We took a trip down to Florida to see the STS-124/Discovery launch. Read the story below! Click here to see the gallery!

It’s funny how things work out sometimes.  A couple of weeks ago Mickey at work asked me when the next shuttle mission was landing.  His family would be vacationing in Florida in a few weeks and he thought they might try to see the Shuttle land.  I looked up the mission and found that it was launching on May 31^st at 5:02pm and landing on June 14^th.  Then I noticed that the launch was set for a Saturday.  I took all of 1 second, but I decided to drive down if there was a good chance of on time lift-off.

That night I talked to Trey and proposed the trip to him.  He usually works on Saturdays but I thought it was worth a shot.  He said he would check the next day. 

About the same time I sent Chris a text message about the idea. He said he was off and thinking of drive over to see it as well.  I told him I at least would be there.

The next day Trey told me he got the day off.   All was set, nothing to do now but hope the weather would be nice and there would not be any technical issue to delay the launch. 

As the days went by the weather forecast went from bad to promising.  The Friday before the launch the weather looked good and NASA said 80% change of launch, with an additional quote “We will launch on time tomorrow”.  Trey drove to my house that night and once he arrived we soon went to bed.   We awoke about 3:30 on May 31^st and left the house by 4am ish.    After 2 potty stops and two fill-ups we arrived in Titusville, FL at Space walk park at around 11:30ish.  We quickly found a good parking space and claimed an awesome spot right on the shore of the Indian River.  We were there, spot secured, good parking space, with 6 hours to go til launch.  After lunch at a Burger King within walking distance, Chris arrived.  Soon after it started to rain, then it started to pour!  Chris was at Burger King, Misty and I in the car and Trey for some reason just stayed in the chairs we setup to mark our spot.  About 30min later the rain stopped and the sun came out.

We set back up at our spot and tried to past the time by cracking each other up and people watching as the crowd grew.  With 4+ hours to kill we just set there, trying to stay cool, applying sunscreen, joking around, snapping pictures, just killing time.  The crowd really grew as lift-off time got closer.  People were starting to setup chairs and stand in the shallow water of the river.  About 30 mins before the launch we stood up claimed our spots and got ready for the launch.   Arriving so early really paid off with the spot we got, no chance of anyone standing in front of us!  As the minutes counted down to lift off we prepared for the pictures we wanted to take.  Misty was in charge of getting zoomed in pictures.  I was going for wider angle shots, Trey setup and aimed his video camera, and Chris got in position for his shots.  It was time!

The crown erupted into a cheer as the shuttle lifted off the launch pad 12 miles away.  It climbed higher and higher in the sky as we took picture after picture.  The flames shooting out the back were extremely bright and lit up the few clouds in the sky as it passed them.  About a minute after lunch the crowd cheered again as the roar of the rockets finally made their way to us as the Shuttle began heading more north as it rose higher and higher.  After another minute or so the solid rocket boosters separated from the external fuel tank starting another round of cheers from the crowd.  Another 30 seconds or so and the shuttle was out of sight the crowd gave another round of cheers and started to quickly depart.  We immediately started looking at each other’s pictures and talking about the launch.

We left Titusville and drove to Daytona Beach for dinner, saved all our pictures to each other’s media and parted ways with Chris.  We arrived at our room in Jacksonville around 8:30 and quickly called it a night.  The next morning we were up, had breakfast and were on the road heading back home by 9:30.  We arrived back home by 3pm and started to unpack.

So 2 days, 1012 miles, four sunburns, 1 shuttle launch, and 835 pictures, later a lifelong wish had been fulfilled; it was all over.  What an exciting event.   The drive, the heat, the sunburns, and the wait it was all worth it. I would do it all again in an instant.