Summer Activities

As I'm sure everyone knows, because like me you were probably following it with intense interest and spent all your available time scouring all the news articles you could find to get every last detail, last week was the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11. It was obviously a big deal for NASA and they celebrated here by inviting current and former employees and their families to attend a celebration at the Space and Rocket Center that afternoon. Over 7000 people attended! Needless to say, it was cool! I could easily spend a full day there by myself just looking at stuff. Here are some of the things they have on display.

I think this is the capsule from Apollo 16. Maybe 14. I can't remember which, darn it. Not much room in there for 3 people but it dwarfs the Gemini and especially Mercury capsules.

A mockup of a lunar lander. WSTF, where I used to work, has a mockup of both stages of the lander that we used to be able to climb in and on. Again, for 2 guys to live in one of these for several days, with spacesuits and other stuff in the way, they had to be pretty comfortable with each other.

Not the best picture of Cameron or me but we had to take it quick because people kept getting in the way.

From the left, Ares V, Saturn V and Ares I (yay! woo hoo! clap clap clap) The way things sound coming out of the Augustine Commission and with the slashed NASA budget, I'm not confident any of the Ares vehicles will ever fly and I'm also not too confident I'll have a job much longer. I'll be sure to send a letter to Obama thanking him for the "change". But that's a rant for a different forum.

How cool would it have been to see one of these things lift off?

Here's Cade trying out a sleeping back like they use on the Space Station.

Here's a mockup of Orion, the new crew capsule. It absolutely dwarfs the Apollo capsule. It's huge!

Looking inside and at the 6 seats. Not a great picture, but you get the idea.

The boys are in a mockup of a capsule. Ready for liftoff!

The very next day, Kevin celebrated his 11th birthday! Eleven already? Doggone, where has the time gone? Given his choice of where/what to eat on his special day, he chose to stay home and eat fried chicken. His birthday "cake" was Aunt Sandy's special treat with ice cream sandwiches covered with whipped cream and smashed Butterfingers.

Birthday boy opening his presents. I took the next day off and planned on taking everyone to the local waterpark but the weather ruined that. Instead, Kevin, Cam and I went to watch Transformers 2 at the IMAX theater. Not such a good idea. The screen was too big if you can believe it.

Last weekend, Dana, in all her wonderful planningness, found a bicycle trail in Tennessee that looked/sounded pretty neat so we loaded up the bikes and headed north. It was beautiful up there and the trails were paved and easy enough for Cade. I'm still shocked at how well he can ride his bike at only 3!

I tried a couple of shots like this and some were better but I like how Dana's waving in this one. Immediately after taking this shot I overshot a turn and crashed down a cliff into the lake. Not really, but I risked my life taking pictures from a unique angle just for your viewing pleasure. You'd better enjoy them.

We got to ride across a wooden bridge! The water looks super green here but it was actually very pretty.

At the end of one of the trails.

Dana! The woman, the myth, the master weekend planner! Is she purty, or what? Hubba hubba.

Cade even volunteered to wear the Camelback after Kevin started complaining about it. (It's Kevin's) In all, we rode over 8 miles and Cade pedaled and pedaled and pedaled the whole time like the little trooper he is. He had a couple of "moments" where we unexpectedly hit some rough patches of pavement hidden in the shade and his feet came flying off but he held it together and never crashed. Unfortunately, after all that pedaling, about 1/4 mile from the truck he hit the wall and had a meltdown. We just wore the poor little guy out.

After an exciting summer, our posts will probably be slowing down now. School starts in 2 weeks and soccer starts about the same time so our weekend adventures will be much more limited. The good thing is that it won't be too much longer before we can start posting Fall pictures!!!