Yesterday, my boys and I were getting in the car at our house. It was between 3pm and 3:15pm. We heard a double boom sound. The kids were slightly frightened from it, thinking a bomb had gone off somewhere in town. I had heard that sound before. While living in Myrtle Beach, we would periodically hear sonic booms from out over the ocean. Turned out the folks at Camp LeJeune were practicing flight maneuvers over the ocean. But what would cause a sonic boom or two around here?

Thirteen days ago Space Shuttle Discovery took off from Florida. We’ve wanted to go to the Kennedy Space Center for a while now to catch a glimpse of the shuttle taking off. A friend of ours goes often with her 3 boys and we’ve enjoyed their stories. It’s not hard to get to; just across the state, but it requires scheduling so we’ve never made the commitment.

I met up with my neighbor, Liz, the next day to walk our dogs together. She had been in the Siesta Key Village (just a ½ mile away) the night before with some friends. They happened to look up the street (heading east) and in the sky there was the space shuttle taking off. Too cool, but ugh, I wish I had known, because we could have seen it from our house.

I found this picture on the internet of what we would have seen: http://www.flickr.com/photos/duaneschoon/3358553580/

Last night as I lie awake thinking about the day, it dawned on me…the Shuttle had landed at 3:13pm. That double boom was the Shuttle entering our atmosphere. How, cool. We never got to see it take off, but we heard it upon re-entry.