired folk, who
can take part in an enormous range of sporting
and other activities, and yes, there is a Rotary club. In fact it was the
Rotary club of The Villages that arranged our visit.
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Brownwood Paddock square - The Villages
Larry drove us and the Danish couple, Lief and Birtha, (who
thankfully spoke English well, and by the
end of the week we were to become good friends). On arrival at BrownwoodPaddock Square, which was built to resemble a Wild West town, we were sent off
on a guided trolley bus tour of the
area, from which we saw some of the different communities, and their excellent
facilities. At one point we passed one of the most amazing golf driving ranges
I have ever seen. It was basically a lake, with lots of little islands dotted
about on it. The idea was to land your ball on one of these islands. It
certainly favours the more accurate golfers, like me. I would have loved to have a go on that
driving range.
Up-market Golf Carts at The Villages
Another remarkable feature of The Villages were the golf
carts, a popular way for people to get around, which were everywhere. Most
roads had a cycle track alongside, and that was where people drove in their
golf carts. They were nothing like the ones you see in the UK, which have a top
speed of around 10 m.p.h. These ones can
go up to 30 m.p.h. and everywhere people are whizzing about on them. I bet
there are some horrendous accidents from time to time.
I also learnt that children were not really very welcome.
Nobody under the age of 19 can live in the Villages, although they can visit.
Even then there are restrictions. Apparently children are sometimes banned from swimming pools at
certain times of day, in case their noise disturbs residents having a nap.
Colony Cottage Recreation Center
Later we attended a reception for all the visiting Rotarians
at the Colony Cottage Recreation Centre, a beautiful place that was fitted out
to look as if it was a couple of hundred years old. We were welcomed warmly by
local Rotarians and visiting DGEs were invited to say a few words about their
own Districts. Vivian and I did a double act about the area around us, such as
Hampton Court, Kew Gardens, the River Thames etc. As the week progressed we found that these short
presentations were expected wherever we went, so they got a bit easier to do.
Interesting food was served at the Reception. There were
‘mashed potato cocktails’ on offer. Basically you went up to the counter and
collected your cocktail glass. You then had a choice of either ordinary mashed
potato or mashed sweet potato, on top of which you chose a topping, which could
be salad things like sweetcorn, grated carrot, or various meats and sauces. I
was quite impressed with this, and thought it was an idea we could try at home.
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Mashed potato cocktail
The long drive home was quiet, as we were all asleep, apart
from Larry, of course. I did later ask Larry if he and Mary Anne would consider
retiring to The Villages some time in the future. ‘Absolutely not’ he said.
‘The last thing I would ever want is to
see no-one but old people every day!’ It
was fascinating to visit, but on the whole
think I agree with Larry.
The next day was to be one of the highlights of our visit, a
trip to the Kennedy Space Center. All the visiting DGs and their Consorts were
driven by their hosts to Cape Canaveral where we all met up. We were taken,
with Lief and Birtha by Larry, who dropped us off at the entrance and we
arranged to be picked up at 3 p.m. The Space Center is an amazing place, spread
out over many square miles. There are several launch sites for rockets, all at
least 2 miles from the nearest building, as a safety precaution. During the
day, we learned that there would be a launch of a satellite at 4 p.m. that day,
but we would miss it, as we were going at 3 p.m. What a shame.
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The DGEs visit Kennedy Space Center. We are on left, Lief and Birtha on right.
The first thing we did was to get our bearings with a bus
tour of the Center, where we passed the absolutely enormous rocket assembly
building. Between this building and the different launch sites was a track
(called a Crawlerway) specially made to support the weight of a Space rocket
and its payload as it is carried from the assembly building to the launch pad
by a crawler-transporter. The crawlerway is the width of a Motorway and is made
from several layers of different grades of stones.
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Crawler-Transporter seen from bus window
When we got back to the Center, we went into the huge hangar
which housed the giant Saturn V rocket, lying on its side. There were also exhibitions of different
space artefacts, including a display of spacesuits worn by actual astronauts
over the years, a moon buggy and a landing capsule ( very claustrophobic). I was even able to touch a piece of real moon
rock. Interestingly, it felt just like a piece of rock. In another area we were
shown the actual mission control room preserved as it was at the time of the
first moon landing in 1969, with a commentary which included actual recordings
made at the time. Amazing.
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Rocket Assembly Building
The absolute highlight of the day for me was the Space
Shuttle Atlantis exhibition. The
Americans do these things so well. We first were led into a kind of theatre without
seats, just some railings to lean on, where we were shown on a giant screen the
story of Atlantis, which flew more missions than any other shuttle, launched
numerous satellites, including the Hubble telescope, but not without some
problems along the way. The commentary, and the accompanying music was
obviously designed to stir up feelings of patriotism among the audience. It certainly succeeded in my case, and I’m not
even American. Then, just as the film finished and the lights were darkened,
the big screen rolled up to the ceiling, and there behind it, was the Atlantis
Space Shuttle itself. The audience burst out in spontaneous applause, and I was
half inclined to lead a chorus of ‘USA, USA’.
A whole exhibition surrounded Atlantis, and I could have spent all day
just there.
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Space Shuttle Atlantis
3 p.m came around too
soon, and we met up with our Danish friends, found Larry in the car park, and
were then whisked off home. That evening we were guests at the Rotary Club of
Seminole County Sunset, which is Larry and Arndt’s club. It is always
interesting to visit other Rotary club meetings, particularly in another
country, and we were warmly welcomed by everybody. It was good to hear about
what projects they get up to, although I was surprised that they don’t do
Christmas street collections, given their enthusiasm for Christmas and
decorations etc. Arndt in particular was very interested in what our club does,
and asked for photos of our sleigh.
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