We pack up and are
out the door by 9AM. Our first stop –
Whole Foods. Pearl has been getting
louder and louder, courtesy of the numerous scrapes to her exhaust system. She rides low, burdened by her hat, a 300-pound
wheelchair, and the BraunAbility cripple conversion’s removal of reliable shock
absorbers. We are, unfortunately,
victims of BraunAbility’s incompetent engineering, this being only the first
issue we will have. For $27,000, BraunAbility didn't install heavy duty
shocks. I feel so ripped off.
Keith crawls under
Pearl as it gets real in the Whole Foods parking lot (Fog & Smog-Whole Foods
Parking Lot). A gentleman walks by, observes me watching
Keith under Pearl, and this being the South, asks accusingly, “What did you
do?” “Nothing! Nothing! I swear!” I
reply. We both laugh. Keith surfaces after praying to the
automotive gods, as men are wont to do.
The gods don’t deign to answer us.
Pearl will just be loud.
Entering the
store, we find Whole Food’s vegetable prices as irritating as ever; Keith will
make no food commitments, and Bloodroot tries to be funny. I boil over with frustration. At long last, we collect enough food for a few
days, spending $150. I cringe, then
realize that we spent $160 last night on utter crap. Whole Foods at least sells real food. We exit the store sans divorce, restraining
orders or police involvement; a successful shopping trip overall.
Last night, Minnie
asked us to stop by this morning to say goodbye to her on our way out of
town. She has freshly doused herself in
a truly amazing amount of her headache-inducing perfume. She wants to be pretty, and has dressed up
for us. I laud her efforts,
understanding that she considers us important visitors and wishes to honor
us. During the two-minute ride to the
drug store, Minnie’s perfume soaks into Pearl’s front passenger seat, where its
fumey fingers will rise up to torture me for days. Did I ask her not to wear perfume again? No. Do
I have anyone to blame but myself? No.
We pick up her prescriptions and take her back to her apartment. We drive off
heavy-hearted, wishing we could do more for her.
After dropping
Minnie off, we drive out to the NASA Johnson Space Center, nerd heaven if there
ever was one. We buy our tickets. A burly guard confronts us as we enter. “Do you have any weapons? Any mace?
Any pocket knives?” “No,” I answer, “we’re mellow Colorado hippies, made
even mellower since we voted to legalize pot.” The big man laughs in a way that
makes us think he has no moral qualms about smoking a bowl or two and waves us
through. “Mom,” says Bloodroot sotto
voce, “you’re going to get us arrested.”
Years ago, as a child,
I recall vacationing in Florida with my natal family. As a budding scientist, I bubbled over with
excitement. I would be joining the Space
Age at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral. I would see the Mercury,
Gemini and Apollo rockets! My family
cruelly crushed my effusive, enthusiastic fantasy by insisting upon visiting
Disneyworld instead. How could they
possibly prefer tacky, expensive, fake kitsch to something really cool like
rockets? Reality splashed across my
consciousness, her chilly fingers gripped my face, forcing me to see what I had
so long denied. Deeming the moment ripe for confrontation, I faced my parents
to deliver my familial coup de grace.
“You adopted me, didn't you? You
can tell me; I can take it.” My parents,
reasonably affronted, swore otherwise.
After some words, I admitted to being the spitting image of my father.
Off to Disney we went, me pouting the entire way. I still abhor Disneyworld.
With the current
family, Disney isn't even on the map.
YES!! We begin our tour of the
Space Center with a tram ride. Sven
motors up the steep ramp just to prove that he can. Manly men strap him into place at the front
of the tram. He’s excited too. As a piece of technology himself, Sven looks
forward to seeing the history of his kind.
By allowing me to choose my own fate, Sven has made our trip so much
easier. We are grateful. Thank you,
Sven!
First tram stop -
Apollo Mission Control. The Space
Center has restored all of its old desks and green screen monitors. Remember the excitement of watching this on
TV in the 1960s? How many of us set our
sights on science careers at that moment?
I sure did. Coding software line
by line on a truly primitive mainframe, NASA engineers guided the Apollo
spacecraft to the moon.[1]
NASA hired people straight out of college for the moon shot, believing the
fresh graduates wouldn't have internalized the impossibility of their
task. Ascending the 67 steps up to
Mission Control requires a young body or at least a physically fit one. Now a tourist attraction, the Space Center
has added an elevator, in theory reserved for serious cripples like me,
although a few very large people join me in the lift. Everything is bigger in Texas.
Our next tram stop
– Astronaut Training Facility. NASA
trains people in all aspects of space activity here, from piloting spacecraft
to spacewalking to basic survival skills.
The astronauts work with the full gamut of space stuff from an old Soyuz
capsule to the very latest in technology.
In simulated microgravity, people practice maneuvering large objects
with robotic arms. Gigantic things move
easily in space, but don’t stop easily.
Damn Newton and his laws![2]
We reboard the
tram for our last tour stop – the Saturn V Rocket. The Saturn V, NASA’s workhorse, sent the
astronauts to the moon. Does anything
else make a more grandiose statement purporting humanity’s power and hubris? Here lies harnessed the ability to leave the
earth, the home to which we have been bound from time immemorial. I am
awed. With this rocket, we became gods,
not particularly successful gods as we remained tethered to the earth by our
body’s requirements, but temporary gods nonetheless.
To escape earth’s
atmosphere, Saturn V’s first two stages have five massive engines each. Once reaching escape velocity by consuming the
first two stages, the third stage retains one engine for guidance. Longer than a football field (US football –
100 yards), the restored rocket has its own pole barn building. We cruise around it, snapping lots of photos.
 |
| My parents, before a Saturn V rocket incinerated them - Bloodroot |
 |
| Real stuff |
 |
| Star Trek |
Upon leaving, we
discover that we've missed the moon rocks and the Apollo capsule. Keith makes me promise not to tell the goat,
as he’ll make us drive back. I don’t
tell. Pearl takes us into Louisiana, our
secret destination all along.
[1] Apollo
didn’t have PCs. Intel invented the
microprocessor in 1975; PCs soon followed.
For
my serious nerd friends, you can build your own personal Apollo Guidance
Computer in your basement. Here’s the
link: Build your own apollo
guidance computer
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