Going...Going...Gone

Titusville newsstand

We got up early, ate our breakfast with shaky excited hands, smiled at the fellow diners with JFK t-shirts celebrating 50 years of space exploration, and headed out into the steadily growing stream of traffic.  By the time we got to Titusville, the town with a population one third of our weensy Finnish city, it was swarming with the shuttle faithful.  Nervous spectators, like ourselves, picked the first available parking spots and hiked the couple of miles further into town.  The brave pressed on, hoping to find that one better vantage point.

Where exactly was the launchpad?  Our neighbors pointed out the two towers, barely visible through the haze, 12 miles away across the shimmering water.  We staked our claim in front of a half-empty bank parking lot with our buggy, blanket, and camping chair.  And then we waited, for three and a half hours in impossibly high humidity.  One of our neighbors used to work at the base.  There was nothing in the town in those days, according to his wife, no Lowe's or Home Depot, no mall to speak of.  She wondered about the town's future, some of the store fronts were already empty.

Spectators continued to flow in, by car, on foot, on bicycle, by rickshaw.  Parents pulled bob-haired, pacifier-sucking toddlers in little red wagons.  Older gentlemen with binoculars shuffled slowly and determinedly toward the shore, eyes gazing upward, already anticipating the trajectory.  Mothers with infants sought out shade wherever they could find it.

Forty-five minutes to go.  With street parking at a premium, drivers started leaving their cars on the grass in the middle of the divided highway.  In the spirit of the moment, police officers armed to the teeth in flack jackets and automatic rifles turned a blind eye.

More and more frenzied drivers appeared, desperately looking for a place to stop.  Thirty minutes left, and tv-watching sisters called to say that everything still looked good for the launch. Nine minutes left, or was it fourteen?  People scurried toward the shore.  Others started to chant the countdown.  My heart was fluttering in my throat.  Someone nearby said there was a hold at 31 seconds.  Phones rang again to explain the delay.  How long was the hold?  No one knew.

Suddenly, voices raised the countdown again.  A cloud billowed from the right side.  Whistles and cheers started their crescendo.  A spark and then the tower was split.  A dark cone shape rose, powered by a plume of blinding flame and smoke visible against the hazy sky.  The crowd was in full, 'WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!' as the craft rocketed upward, revealing the mass and power that distance and perspective had dwarfed...

Ironically, the day the Challenger broke into pieces was the day my interest in all things space-related was piqued and like a lot of kids growing up in the '80s, I dreamed of becoming an astronaut.  It was a dream that would remain with me for several years, until it became clear that I'd probably be better at writing about space shuttles than riding in them.

So as I watched Atlantis make her final voyage that day, soaring heavenward with confidence and grace, I cried, for dreams deferred, for the chance, in a minute way, to be part of this massive undertaking wrought by human hands, for the endeavoring spirit in all of us that drew almost a million people to witness this event together, for the actual lives on board the shuttle being carried away from the comforts of home, and for the uncertain future of the space program.

I watched Atlantis go until she was suddenly swallowed up by the clouds, like a curtain falling on the last act of a play.

Happy Birthday, America!

Happy Independence Day, everyone!  Just a post to celebrate the freedoms we enjoy in this great country of ours and the people who fought to give them to us.

 

And please ignore the irony that as I'm posting in order to celebrate this day of freedom, I'm actually using a photo of caged bald eagles.

Of Arms and the Manatees I Sing

'Navel gazing' seems to be a term that gets thrown around a lot in the blog world but, for lack of a better phrase, or because it just seems to suit, that's how this day started out.  One of those real downward death spirals of over-self-analysis.

And then I got a few of those confirmation messages that tells me someone out there is listening:

A song on the radio:

I’m not gonna lay around and whine and moan
’cause somebody done, done me wrong
Don’t think for a minute that I’m gonna sit around
And sing some old sad song
I believe it’s half full, not a half empty glass
Every day I wake up knowing it could be my last

 A sign on a church billboard:  Battle Within

A road sign:  Follow Your Dreams Blvd. (I'm not even kidding)

And then we went to a Manatee wildlife park and there's no way you can be moody watching those cute-as-a-button giant coffee beans with eyes floating around.

 

That one at the top looks like a mushroom from here.

They look and move like really sweet lumps of concrete.

And then we added a little sand from the Gulf coast to the sand from the Atlantic coast and the growing pile of Sun Chip crumbs, pizza crust bits, Cadbury chocolate corners, and crushed Cheez-its in the back of the car.  The water was warmer and more lake-like than I had imagined but gave us our beach-y fix for the weekend anyway.

Some little fish were nibbling my toes, but you can't really see them here, 
possibly because the whiteness of my leg is piercing your retinas.

Devil's Millhopper, It's Not a Kind of Beer

So today we went to visit a sinkhole.  No, really, stay with me.  Devil's Millhopper is a 120-foot-deep depression in the earth caused by ground water erosion of the underlying limestone, creating a miniature, year-round rainforest despite the drier conditions above ground.  Thread-like waterfalls that trickle down the steep sides of the sink create a lush environment which houses plant and animal species otherwise unknown in northern Florida.

Its name's connection to the underworld is two-fold.  European settlers thought the shape resembled a hopper in a mill, the funnel part that grain fed into.  Fossilized animal remains, including shark's teeth, found in the bottom of the hole, led them to believe that they had been funneled down to the devil's stomach, hence Devil's Millhopper.   A Native American legend also related that a beautiful princess caught the eye of the devil, who couldn't resist her physical charms and carried her off for himself.  When the warriors from her tribe realized what had happened, they chased after the devil, who caused a giant hole to swallow them up.  When the warriors tried to climb out after him, he turned them all to stones, and the tears of the warriors for their lost princess can still be seen running down the sides of the hole to this day.

Sitting at the bottom of this impressive natural formation is a bit like being in an upside-down terrarium chapel, with light softly filtering down through the dense forest canopy and the chiming of little streams in a full circle around your head.

Serenity now.