SIDENOTE:
Milestones on this date in History!
On April 14, 1865 A cub reporter for the Washington Times asked that Immortal question “Anyhow Mrs. Lincoln, How was the Play?”
On April 14, 1912, The UNSINKABLE Titanic hit a Iceberg and sunk.
On April 14, 1951 My parents were married.
On April 14, 2007 I hit my 10,000th post on the Disboards…and this is it!
Day 4 Part 2 Suicidal Squirrel
When we were about to leave NASA, while walking out the front door, there was a woman at a desk whispering something. It was quite noisy and I didn’t hear her. I remembered that my cell phone had been turned off this whole time. I stopped to turn it on.
Sidenote: When it comes to either turning on or off or talking on my Cell phone I have to stop. I am not a person who can talk on the phone while walking. I also cannot properly use appliances while walking. And YES I do have a tendency to trip a lot while chewing gum.
As I was stopped turning on my cell phone, I heard the contracted NASA employee
(picture Georgette from the Mary Tyler Moore Show….or Roberts MIL from Everybody loves Raymond) say very softly to no one in particular in a very noisy and busy lobby, “if you are going to the Space Museum and have a duel ticket you must have your ticket stamped here!”
“Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa she say?” I asked James
“Who” was his reply?
“Her!”, pointing to the desk where the very quiet VERY TANNED lady sat.
“I didn’t even see her” James replied
Sidenote: I wish and pray for the day I can go through life like James. So unaware of his surroundings! He does not inherit this from the wind. I grew up and surrounded by family who are SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Unaware of anything around them. We can be in a car driving past a MAJOR horrible accident where there are cars flipped over and everything. I would HAVE TO point it out to the rest of my family. None of them would have noticed.
Once when I was a kid about 11, I was coming home from the A&P with my Mother. I was wheeling one of those “old lady” shopping carts (that SQUEAKED) filled with groceries. As we were approaching a Bank, a Man with a mask was walking out backwards from the Bank and he was holding a gun, Then another man came walking out the same way….they both then turned ran into a 65 Chevy Bel-Air, Medium Blue with a NJ license plate 1124D. I was standing there like this…, as were everybody else in the surrounding area, except my Mom..she was to busy trying to light her cigarette against the wind! She then starts yelling at me “Whats the Matter, Why are you stopping?” I could do nothing but point to the men with the gun as they ran 2 feet past her. Her reply was “WHAT?…What are you pointing at?”
“The man with the gggggggu-gu-gun” I stammered
“What man? What Gun?” her reply was.
I wasn’t sure if I was MORE hocked over the fact that there were 2 men in masks with guns running right in front of us or was I MORE shocked that Mom was totally oblivious too it!
Once the crooks speed away in the getaway car. My Mom said “Hurry up lets get out of here”
I said “No way, we gotta wait for the cops…I have the license plate number!”
“What license plate number?” Mom inquired
“The one from the Getaway car! I SAW IT!”
“You saw nothing! We are going home” she demanded
“No we have to stick around” I pleaded
That’s when she smacked me in the head “If you tell the cops you saw the license plate number, these crooks will come to our house and kill everybody….IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT?”
I thought about this, probably a bit too long, cause I got slapped in the head again.
“Now come on…MOVE IT” and she started to briskly walk away…and I followed.
I was lectured the whole way home, that if I tell anybody I saw anything I’d be in BIG TROUBLE.
Of course I told EVERYBODY EVERYTHING! How could ya not?
Anyhow that’s my family, and this ‘oblivion gene’ that bypassed me is always something that irked me my whole life.
So I went over to the desk and asked if I had to get my ticket that I used for entry this morning stamped. She said yes and stamped it with the date. This seems to be a BIG secret at NASA.
We got back to the car and opened all the windows, it was 200 degrees in there. While waiting for the car to cool down I noticed that all the cars leaving and coming into NASA were all backed up. I gather it was a accident. After about 5 minutes STILL nothing was moving.
So we walked over to the intersection where there seemed to be a accident. It was just about a 2 block stretch. As we got closer I couldn’t see any accident, or a broken light or anything that I can see holding up traffic.
It wasn’t until we got to the actual spot that we saw what was going on.
What was happening you ask? There was a squirrel which was running back and forth across the intersection. He run out to the middle, lay down, then jump up, run back to the curb…then starts this whole process all over again. Everybody was just watching this squirrel in hysterics and disbelief. It was as if he decided to end it all, lay down in the road…then rethink the matter and return to the curb. Nobody wanted to move their cars to help him along. Including the Coke delivery truck driver who was first on line to come into NASA. The cars were backed up 20 deep. This was one of the funniest things I ever saw. I thought James was going to have an accident in his pants. Heck I thought I was going to have an accident in my pants.
Finally when the squirrel ran to the curb for the zillionth time, the Coke driver threw a bag of something (chips) over the curb into the bushes….the squirrel then ditched into the bushes and the traffic started flowing again.
