In the beginning, there was a little place on line called Twitter. It is a little service online that allows people to join and start conversations in 140 characters or less. I let my 2010 students select my name for me in 2010. In 2011, NASA sent out an application to join in a Space Shuttle Launch Tweetup for OV-105 Space Transport System's Endeavours last planned mission.
Having missed the 1990 launch of Discovery with Hubble, and never quite making it back to Florida, I threw my name into the internet-hat-ring and was selected.
Madly throwing plans together, waiting and watching and changing it was a tense few days getting together, not to mention we had state exams those days.
Finally the day arrived, HMS 6th grade Hippos were AWESOME for the TAKS test. They were well prepared and considerate to the other classes around them. Clearning off the desk, leaving plans in place, Mrs. Rosenbusch came in and covered my classes and I zipped home to grab my luggage and run to the airport.
My husband dropped me off in time to check-in, grab Salt Lick, and catch some live band music in the airport. The flight to Dallas was uneventful. Getting off in Dallas the earlier flight to Orlando was boarding, but I made the decision NOT to run two concourses over to make it happen. I just took my time in the airport and moseyed on down the five gates to my new connection to wait.
The flight was full. Five rows up a man wore a cowboy hat on one side and the next aisle a man wore a yamuka. Mostly suits dotted the aisles with a few vacationers sprinkled in the mix. I read the James mystery novel while in flight and flipped through SkyMall looking at objects that I knew would never be as good as the event I was going to.
Landing in Orlando, I grabbed my bag from the overhead, Lars the Hippo from the seat and made my way out the door. I haven't been in MCO in years and I don't remember how long it had been. Making my way toward the main terminal, I called Jeanette who would be my room mate for the trip and more importantly at this time, had a car to get us there.
With my typical direction since, I transversed the airport to the Southwest gates where she had arrived an hour earlier. I passed helpful agents who pointed me in the right direction, a Disney Princess ready for her closeup photo - complete with a sign that said "don't touch", and lots of tired people who unlike me, seemed to have a clue where to go.
Jeanette had made her way to American, I was near Southwest. We stayed on the phone and laughingly met up half way. Going to the vehical she rented, we were greatful it wasn't the 12 passanger van next to it.
The Orlando Avis lot is a bit like the starting ride at one of the many amusement parks in the area. And while we found ourselves laughing, we really weren't terribly amused at the number of "do not enter" signs we kept seeing (complete with the concrete bunkers blocking the way, just in case you can't read the signs).
The GPS system was wonderful. She went beyond normal duty keeping us uptodate on where we needed to go! "Turn right immediatly," she'd insist before we could see the turn, quickly followed by, "merge left. You need to merge left. Please merge left." As if her pleading and whining would allow us to do anything else, if she had eyes she could have seen the long median seperating us from the oncoming traffic we were merging into, nor could she witness the ditch on the right side of the vehical. Our favorite was the number of times she'd say, "traffic conjestion ahead." At 12:30am, the only traffic congestion we were witnessed was the two cars infront of us moving at reasonable speeds apart from each other and us. The closest we came to was the police officer who was running in the middle of the road, with an object in his hand from the other side of the highway.
Finding the street was easy, finding houses on the street was equally as easy. Finding the house we needed, a little more challangeing. After casing the neighborhood street (and deciding the house with the police car in the driveway was not going to be ours), we gave up and called Gene. He came out of the house, and came outside.
Quickly dragging everything in, we moved everything inside, said goodnight and flopped on the twin beds in our room. An hour later we were asleep: content, happy, thrilled, excited, bubbly, and exhausted. It would be another short night of sleep.
