For my dad’s 60th birthday—which was actually last September, but whatever—we’re taking a massive road trip to a town of 10,000 people on the coast of Florida. At 10:30 on the night of Saturday, February 6th, we check in at the Kennedy Space Center and are bused out to a causeway and dropped off with our cameras and folding chairs. And at 4:39 on the morning of Sunday, February 7th, we see this:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eq2jdCXLpM4&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

This is in all likelihood the fifth-to-last space shuttle launch, and the very last night-time launch, in its 29-year lifespan. I realized a year or so ago that I’d like to see it go up before it ends; there are rocket launches all the time, but they look like rockets, not like this–

For all its trouble (2 destroyed shuttles in 129 flights), it’s almost impossible not to feel a little love for the shuttle. Maybe it’s just cause I was born and raised with it. Maybe it’s projected patriotism. But I still feel like the thing itself—an oddly-proportioned cargo jetplane with the engines sticking at odd angles out the back—is just a little beautiful.

Either way we’re going through serious effort to get there; it’s a 19-hour drive for me, dad, and his wife Diana; Mary Beth and my sister Margaret are flying in a day early for girly-time at a spa in Orlando and we’ll pick ’em up on the way. Then it’s a quick nap at the Hampton Inn in Titusville before we head out to the Cape for the launch overnight. Price for the bus tickets to watch the launch from the NASA-owned causeway: $56 per person. Yikes, people. Oh well, NASA needs the money.

So I’ll post more about the big trip as it unfolds.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYjbkRktqIE&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0&hd=1]