We walked back to the car, and drove out of the NASA parking lot. All the traffic was moving. As soon as I got to the intersection…guess who came back out for more fun? Yup! the Suicidal Squirrel came back, and was doing the same thing. WTH???
I had no patients to sit there, so as soon as the SS ran back to the curb, I hit the gas and took off.
The Space Museum is about 3 miles up the road from NASA. As we drove there I noticed two things. One was this town seems too be very empty and run down, in desperate need of some sprucing up. The other thing was it was starting to rain.
When I arrived at the Space Museum, which was on the left side of the road, there was a turn off from the right side of the road. I went into the turning lane, made the left and went straight into the parking lot of the Space Museum. Only I wasn’t in the parking lot of the Space Museum. I was in the parking lot of a Factory. The Space Museum parking lot was on the right side of the turn. UGH! There was a wall or something there, so I couldn’t easily drive over there. The only way to get into the SM parking lot was to drive as if I was heading back to NASA, the make the next left turn, an U turn on this highway going back to the SM.
This is what I did. When I got back to the left hand turn to the SM, I realized that the entrance to the SM parking lot is about 10 feet over to the right. So if you do go to the SM from NASA when you make the left hand turn, you actually have to drive AGAINST the oncoming traffic for about 10 feet in order to get into the parking lot! GOOD LUCK!
I parked the car, and we entered the SM. I showed the clerk there my newly stamped tickets to get in. He put his novel down and waved us in. No Security check here, no ticket takers, nutin!
I REALLY LIKED the Space Museum, and I REALLY HATED the Space Museum.
First off, what I really liked. They had some very interesting displays that were interactive, and gave some great information, using the REAL Space items, no recreations like NASA. They had great displays that were mini monuments to all the astronauts. One thing I thought was sooooooooooo FLIPPEN cool was they had these big displays, behind glass, of all the Astronauts personal belongings. Like their High School Lettered jackets, Reports cards from when they were in grammar schools. Toys they played with in their youth. Many, many personal items. This was really great!
Now what I didn’t like was they had many interactive, hands on things and mini rides….for KIDS ONLY! And very limited seating for Adults. So basically in this section I waiting on very, very long lines, and stood there like a moron while James had fun!
Sidenote: I am not one of those adults who say “as long as the kids are having fun!” I want to enjoy too.
It was terrifically busy there.
It was your worst CHUCKIE CHEESE NIGHTMARE! Just a bunch of adults standing around being bored while the kids run amuck!
This was a cool space capsule thing with lots of buttons to play with. James waited 15 minutes to get on this!
This is a make believe Space Helmut, where you hear real recordings from Space Missions. They only have 2 of these in the place. This was also a 15 minute wait. They do not make them in adult size. And if you are a germophobic…these will cause you to pass out from fright.
This is a Moon Walk exhibit. It reenacts what it is like to walk on the moon. AGAIN for kids only. They belt you into this contraption, and some worker from above holds you up as if you are a puppet.
I would have like to do this….except where some of the straps go…IT GOTTA HURT!
We were there much longer than we should have, spent more time on lines (no FP’s here
) than anything else.
Sidenote: In my friends Anc96 TR she mentions that if you do the NASA/Space Museum Tour, you should go to the SM first, then to NASA. I firmly agree with this.
We were there until about 6:30pm….and I had enough standing around. We
(I) decided to head back to the POP. We will have dinner there, then figure out what to do for the rest of the night.
On the drive back to the POP, it rained and rained and RAINED
. It was one of those serious Florida mid summer blind you as you drive rain storms. Luckily there were many, many more tolls to stop at and pay (I was prepared this time)…these moni shelters just stopped the noise of the rain from hitting the car a bit. But it was a welcomed relief.
When we finally got back to the POP a 2 hour drive, it was still torrential downpours. We had dinner at the POP. I had the Chicken penne in Alfredo sauce
(which I can happily live on the rest of my existence) James had the pizza. We hung around the POP, played in the Video game room. If it stopped raining we were going to go swimming, but it never did. So we wound up back in our room. This is when I thought Disney should let you have in room movies. I hooked up the laptop to the internet…Dis’ed a bit. Gave a
SHOUT OUT to my
Limeys and TK’ers…in a “LIVE from the Pop Century post”, uploaded my pics from the camera to the PC and called it a night!
Sidenote: I LOVE when Diser post from the Mudda country. I get a real kick out of it!
If you care too, grab a
Mickey Head Rice Krispie treat and please come back and join me in my next edition titled
“In Search of a Bagel”
Flings jibbitz across room at DisUnc....?
)
What I had a very hard time believing was the info from one of the bus drivers about the size of the U.S. flag on the Vehicle Assembly Building - yes it was big but when he said "it's the size of a basketball stadium" everyone on the bus kinda looked like this: 
)
But i 
