Saturday, February 6, 2010

The Hat Tricks Take a Roadtrip!

The Hat Trick Family decided to get out of Washington and head out for a little adventure. The strain of almost one year of unemployment (and over a year of knowledge that unemployment was on the way) spurred us to take advantage of the free time we have and take a little adventure. Three rejections for jobs that the Hat Trick had gone deep into the selection process also contributed to this decision to take a break and spend time with my family.

But, where should we go?

The factors went into our decision:

1. We were tired of the cold and snow that has gripped Washington, DC this year.
2. The Hat Trick, while very interested in aviation, has also been interested in rockets, astronomy and space travel over the years.

The answer became very easy: Let's travel to Florida and watch the Space Shuttle Endeavour launch!

That's right...the Hat Trick's are heading for the next launch of the Space Shuttle, scheduled for Sunday morning, February 7 at 4:39 A.M., the last night launch of the Space Shuttle program. I'm currently writing this post from a hotel in Savannah, Georgia (got to love free Wi-Fi!) where we stayed after the drive down from DC yesterday. The drive went fairly well and we managed to get out of Washington just before the blizzard hit ("Snowmaggedon" as it is being coined at home) and drove into a lot of rain but not much snow. The plan for today is to drive to the Cape Canaveral area and camp tonight in anticipation for the launch early tomorrow morning. If the launch goes off as expected the Hat Tricks will head done to Sarasota to visit the grandparents and get a little R & R in the sun.

Needless to say the Hat Trick is pretty excited at the possibility of seeing the Endeavour launch. As a kid I had a lot of interest in the program and always thought I would have a chance to see it launch. However, much like the Concorde SST, all good things come to an end and the Shuttle Program will be shutdown in 2010. Since the Hat Trick never got his chance to fly on the Concorde, I decided to seize the moment and do my best to see a launch.

Hopefully I will have a detailed report if all goes well...according to the NASA website the countdown is less than 20 hours...and counting!

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