Home Again, Home Again

After two 18hr drives, I have returned home. It’s a grueling ordeal, but I think I prefer it to flying. I got to listen to some audiobooks, I could stop whenever I wanted, could pack whatever I wanted without trying to cram it into a carry-on suitcase and was a lot cheaper (2,200 miles on ~50 gallons @~$3.60/gallon is $180, where as a single plane ticket would have cost at least $500, much less two).

The shuttle launch was great. I grew up 30miles from Cape Canaveral, so I could always see the shuttle go up. But because of that we never bothered to get real close. This time we went up to the Cape and stopped on the side of 528. We had a clear line of sight to the launchpad. Unfortunately, it was quite foggy so it was hard to see anything. We could see the VAB (Vehicle Assembly Building) despite the fog (it’s huge) and with binoculars you could see Atlantis on the launch pad. It was cool to see the actual launch instead of just the bright speck in the sky I always could see as a kid.

The delay in the sound was actually quite surprising. We were still about 15-20miles from the pad so it still took the sound almost two minutes to reach us. Since we could see it go up, the shuttle was in the air and lost in the clouds long before we heard it. Knowing about sound delay and experiencing it is quite amusing.

I tried to take some pictures but my camera is not cooperating so won’t talk to my computer. I need to go get a card reader later and just use that. If it works and their is anything worth sharing, I’ll post them later.