While everybody else in Hollywood was swarming to Griffith Observatory to witness the final minutes of the era of Space Shuttles actually being airborne, there was only one place I could imagine being... largely because it's just right up the street from my place.
As soon as Endeavour took off from Edwards AFB for the final time (8:17am PDT), I packed up my fold-up camping chair, my li'l tripod camping stool (for a leg-rest), my Big Brown Umbrella, my ancient Walkman tuned to KNX 1070, and my hand-drawn map of the flight plan (my printer's out of ink!), and began the trek up [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runyon_Canyon_Park"]Runyon Canyon[/ame]. Found a nice shady bush and set up "camp", since I had a couple of hours to kill.
Since I had on my T-shirt with the big honkin' NASA logo, the arriving space nuts saw me as the go-to source of information, asking "Where is it?", "When's it gonna get here?" and, of course, "What the hell are all these people doing up here?" (that last from the ignorant hipsters).
I'd whip out my li'l flight plan, explaining "My printer crapped out, so I had to
draw the damn thing!" They were actually somewhat impressed with my map-making skills. One guy even insisted on taking a picture of it!
We had Tally-Ho as she crossed Santa Monica Pier and went "
feet dry" and made a beeline for the California Science Center.
We had a medium-range pass as she rounded Downtown and headed out towards Venice Beach (and a run over LAX —
200 feet off the deck!).
From the flight plan, it looked like we were gonna lose her behind the hills as she went from Getty Center to Universal Studios. (At least, that's what I was
telling everybody to expect!)
Imagine our exhilaration as she came almost straight for us, passing just a little to the North, then came back after rounding Universal and pulled a U-turn
around us (looping from North to South), and headed off East for JPL!
There was loud cheering and applause for that first close pass, but we were just awestruck into silence for that final U-turn!
As we dispersed (everybody was shaking hands, exchanging contact info, and there'd probably be hugging, if not for the sweatiness), there was one guy with a video camera who asked me to say a few words for his website...
VIDEO: Runyon Canyon Was Perfect for Seeing Endeavour—Even With the Hike - Hollywood, CA Patch
I don't have a camera, so I just keep searching
YouTube &
Flickr for "Endeavour, Runyon Canyon". Some great stuff trickling in!
All in all, this was the single most wonderful day of my life. I could get hit in the head with a meteorite right now, and I'd die happy.
