End of an era by Niki2

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

End of an era

POSTED BY: NIKI2
UPDATED: Monday, September 24, 2012 08:27
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Friday, September 21, 2012 10:13 AM

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Took the dogs in to Crissy Field (which is slightly East and below the Golden Gate) early this morning to sulky. No fog--pissed me off (I'd gone in yesterday and didn't get to sulky, the damned thing had a flat tire!). Don't like to sulky the dogs once the sun is up. Nonetheless, we had a nice ride around the trails at Crissy Field, finished around 8:30. After sulkying I always let them play on the beach. When I had arrived (7:30ish), there were three cars where I parked. When I went back to move the car to where we could walk on the beach, there wasn't a single empty space! I'd noticed more and more people on the beach, and especially on the pier, and wondered about it.

So I moved the car--and there were cars parked EVERYWHERE--totally unusual for a weekday morning. Found a space (I know where to look) and walked the dogs out onto the beach. Weird...there were people standing around on the sand everywhere, tripods abounded, people with binoculars, cameras, families with their kids playing, and of course lots of dogs. The huskies had a blast.

I finally asked someone what was up, and they said the shuttle was going to do a fly-over. Asked when, they said 9:30--as it was 9:25, I figured to stay, so walked the dogs down the beach a bit...met dog walkers all shaking their heads and smiling (probably like me none of them knew it was going to happen), stopped to talk to one and he said "Glad I'm out here, end of an era and all that". I leashed the pups and sat down up the beach. Nothing. But more and more people kept coming in, until there were hundreds, all lining the beach! Finally struck me that, when all these people went to leave, the traffic would be horrendous. So I walked the dogs back up onto Crissy Field itself--a gigantic open grassed space between the road and the beach--and there were tons MORE people all lining the edge where it meets the beach, some with camp chairs, virtually all with cameras.

We wandered slowly across the field--it's covered with gopher holes, so the guys had a ball sniffing and digging, etc., which they don't usually get to do. Finally stopped at one place where Kochak said there was a gopher REAL CLOSE--she got him...munch, crunch...and just then I looked up to see the shuttle going overhead.

First thought: Wow. That's neat.
Second thought: GET TO THE CAR!

Scuttled in (dragging Kochak chewing her prize) and took off...and just as I did, it made a lower, closer pass. Something to see! Truly is the end of an era, and that's sad to think about. But man, that was fucking BIG...the two little "escort" planes looked like flies next to it.

We missed all the traffic and slid onto the freeway, thankfully. It's probably still a mess out there!

So that was our little thrill--by now she's landed in L.A., and will never be in the air again. What a sad thought! I got my unexpected surprise, and Kochak is now "blooded" and a "real husky". A lucky beginning to the day!

Hey, that was quick!

Local news just put these up on the net, taken from the end of Crissy Field itself! My car was originally parked right behind that white building...look at all the people on the pier!

Yup, that's wher I was for the first flyover (second was much lower):

This was the "crowd" on Crissy Field beach when I first got the dogs out there. Multiply it by about 10.
http://instagram.com/p/P2AOVbx94I/

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Friday, September 21, 2012 11:48 AM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)

Beautiful pics.

I looked for her yesterday morning over Austin, but missed it, dammit.

Apparently no crazed gunman tried to shoot at it as it flew by the UT Tower...

http://alt.coxnewsweb.com/shared-blogs/austin/austin/upload/2012/09/re
tiring_shuttle_endeavour_pas/RBZ10013.JPG

"I supported Bush in 2000 and 2004 and intellegence [sic] had very little to do with that decision." - Hero

Mitt Romney, introducing his running mate: "Join me in welcoming the next President of the United States, Paul Ryan!"

Rappy's response? "You're lying, gullible ( believing in some BS you heard on msnbc ) or hard of hearing."

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Friday, September 21, 2012 12:28 PM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Shore was purty, wasn't she? Sorry you missed her...called Jim to tell him about it, and he said he was in the middle of a report and didn't notice that everyone else had disappeared; they went up on the roof to watch. He didn't know she was passing today, so missed it, which saddens me; I think it would have meant more to him than it did to me. Nonetheless, a serendipitous experience for me which I'll never forget.

