"To Infinity and Beyond..."

In the past 20 some odd years there have been dozens of space shuttle flights blasting off into the heavens since Judi and I have lived on the west coast of Florida, and each has invoked a response on the order of, "One day we need to go see one up close and personal." When it was announced last week that the next flight would be departing the Kennedy Space Center on Monday, we decided that if we were ever going to check this item off our Bucket List this scheduled departure was the most opportune time to do so. We were excited!

Barring and delaying weather or technical difficulties, the shuttle was schedule to lift off at 2:01 p.m. In the best of driving circumstances it takes approximately two and a half hours to drive to any Atlantic coast destination due east of St. Petersburg. This minimum drive time also assumes that we would be the only two people with a wild hair mildly interested in witnessing this modern-day spectacle. Wrong assumption. We should have departed St. Pete by 10 a.m. We didn't get on the road until 11:30. Even in the best of drive conditions, we were going to cut it very close.

As fate would have it, we were fortunate to have only encountered a couple of minimal traffic delays along the way. However, with the two o'clock hour rapidly approaching, we were were still twenty miles away and were beginning to encounter an increasing number of vehicles all headed in a easterly direction, some of which were beginning to pull over and stop on the side of the road at any location that was slightly more elevated than the usual flat Florida terrain. We kept driving...not being at all sure where we going or what we would encounter that would prove to be a more advantageous viewing spot than what we were passing up.

We tuned into an a.m. radio station that was broadcasting the pre-launch countdown: "T-minus 5 minutes and counting." Judi and I were all but resigned to the disappointing fact that our desire to get so close to the shuttle at its lift off that we could hit it with a rock was not going to come to fruition. Just at that time we topped the rise over U.S. Highway 1...and there before us was a line of cars parked on each side of the road that signaled to us that we were as close as we were ever going to get. But there was no place for us to park! "T-minus 3 minutes and counting." I turned our car to the right and headed down the ramp that would take us onto U.S. 1. Not seeing any law enforcement in the immediate vicinity, I reached the bottom of the ramp, steered the car right again, across the curb and up the grass embankment to the top of rise, brought the car to a screeching halt, jumped out, and with camera in hand we headed east on foot to hopefully secure a better viewing point.

"T-minus 30 seconds..." We kept walking rapidly... "T-minus 20 seconds..." Still moving forward... "T-minus 10, 9, 8, 7, 6... This was it! "...5, 4, 3, 2, 1, Lift off!"

Personally I was expecting to be immediately over-whelmed with an explosion of light and thunder as the shuttle strained to escape the bonds on Mother Earth...much like the view depicted in the photograph above. Little did we know that geographically we were still miles away form the actual launch sight. So when the shuttle appeared a few seconds later over a cluster of Bougainvillea bushes in the foreground, the glow from the fully ignited engines was not much more awe inspiring than that emitted from a Fourth of July firework and the roar of the engines was hardly a roar...more akin to rumpling distant thunder. Then it was over. The shuttle disappeared into the gathering clouds and was gone.

What we learned, to our chagrin, is that ever since 9/11 our U.S. government is somewhat reticent in permitting just any cluster of thousands of your every day Tom, Dick and Mary Ellens to wander willy-nilly on the grounds of the Kennedy Space Center on launch day. After we returned to our vehicle we decided that we would continue eastward to determine just how much further we could have traveled had we arrived earlier in the day. Answer...about a mile. Then one encounters a guarded gate, and unless you are gobber-smoocher V.I.P. and properly credentialed, you are not going to get any further than that gate...even if you are a certified U. S. citizen tax payer.

I attempted to take some photographs of the shuttle as it hurled itself into space. Picture in your mind a cloudy sky. Now you have in your mind's eye what my camera lens captured. I could have accomplished the same thing had we stayed in St. Petersburg and pointed the camera eastward. Still, we enjoyed our day trip together and vowed that if our future schedules permit, we will return for another launch...preferably at night and we will arrive a day ahead of time. Even if the shuttle fails to launch, there is always the Atlantic Ocean to enjoy for a couple of days.