Scrubbed Shuttle Launch
When you live in Florida and a shuttle is launching, sometimes it coincides with a time you can take the family and go watch. Well, that sort of worked this time. With my amazing wife staying home with the two youngest (both a little ill), I piled the two oldest into the car, and we made the incredible trek to watch the shuttle launch.
There are a number of places you can see the shuttle launch from. I have been told that the shuttle can be seen as far west as Western Orlando. Now, wanting to be near a beach, along with 700,000 other people, I had a plan worked out to be around Daytona Beach or just north of there instead of Coco Beach, where I knew the masses would congregate. The shuttle was launching into an orbit of 59.7 degrees, if I remember right, so I thought that would be a fine location to see it from.
Now, I am not willing to just pull kids from school at the drop of a hat, and knowing the possibility of the launch being scrubbed and that about 9 hours of driving would be involved, we waited until Friday morning before even telling the kids. They were excited to go. I made sure there was some educational content planned for the trip too before we went.
After hearing that the shuttle had started fueling, we headed off with clear skies in view. This was really exciting for us. We drove until we got to Fort Marion in St. Augustine. This was one of the first forts. I remember going to visit this fort once when I was 12. It hasn't changed at all. I guess that 18 or so years doesn't make much difference to a fort that was built in the 1700's. The boys got to see this fort and hear a little about the history. The cannons were even fired while we were there, twice. I explained to the boys as best I could about the history and let them see the sea from there. So here is Fort Marion with some preoccupied boys in the shots too.
At the end of the day, the launch was scrubbed, but thanks to the National Parks Service for at least letting the outing be educational.
When you live in Florida and a shuttle is launching, sometimes it coincides with a time you can take the family and go watch. Well, that sort of worked this time. With my amazing wife staying home with the two youngest (both a little ill), I piled the two oldest into the car, and we made the incredible trek to watch the shuttle launch.
There are a number of places you can see the shuttle launch from. I have been told that the shuttle can be seen as far west as Western Orlando. Now, wanting to be near a beach, along with 700,000 other people, I had a plan worked out to be around Daytona Beach or just north of there instead of Coco Beach, where I knew the masses would congregate. The shuttle was launching into an orbit of 59.7 degrees, if I remember right, so I thought that would be a fine location to see it from.
Now, I am not willing to just pull kids from school at the drop of a hat, and knowing the possibility of the launch being scrubbed and that about 9 hours of driving would be involved, we waited until Friday morning before even telling the kids. They were excited to go. I made sure there was some educational content planned for the trip too before we went.
After hearing that the shuttle had started fueling, we headed off with clear skies in view. This was really exciting for us. We drove until we got to Fort Marion in St. Augustine. This was one of the first forts. I remember going to visit this fort once when I was 12. It hasn't changed at all. I guess that 18 or so years doesn't make much difference to a fort that was built in the 1700's. The boys got to see this fort and hear a little about the history. The cannons were even fired while we were there, twice. I explained to the boys as best I could about the history and let them see the sea from there. So here is Fort Marion with some preoccupied boys in the shots too.
At the end of the day, the launch was scrubbed, but thanks to the National Parks Service for at least letting the outing be educational.
posted by The Pagets in Florida at 8:34 PM
2 Comments:
After driving 9 hours I would have been frustrated. I'm glad they had soemthing there you could do anyway, looks fun.
There wasn't too much frustration. I was well aware of the risk when I went. I think that many of the people are aware when they go. Just think of it as though you are going to the beach.
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