When I woke up I was surrounded by cars and the fans were making a slight noise. My battery was dead but I had made it. The skies were slightly cloudy but it was sunny, warm, and looked pretty good to me. However Im not a rocket scientist! I said ‘hi’ to the 3 retirees in the car next to mine ‘um, can I get a jump?’. Thank god I had bought some leads for $8 the day before. ‘Sure’ said the guy and pulled forward, popped his hood and …. no battery. It was under the back seat for some reason. The guy in the big SUV saw what was going on and jumped at the chance to help out, despite nearly losing his spot to some cranky woman as we got connected. It fired up ok which wasn’t my previous experience at jumping cars (last time I was messing around in the work car park for 2 hours getting the damn thing going). I left it charging and put on the radio, seemed like there was some ice build up somewhere which might cause a problem. I chatted to my fellow viewers for a while ‘no Im not from London’ and made myself busy tidying up my car. There was stuff everywhere and it was going to be annoying if I couldn’t find something. I sorted out my cameras, set up my point and shoot on the roof on 10 second interval mode and watched the sky and the now rapidly filling grass verge.

Seemed like the count down was proceeding ok, at about 10 minutes to go I got up on the roof for a better view. You could see the huge hangar where the shuttles are assembled to the right and a large tower to the left of that, what I assumed was the shuttle. The waterfront in front of me was getting busy now, and I saw Jono (or at least his twin!) walking around. Lol! The radio kept up the commentary and of course this being my first launch I wasn’t quite ready for what would happen. Maybe I should have been talking to some locals intead of messing around with my car. They counted down the minutes, and then they got to the seconds and I was watching the tower for the blast off… everyone started cheering! wtf! I was so intent on the tower I didn’t realise I was looking at the wrong spot! There was a flash of light more to the right and there it was, burning so bright and streaking up leaving a huge blanket of smoke in its wake. ‘2…1… lift off’ said the radio. God damn delay :p Luckily I wasn’t looking at my camera or something else eh? About a kilometer above it was a bank of clouds and it burned through them and out the top, now really picking up speed as it rolled over and away from us as it turned out over the Atlantic in a race to catch up with the ISS. Then the shockwave came….

It started as a low rumble but the shuttle hits the sound barrier pretty quickly after launch and Im guessing you would imagine the sound would be pretty loud but it was really amazing to sit on top of my minivan and feel the pressure of the launch from the top. The rumble turned to a roar and then everything started shaking, the force of the solid rockets pushing out Frank knows pounds of pressure spread out like a wall from the pad, across the water and buffeted us all despite the 10 miles distance. It was like a mini earthquake in the sky. Cool. The contratrail behind the Shuttle tapered off to nothing as it burned away from us and soon you couldn’t see the engine flare but just a shining speck of light as it left the atmosphere. It must be such a insane feeling to be on top of a controlled explosion that would shoot you into space at 8 kilometes a second and then live there for a week. Glad they made it!

And Im glad I made it. 1200 miles, $200 in gas and 18 hours I could tick off one more item in my ‘want to do in my life’ list. I sat and listened as the radio described the launch that was now too far away to see, the rockets seperated with no problem and they said it was one of the cleanest launches ever. No delay, so its a good job I didn’t take the chance and take my time getting down there as I was tempted to.

So, now what? I was mostly kitted out in my minivan and the only date I had to think about was the 6th of January when my visa expired. Halloween was pretty close too and Xmas I would worry about in a few more weeks. So I was in Florida so I may as well take a look while I was there eh? No more interstates though, 1200 miles of them is enough to put anyone off for life. There is nothing to see so I woud stick to the minor roads from now on. Highway 1 follows the coast down the same route so that would be good enough for me. I waited until the traffic had calmed down a bit and started heading south. The sky was blue, the temperature was now 30 degrees, hmmmm. Why are all the lights on my center dash flashing? I put on the air blower and nearly scorched the skin from my ankles. Seemed my car no longer wanted to keep me warm but wanted to roast me alive. Bleh, just what I need, no AC is one thing but no normal air is not good. I pulled into an auto spares place and had a look in the Hayes Manual. ‘If the lights are flashing take it to a dealer’. Great, and what is that going to cost me?

With the windows down I just cruised south and took my time. I wanted a cooler like Renae had which plugged into the cigarette lighter but no seemed to sell them. I took it as a chance to buy more stuff I thought I needed and just cruised for the most of the afternoon. The Atlantic coast certainly has a lot of Malls… in fact the whole road was nothing but shops, malls, garages and houses. I decided to treat myself to a motel room which was $66 well spent. I needed a shower and a comfy bed.



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