Today we spend an easy day in the house, a quick trip out this afternoon to get a few birthday presents to send back to people in the UK but apart from that not a lot going on. This evening I did do the token bit of home maintenance, I bought a couple of bags of bark chipping from Lowes and spread them over the front borders.
The first thing I had to do today was try to sort out our trip to Greece planned for this October, it should have been a simple case of cancelling one person and paying the balance, but nothing seems to be simple anymore hence this took up most of the morning!
Another bit of house maintenance, the pool lights have not been very bright since we got back, they are a fibre optic system so I thought it would be a simple job of taking the cover off, maybe changing the bulb and cleaning the lenses inside, wrong, after an hour I gave up as the screws holding the cover on are rusted solid, and one of them is pretty inaccessible, I have limited tools to work with here, will need to get the right tool and try again.
Lisa, Baggage, Katie and Rachel go off to Wonder Works, I get to spend the afternoon at the house, I actually get some writing done, one whole chapter and a bit of the next one.
For dinner I cook Lasagne, the girls are longer than expected and it ends up being in the oven for over two hours, luckily it is still fine when it comes out, in fact it goes down very well and I am asked to make it again for another evening!
This evening we watch Americas got Talent and and then play a few games before bed. I am still drinking the Sam Adams white beer, though one of the bottles I open tonight was completely flat and ends up going down the sink!
Wednesday 15th July - Endeavour
Today I decided to head over to Titusville to watch the launch of STS-127, Space Shuttle Endeavour, the launch in planned for 18:03 so I head out from here just after 15:00. I was surprised by how easy the drive was, how easy I got to park and how I managed to get a prime waters edge spot to set up my tripod less than 1 hour before the launch. I guess as this is Endeavour’s sixth attempt to get off the ground people are not turning out in such large numbers as is usual for a shuttle launch.
About 4 years ago we saw a Delta rocket launch from Kennedy Space Centre, but have never witnessed the shuttle go up and I am in prime position, about 11 miles from the actual launch site with a completely uninterrupted view and the visibility is pretty clear.
I had come over to Titusville on my own, Lisa and the girls opting to watch the launch on the TV and then from the back of the house as the Shuttle rises into the sky, they did not want to make the trek on the chance it may be postponed again as when I left the house at 3pm the weather forecast was suggesting a 50/50 chance for launch. By the time I got here though the sky was clear and the launch looked definite.
Right on time the main engines fired and exhaust/steam billowed out under the Shuttle, it seemed to rise off the pad quicker than I remembered the Delta rocket having done and before you knew it it was little more than a bright speck in the sky, with a wavy vapour trail behind it. The noise hit a good thirty seconds after the launch was visible, a loud roar following the shuttle on its ascent to the International Space Station.
I had chosen to watch the launch from Space Park which houses the space walk of fame, a good choice as there was a small stall selling official STS-127 merchandise so I bought something for everybody before heading back to the car to drive back to Orlando.
The drive back was not as easy, firstly there was a lot of traffic returning from the Space Coast, then as I neared the junction with the 417 I drove into a horrific storm, lightning coming down pretty close to the car and torrential rain that almost caused me to pull off the road more than once, even when on the clearer road of the 417 the rain was keeping driving speeds down below 30. Later this evening I found out that at the heart of the storm had been a tornado that had touched down doing quite a bit of damage only a few miles away from me.
I eventually got back to the house at just after 9pm, just in time for a beer before thinking about calling it a night!
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