"Now I want to be an astronaut again," Casey said as we got off the bus at the end of the tour. "I haven't felt like that since third grade."

We both felt that way. Our wanderlust for space had been renewed.

Our fifth and final day in Titusville and our third trip to KSC. We feel like we own the place (and for the money we put out, we should have a timeshare or something).

Despite the various restrictions because of national security, the Columbia investigation or the day-to-day working status of the complex, the Up Close tour still gets pretty close. We drove through the industrial area of the center, where the labs and astronaut training facilities are. We saw a payload container with the blue NASA logo � someday it will be loaded onto Atlantis for STS-114, whenever that gets off the ground. Just past the payload bay area was the Bone Yard � a fenced-in lot with the 20-to-30-foot-high sections of scaffold. At one time, 20-25 years ago, those sections were stacked on top o fone another and formed the tower that stood alongside the Saturn V rockets during the days of Apollo.

Just before heading north to the launch complex we passed the building containing the astronauts' quarters, the apartments they live in for the final week before launch (most of their other training and preparation is done in Houston). It is from that building, from doors we saw on th eside, that a shuttle crew emerges in their orange suits and boards that silver Airstream for the eight-mile ride out to the launch pad.

Back on Kennedy Parkway, we followed the route the astronauts take, passing the large Vehicle Assembly Building. On its east side, the lower part of the bay doors stood open and inside we could see one of the start white solid rocket boosters and the shiny orange external fuel tank. The components were stark and shimmering, uncoroded by the sea air the shuttle is exposed to during its month out at the launch pad. Shuttles apparently are crawled out to launch pad 39A or B about a month before launch. Had Columbia not disintegrated over Texas, postponing shuttle flights indefinitely, Atlantis would have been out there, ready for its March 1 launch.

We continued along the road adjacent to the Crawlerway out to pad 39A, where the actual moveable pad remained from Columbia's Jan. 16 liftoff. We got an amazing, close look before the smoke from the controlled burn of the underbrush to the west obscurred the top portion of the tower, like we were in a thick fog. Halfway between pads A and B � where Challenger blasted off on its final flight � the bus stopped and we stood there among the isolated dunes, pad A to our left, B to the right, and the Atlantic behind us. Back on the bus and cruising past pad B, we saw the white mailboxes housing the remote TV cameras that get those Up Close shots of the shuttle on launch day.

The bus stopped once more, outside the VAB where we took more pictures with the giant American flag (the blue Union is the size of an NBA basketball court) on the south side. The Up Close tour ended at the Saturn V Center, the last stop on the regular tour, which we'd already experienced. So we just bought some gifts and returned to the Visitors Complex. As we walked around taking pictures of the Shuttle Park (with its full-scale orbiter mock-up and actual SRBs and external tank model) and Rocket Park, we realized again just how cool it is that we put humans into space.

After lunch in Titusville and a siesta, we waited on the patio for Jim, our ride to Orlando. We cruised westward on the Bee Line into the setting sun, an orange ball similar to the toy we saw sitting on the side of the road in Titusville each day. We drove toward that brilliant orb while Jim told stories of his college drinking days, no doubt happy again to relive those times in a story. "I don't know how I made it through college," he said at one point.

Dinner was at a Tex-Mex joint past a neighborhood of seedy motels and adult bookstores and cabarets, but then we wandered around the Disney Marketplace and forced our way into Captain Jack's (which no longer allows casual drinking at the bar � you must order food) just for frozen strawberry margaritas. Purchases were made at the Lego Store (Jason Kidd!) and a soap store ("bath bombs" that foam up and sizzle sound cool), our contribution to the economy (like the trip wasn't enough) WITHOUT tax cuts that will only hurt.

Woah, where'd that come from?

Casey and I slept fitfully, what with the whir of the elevator motor outside our suite all night.