The space shuttle Discovery made 39 missions to space in 27
years and made its last trip to space last year. Yesterday it was flown from
Florida to the Smithsonian Air and Space museum by Dulles airport here in
Virginia. There's a cool history of the shuttle in pictures here and of the space shuttle era here.
Everyone was buzzing about where the best place to see it flying over
would be. At first I planned to take the boys to a park near the airport to
watch it come in with some friends. Then I read somewhere that the best place
to see it would be the parking lot of the museum. Then the night before I saw
on the news that it was going to circle the Capitol, White House, and the
monuments downtown and never be very high off the ground. On a wild and crazy mom-whim,
I decided to change plans and not pay the $15 to park at the museum and watch
it in the parking lot, but instead to head downtown to see it in a free and
more scenic setting.
On the metro ride in, I read that the best place to see it
would be the west side of the Capitol, east side of the Washington monument. I
have no idea how they made those assertions, but I was clearly deeply affected
by everything I read for some reason. We stayed on the metro a little longer
than I had planned and got off right at the Capitol. We met Uncle A, who came
bearing a bagel for the boys and coffee for me.
After strolling to the front of the building,
we decided to go ahead and camp out there. Plenty of people had gathered,
including some punk school kids who thought it was hilarious to every once in
awhile gasp together and point to the sky to confuse everyone. Workers from the
Capitol building poured out on the terraces (if that’s what they’re called),
waiting for the sighting. We met some friends there and sunblocked all the
kiddos and hung out. We could see people on top of buildings all around us. It was
kind of a goosebumpy, unifying experience there for awhile, as we all just
waited expectantly for the flyover. There
were news cameras with chunky microphones, toothy field trip students in
matching lanyards and braces, and perfectly-dressed Capitol Hill staff. The occasional nerd in a space shuttle shirt. An
elderly couple telling their life stories to the polite PBS reporter. Everyone waiting.
We saw the plane with the shuttle on it coming in from the north, but it didn’t get
terribly close and then just went down the river toward Alexandria. Certainly
that wasn’t the “circle around the National Mall,” right? Everyone stuck
around, so we knew either it wasn’t, or they had changed plans and disappointed
a lot of people who expected to see much more of it. After awhile we saw it
coming by again, this time clearly heading toward us. Aaron and I were each
holding a boy and at several points I tried to take a video on my camera, but
it makes me sick to even look at the footage, it’s so shaky. I got a couple
decent pictures, but nothing great. Mostly I hope the boys remember coming to see the space shuttle fly in, and the excitement it created. They are so obsessed with everything space related, that I wanted to make sure to make the effort to get them to see it.
There are a bunch of great videos of the shuttle flying over and landing, and some awesome pictures. Here's a good quality, short montage of its flight. I saw pictures of people stopped everywhere looking skyward. A friend said her husband pulled over with all the other drivers on major road in the area and someone invited him to sit on top of his car and watch it with him and some other guys. So great.
After the space shuttle excitement we took in the insect zoo at the Museum of Natural
History, where the boys touched a caterpillar, watched a tarantula eat a
cricket, crawled like ants through a pretend dirt tunnel, laughed at bee poop,
and enjoyed that part of the museum more than they have before. We got
ourselves some Ollie’s Trolley grub, this time with our real friend Ollie, his
sister Ella, and their parents. With Ollie at Ollie’s!
I’m excited for this weekend at the Air and Space museum. They
have all kinds of festivities surrounding the arrival of Discovery. (Read about them here.) The Space Shuttle Enterprise is the shuttle that has been on display here that is moving up to New York since we get the seasoned, historic Discovery.Enterprise has never been to space. At some
point tomorrow Enterprise and Discovery are going nose-to-nose in a passionate
space shuttle kiss. I'm actually not joking about that.
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Pictures!
Just waitin' on the steps |
Awesome. Shirt. |
The boys and me |
Waiting with space shuttle picture on the newspaper |
Scanning... |
The Capitol empties |
Everyone stares |
Here it goes across the Mall |
Coming around (notice people on the buildings) |
....and more people on buildings |
Woohoo! Piggybackin' |
Circling around again |
The fountain for afterward entertainment |
The ambivalent fountain duck that slept through it all |
I'm a dummy; I was downtown and totally forgot to go outside. I love the photo of the employees outside at the Capitol!
ReplyDeleteSee, you clearly don't spend enough time at the Capitol, because that was the lowest I've seen a plane fly over the mail in, oh, ten years or so! :) Also, you should have stopped by to say hi. Also, I like to think I was one of those "perfectly-dressed Capitol Hill staffers" watching from the sidewalk by my building, except that I'm out of shirts that completely cover my belly and the only shoes that fit my elephantine feet are flip-flops. Not so perfect...
ReplyDeleteI feel so dumb for not connecting with you, Missy! I was thinking we'd go to the Washington Monument to watch and then we ended up at the Capitol close to you...bad friend. Sorry. I'm sure you were nearly-perfectly dressed. Also, flip-flops ARE perfect. Always.
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