THE 'LAUNCH'

ok we are now in georgia with a couple of couples....both were on the canadian trip we took..one from maine and the other from ithaca our long time friends cathy/frank the other don/bev....we will be here for a few days..but the exciting news is that we really did see the launch go up...we arrived at the park we wanted to be in by 1pm yesterday to get our place which was perfect...we could see right across the indian river and see where the launch was set up to go off...so there we were for the next few hrs waiting..our friends tom and christine arrived about 1/2 hr after we arrived and then we were all set for the day...as long as we had our spot we were going to be ok...to see a launch was on tom bucket list so we just we were there for support and also to mark it off our list of things to do...we had brought a picnic lunch so no problem of getting hungry...as we sat there for the duration many many many others arrived and picked out there special sports we were surround with those of course from the states also from the netherlands/iceland/and many other countries...and we waited and waited ...hoping that it would go up on time and it did...all of a sudden we could see a red glow in the area around the shuttle then it grew bigger and then all of a sudden this big fire ball started to lift off into the sky and it was like a fire ball being sent into space...we could watch it head up till all of a sudden it split and the tanks were went back to earth and the rest of the shuttle kept on going up into space...the while thing took about 6 minutes then it was all over and we couldn't see anything any more and it was time to go....what a feeling to see it lift off..just gave me lumps in my heart thinking that there were 7 people in the shuttle being sent into space...what a thing...the traffic getting out of there was another thing...we made it ok...do it if any of you ever get a chance it is a great thing to see and we can tell you exactly where to go to see it....