We are officially on the bus! We’ve been in line since 10:15 Eastern time (7:15 Pacific) along with about ten thousand other crazy people.

We were pretty far up in line, but somehow or other we wound getting on to the second wave of busses, but it will probably be fine.

We are very excited! We should be moving out any minute!!! Let’s just hope this turns out better than that sucky Blazers game…

Update, 2:45am;

We are in place on the causeway, but a damn cloudbank is moving in and we are now down to a 30% chance of acceptable weather. Starting to seem like a bummer…

Update, 3;49am;

The weather continues to look like an issue. The clouds here aren’t so bad, but all three emergency landing areas are a no-go. We are at leas than T-minus 20, and as of now we are not cleared for flight…

T – 9 minutes, built in hold:

We are still not go for flight. They will soon due the system poll and determine is this launch is going to happen…

Update, 3:59am, T – 9 minutes and holding:

Airforce reports all weather conditions are green at all sites, but they are still concerned for the launch window. We are still at 30%. Apparently the eyes-on pilots at the emergency landing sites say they are better than they were initial reports indicated, and the clouds here are thinning. They are “cautiously optimistic.” We are anxiously cautious.

Update, 4:38am:

The launch was officially scrubbed due to low clouds on the range. The next launch window opens tomorrow at 4:09am. We will try again then.

We stayed up late last night having fun with Ansel and Tiffany, so we didn’t get moving until about 9am. We had breakfast at A neat little diner, then we hit the road for Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center.

I didn’t realize it, but our launch tickets also give us two days admittance to the Space Center.

We are doing the touristy stuff in advance of the launch tonight (weather permitting). Right now we are on the bus headed out to the assembly areas and the closest spot where we can see the shuttle on the pad.

More to come later, along with pics of course!!

Update:

We are in line now and waiting for our bus, which is not set to load until 1:30 (two hours). Then of course it will be three more hours until the actual launch.

We are on the ground in Orlando. It is about 75 degrees and pouring down rain. Fortunately, the current conditions and forecast for Cape Canaveral are much better than here, so this crap shouldn’t effect the launch. Keep your fingers crossed!!!

Updated:

We Are staying with our friends Ansel & Tiffany in St. Petersberg, which is about 90 minutes west of Orlando. Neither Joel nor I had met Tiffany, our gracious host, before tonight, so we both owe her a great debt of gratitude for allowing us, a couple of perfect strangers, to crash of her floor.

Joel and I had a conference call for work literally minutes after we landed in Orlando which lasted about an hour, so after that we picked up our car and headed for St. Petersberg, grabbing some dinner along the way. We got to to Tiffany and Ansel’s a little after 10pm and visited for a while, then they took us out on the town to a local bar with so with some realy good beers. We came back, had some more drinks and hit the sack around midnight.

Tomorrow we are planning om going to the Kennedy Space Center for the day before heading out for the shuttle launch at 4:30am. There is a 80% chance that it will launch on time, so we are Very hopeful. If it does not launch tomorrow night, there is a 90% chance that the weather will permit a launch on Sunday night, and then a 80% chance for Monday night. So no matter what day it goes, we stand a great chance iof seeing it.

Ps: the picture above is of a sports memorabilia store we saw in Houston near our gate. As good Blazer fans it’s always good to see Clyde recognized!

I will update more tomorrow.

Joel and I are on the way to Florida for the Space Shuttle launch scheduled for early Sunday morning. It is the last night time shuttle launch scheduled, since they are retiring the shuttle this year.

We are laid over in Houston for a few minutes. I will post updates and pictures regularly, so check back often over the next few days!

CHRIS’ WISH LIST