TRAVEL TALES -- Young Chang

It started when Jake Dayton started playing with his older brother’s

Legos because that’s what little kids do -- play with their older

siblings’ stuff.

Over the years, the 11-year-old got rather good at building things

and, eventually, built a space station out of Lego pieces that made it

into the Kennedy Space Center’s Mars Survival Challenge build-off.

The center hosted Jake and children from around the country to compete

in a Lego building match. His family -- father Rick Dayton, mother

Shirley Dayton and older brother Patrick -- took a weekend trip to Cape

Canaveral, Fla. with him in early December to take part in the contest.

“They flew all the kids and families down there,” Rick Dayton said.

“It was a real fun time. Our son was a runner-up. Then they gave us a VIP

tour of the Space Center.”

The Newport Beach family, who had never been to the landmark before,

was most impressed with the size of things there.

“And they had an actual space shuttle there,” said Shirley Dayton, an

architect. “You could go inside, and there were people that we met there.

It was very impressive.”

But during the Lego build-off, family members pretty much sat in the

viewing area watching and cheering while Jake built a space lab in 90

minutes.

“They wanted him to do a lab on Mars that was capable of collecting

specimens and somehow relaying them back to earth,” said Rick Dayton,

also an architect.

Jake said that his metal-colored lab was built as if to be capable of

science exploration and communication with Earth.

“There are maybe about 500 pieces,” he said.

Jake’s favorite part about touring the Kennedy Space Center was seeing

one of the Apollo rockets that had actually traveled in space.

“And we saw one that wasn’t a real shuttle that went up, but it could

go up,” Jake said. “They use it for people to see. It was really cool.”

* Have you, or someone you know, gone on an interesting vacation

recently? Tell us your adventures. Drop us a line to Travel Tales, 330 W.

Bay St., Costa Mesa, CA 92627; e-mail young.chang@latimes.com; or fax to

(949) 646-4170.