No matter where you go...

We're back to that fascinating theory of ours that it does not really matter where you go, there is always something of interest that was somehow not originally obvious in the planning. After discovering Montgomery (our description of which also should have included the beautiful grounds of the Alabama Shakespeare Festival) and the world of Talassee, we proceeded through the countryside of Alabama through the infamous Birmingham and up to Huntsville, home of NASA's Space and Rocket Center.
Huntsville was formerly home to the Marshall Space Center, where Werner Von Braun and other German and American scientists formulated the American space program. Today, the center is a tribute to that program - dominated by an actual Saturn V rocket, towering over the parking lot. Trivia: In a scale model of the rocket, a person would only be 7.5" in comparison to its height. In addition, the center has lunar modules, astronaut suits, artifacts from the Apollo program, and an full-size mockup of the space shuttle and its booster rockets.
We also had a lesson in perspective: given the heat, we had left the moon roof slightly open in the parking lot. During our lunch break, we noted dark clouds and increasing winds, but failed to respond appropriately. After exploring the museum a little more (they have a shutle simulator where you have to try to land the shuttle successfully), we looked outside and it was teeming! Quick with the umbrella and through the storm to try to rescue our vehicle and its contents. Which I did. Sort of. Some things were wet; the seats were soaked; but nothing major destroyed. Not like another person who was leaving the museum, slipping on the wet stairs, and taken away by an ambulance. Something else must have occurred as well, for, after the lightning storm had abated somewhat, two fire trucks arrived and stayed. A final reminder that a little rain is nothing to get upset over came as we walked back to our motel room after feasting at a local "Barnhill's Buffet". A loud crack pulled us out of our conversation to see a car ramming into another at a red light - did one not stop? It happened so quickly, we could not be sure. One car did a 360 turn, its airbag and alarm went off; the other vehicle (the one hit?) took a while to stop, finally resting about 100 feet down the highway. EMTs arrived quickly, so we wandered back "home", reflecting that it had been a strange day. Space, with its disasters of Apollo I and Challenger; Earth, with its ability to change focus within seconds. "There but for Fortune, go you and I" says Phil Ochs. I think I'll drive very carefully tomorrow.