Shuttle Launch of the Endeavour

We were so excited when it was announced that a shuttle launch was taking place while we were down here. We have heard many lay-offs are coming this year to the space program and this is to be the last night launch at NASA. Therefore, we decide it was something not to miss. I had this great idea we would just go on Saturday and sleep in our RV in the Walmart parking lot. The shuttle was suppose to go off at 4:39 on Sunday AM. Alyson and Kailey wanted to come too. Chris had been under the weather all week, so he stayed home. Better for him, the launch got canceled. What a disappointment! The news said it was canceled due to low cloud cover! The city of Titusville was expecting 100,000 people. And I believe that was true on Saturday. People with RVs were parked every where; on side walks, in any empty or full parking lots, right along the side of the road. We did eventually moved our RV to a JC Penney parking lot in direct line with the launch site on the other side of the inter-coastal waterway. We woke up 10 minutes before the launch was to go off, walked across the street to the sea wall and then went back to bed. Unfortunately, Alyson and Kailey needed to go to work and school on Monday and left to go back home. Andy and I stayed for the re-scheduled time on Monday at 4:14. The trade off was, we missed the Super Bowl (no TV because of no electricity. Penney's doesn't supply that). Andy tried to make friends with the big rigs next to us who had large screen TVs running on generators. No luck.

But the witnessing of the shuttle launch was unbelievable! Especially with the applause after blast-off and people yelling "God Bless the USA". Brought tears to my eyes! Truly an American moment! The night time launch has its own distinct characteristic of a bright orange glow, produced from the rocket flames. Really unable to see the shuttle itself. It is amazing how quickly it accelerates from lift-off and disappears into the darkness. Only four more launches are scheduled for this year. With luck we may be able to catch a day time launch.