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Friday, September 21, 2012 1:13 PM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up

Madame and I saw the Discovery when it was being flown into Washington-Dulles to be displayed at the Smithsonian's Udvar-Hazy Center. The 747 carrying it made several passes over NOVA prior to landing, and we were lucky enough to have it fly directly over us at about 500 feet. It was amazing to see something as big as a shuttle piggybacked on a 747 flying. Kind'a sad, too, to know we were pretty much out of the manned space business for an indefinite time. Still, nice to know we accomplished something like that.

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Saturday, September 22, 2012 2:33 AM

DREAMTROVE

Nifty

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Sunday, September 23, 2012 1:53 AM

CLJOHNSTON108

While everybody else in Hollywood was swarming to Griffith Observatory to witness the final minutes of the era of Space Shuttles actually being airborne, there was only one place I could imagine being... largely because it's just right up the street from my place.

http://hollywood.patch.com/articles/runyon-canyon-turns-out-to-be-the-
perfect-place-to-see-endeavour#video-11449309
(I'm the big goober at the beginning of the video)

As soon as Endeavour took off from Edwards AFB for the final time (8:17am PDT), I packed up my fold-up camping chair, my li'l tripod camping stool (for a leg-rest), my Big Brown Umbrella, my ancient Walkman tuned to KNX 1070, and my hand-drawn map of the flight plan (my printer's out of ink!), and began the trek up Runyon Canyon. Found a nice shady bush and set up "camp", since I had a couple of hours to kill.
Since I had on my T-shirt with the big honkin' NASA logo, the arriving space nuts saw me as the go-to source of information, asking "Where is it?", "When's it gonna get here?" and, of course, "What the hell are all these people doing up here?" (from the ignorant hipsters).
I'd whip out my li'l flight plan, explaining "My printer crapped out, so I had to draw the damn thing!" They were actually somewhat impressed with my map-making skills. One guy even insisted on taking a picture of it!

We had Tally-Ho as she crossed Santa Monica Pier and went "feet dry" and made a beeline for the California Science Center.
We had a medium-range pass as she rounded Downtown and headed out towards Venice Beach (and a run over LAX — 200 feet off the deck!).
From the flight plan, it looked like we were gonna lose her behind the hills as she went from Getty Center to Universal Studios. (At least, that's what I was telling everybody to expect!)
Imagine our elation as she came almost straight for us, passing just a little to the North, then came back after rounding Universal and pulled a U-turn around us (looping from North to South), and headed off East for JPL!

(That's my Big Brown Umbrella almost ruining the guy's shot. Sorry.)

I don't have a camera, so I just keep searching YouTube & Flickr for "Endeavour, Runyon Canyon". Some great stuff trickling in!

All in all, this was the single most wonderful day of my life. I could get hit in the head with a meteorite right now, and I'd die happy.

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Sunday, September 23, 2012 4:51 AM

RAHLMACLAREN

"Damn yokels, can't even tell a transport ship ain't got no guns on it." - Jayne Cobb

Double flyby! Fracklin' glorious!!!

--------------------------------------------------
Find here the Serenity you seek. -Tara Maclay

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Sunday, September 23, 2012 1:32 PM

CLJOHNSTON108

Quote:
Originally posted by RahlMaclaren:
Double flyby! Fracklin' glorious!!!

That it was!!

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Sunday, September 23, 2012 5:22 PM

CHRISISALL

Awesome.

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Monday, September 24, 2012 8:27 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Very cool. That's what surprised me, too--she came over the Golden Gate, and I thought that was that and scrambled for the car, only to find out as I drove off that she apparently circled the entire Bay Area (just as she did LA as I saw in your video) and came back LOWER and went right through the Gate! Wish I'd known it was going to be a double flyby, I'd have braved the traffic to stay around.

A very special memory for those of us lucky enough to have seen her; makes me sad what it portends. Wouldn't wish for another Cold War (since that's what got us into space), but I wish there could be found a better reason to get back into space...

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