The plan was to go from Portland, Oregon, back down to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for the next shuttle launch on mission STS-92. The launch was scheduled originally for October 5th and I left Portland on September 28 (so I could get to Florida early enough to pick up my ticket). From Florida, I was going to drive back up the East Coast and visit with everyone again once more before heading home.
I only got as far as halfway across Oregon before I got a ticket for speeding. Fortunately, the speed limit is quite so slow in most of the other states and the rest of the trip to Florida was uneventful. Interestingly, it was early fall, but signs of winter were already around. The first sunset of the drive was what seemed like the last one of the summer:
On my way through Wyoming, I drove through a stretch of Interstate 80 that had been snowed in the week before:
The rest of the drive was uneventful and I got to the Space Coast on October 1st and the next day, I picked up my ticket to watch the launch at the visitor center:
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Right after I arrived at the visitor's complex to watch the launch on the afternoon of the 5th, it was delayed. At first, the delay was going to be until the next day, but later that evening, it was put off for another 3 days. With that decision, I decided to just go home because I was getting bored with hotel life and didn't want to stay that much longer.
On my way back home, I ended up running right into the first winter storm of the fall in the South. From Louisiana west through all of Texas and well into New Mexico it poured down rain and the temperature dropped from the 80s in Florida down into the 40s on the backside of the front in New Mexico.
Given that winter seemed to be starting a bit earlier this year, I decided that I would fly back east for the last visits of the "summer" (even though it was the middle of October practically).
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Last Revised: 31 March 2001
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