Night Shuttle Launch March 11, 2008

Let's see if I can keep todays post short. Got some thing to get done today.

We left home after puttin' the Lance on the truck and loadin' all our possibles inside. Not to much in the way of provisions this trip cause we just planned on cookin' some hamburgers for dinner and goin' out for breakfast the following morn, makes for much easier doin's for the Mrs. We took Linda's Aunt & Uncle with us, a little crowded in that Lance but we got by fine.

We headed for the same general area we were for the last launch and wound up about 500' north of our turn off Hwy. 50. There were line of RV's parked in the grass on the river side of the highway, surprised to see so many people here already as it was just 2 in the afternoon and the launch was scheduled for 2:28AM. Glad we got there when we did cause there was just enough space left for all of us to park, as Noel & Barb followed us up and George & Della came over from Sebring. We all got settled and sat back to enjoy the beautiful day, temps in the low 70's and sun just a shinin'.

Linda's Aunt & Uncle, The Queen herself and George

After dinner the 'Parkin Buzzards' started hawkin' places to park from $10 across the street to $20, per car, and as much as $60 for a 5ver' or big coach on the riverside. I like our spot much better, directly accross from launch pad 39A and how much did we pay this time, $0, nothing, nada. The area really started fillin' up and we felt there were many more people this time than the last launch which was in the afternoon, not in the middle of the night! There must have been 100's of people gathered on the median strip in the highway, tried to get some pics with the camera in night mode, but all the moving traffic played with the shutter I guess. About 11PM we turned in to 'try' and get a little shuteye until closer to launch time. With all that commotion it was like tryin' to sleep on a float in a parade, I got maybe 20-30 minutes in the following 3 hours.

When launch time finally neared, the sky that had been clear as a bell was a solid overcast, causing some concern over the launch probability. Oh sure just my luck, get all these people together, haul truck all the way up here, to get up in the middle of the night to find the launch has been postponed. Well NASA didn't disappoint, everything went off as scheduled, but the weather conditions limited our viewing to about 20 seconds before the shuttle dissappeared into the overcast. These are the two best shots I got because of the weather.

NASA had a much better shot on thier Website, but they seemed to be a tad closer than us.

After the launch and people started to clear out, we all made our way to bed for some much needed sleep. Come mornin', around 8AM, we pulled out and went for breakfast then headed home.

This is the scene, post shuttle, in our back pasture this afternoon.

"Safari Update #2"

This is the pig that has a new home at our house. She's about 75 pounds.

Well not as short a post as I intended but someones got to tell the story.

See ya down the road as were 'Dancin' on the Wind'