10 O’Clock News

Hey,

Sometime last week I was watching the evening news with Sky and my mom. Now that I think of it, it was on Saturday night around 10 o’clock. Nothing too special to report, no big news or any big events… Then a story that we thought was over.

You see, the Space Shuttle Endeavor was making a trip through the streets of LA that day. One of the final events of the closing of the space program from NASA. It was to take off down a slow escorted parade-like event at 6 AM and arrive in the museum at about 2 PM after having gone through certain streets in LA to get to its final destination.

Well… then they broke into a live picture of the space shuttle in downtown LA. It was stuck and a swarm of people were surrounding it and taking photos of the space shuttle.  They continued in saying that it wouldn’t be moving for some time and if you wanted to see it – now would be your opportunity.  They also said that anybody waiting to see it would probably be waiting for quite a while at the rate it was moving.

We had previously  spoke of this event and our desire to go.  But given our circumstance of having to find some place to move to in a short span of time we did not make it down there. That night seemingly opened up a perfect opportunity for us to go see the space shuttle during the once in a lifetime (historic) event.

We left the house at about 10:30 after having woken up my dad and convincing him that we weren’t joking.  After rallying everybody up and driving to the intersection that the news said it was going to be on we decided to wait. We asked people around us and even the police officers what time it should arrive. We received varying answers from 2 AM to 6 AM. The people saying 6 AM where leaving and the people saying 2 AM were waiting.

There was even an old elderly lady who wanted to sit next to a family and asked my mom if she could keep her company.

My dad at this point was getting very tired (insisting that he could sleep in the car until it came- saying it was crazy to be waiting for it) and as a side note when he gets tired he is not always in the best of moods (but who is?). It was a little after midnight and there was a small crowd building in the area.  We decided to get in the car and drive further down the route to try to see the space shuttle sooner. As long as we didn’t miss we be would be fine.

We went down about 2 miles, got out waited some more. We asked around and nobody had a good sense of when it would be arriving. It felt like it was becoming a wild goose chase, however we found some people walking down and they said they came from looking it at.. but that it was a very long walk to and space shuttle (and that was still broke down and not moving). We decided our next best move would be to drive to where the space shuttle was.

And that’s what we did.  About 7 or 8 blocks down the road we parked on some small side street.  Got out and started to follow the crowd.

That’s when we saw our first glimpse of her standing in the streets of LA.

It felt like we are watching a movie, it was surreal.

It took a page right from one of those Hollywood blockbusters where the world is ending (or something). You know the one. Anyway it wasn’t a movie but it was pretty cool to see.

We took pictures of this huge spaceship for probably close to an hour. At which point we all were getting pretty tired and decided to go to bed… I mean back to the house and then go to sleep. We were there when they fixed the problem and still there when they encountered another one. It was kind of cool. There were moments when we heard everybody cheer and chant USA, USA…  as the space shuttle rolled down the street.

I think one of the cooler parts of the night was in fact when the space shuttle was rolling down the street. A barrage of photographers and regular people (like me) all pulled out their cameras, video cameras, cell phones, iPads, you name it.  Whatever they had they took our and began shooting video of the space shuttle rolling down the street. Some just taking pictures along the way as best they could. Below is the best picture that I got in my attempt to capture the scene.

I know what you are thinking.  Most of my photos have been of the front side (and only the passenger side).  That is true.  The way it was set up you could not go from one side to the other.  There was however a little time where we were able to see the backside.  Here’s that photo:

Last but not least, here’s a photo of when we were practically underneath the wing.  It came so close to both sides of the streets that you could literally jump up and touch the wing. It was crazy and cool at the same time.  Anyway here is the final photo in which you can tell the enormity of the wing.

In closing,  I can say that I know it was a good night and probably would have never happened had we not seen the 10 o’clock news.  After we were at the space shuttle everyone’s spirits were lifted and the night got rockin’.

Personal rant: I find it amazing that we as humans can feel insignificant standing next to something man made.  Rightfully so.. I mean that ship has traveled BILLIONS of miles- seen things I will never see and has scratched at the surface of the heavens.  Yet with all that it still can’t scratch the surface of the awe and glory of God.  Think of that for a minute.

So, as for the 10 o’clock news?  This one’s for you…

Until next time…

just Pray.