Shuttle Atlantis

Monday I made a last minute decision that Cinch & I would drive into town to see Shuttle Atlantis launch. It was very last minute and Daniel came home for lunch late so we didn't get as close as planned but still a lot closer than here at the ranch.

Driving towards the coast I was starting to get nervous I didn't remember the exact launch time it was 2:2???. That last minute makes a big deal in this case you can't be 5 minutes late to such an event. So I started scanning the radio channels- nothing on fm I switch to am- wishing they had ksl 1160- kept scanning and then finally I found coverage on the event- launch set for 2:28 my clock was 2 minutes off of theirs.

We reached the coast and had 11 minutes to launch. So I began to drive North as far as I thought I could get with 4-5 minutes left to park and get on the beach. It made butterflies in my stomach listening to them go through every test 2-3 times, check on the weather, saying good bye to the astronauts and that they would see the crew after Thanksgiving.

I finally had to made a decision on where to park and we jumped out of the truck- trying to explain to Cinch we weren't at the water to play but we were going to watch an airplane in the sky. Well he still wanted to go play in the water and then it happened. Blast off! Amazing! I wish we could have gotten closer but it was still really neat- didn't get the bright light experience like the night launches but cool that Cinch could see it and follow it into the blue skies. It also amazed me how many people turned out to watch- a million I swear. People were packed up and down the beach- I didn't expect that since they see launches all the time. Pool cleaners, electricians, police officer were just a few that were lined up by us.

So glad I didn't let another launch pass us by like I did the first time- it was well worth the drive to the beach and missed nap time.