Challenger Space Center

The main event for yesterday was a visit to the Challenger Space Center in Peoria. The plan was to try to be there when it opened at 10 AM, but Kristine has a lingering cold and congestion that delayed our visit until the afternoon while she treated herself with some medication and extra rest.

I still cannot get over the fact that we have such a neat place so close to our home. It was early afternoon when we arrived:

The entryway into the facility was lined with interesting facts of the planets and their relationships to each other:

Once inside, we paid our entry fee and began the self guided tour around the first of three levels of exhibits. There were many interactive exhibits, including this one that was a flight simulator where you actually pilot the Challenger:

And then there were these space suits:

There were so many exhibits that I would like to have shown, but there just isn't enough room to publish all of them. This final one is of a replica of the Challenger and it's launch missiles:

 

 

You can see the emblems of all of the space missions on the wall behind this model. There are 8 designs for Gemini missions, 12 for Apollo, 3 for Skylab, 1 for the Apollo Soyuz Test Project (ASTP) and 135 for the Space Shuttle Program.

 

There were also memorials for the lost Astronauts and missions they were associated with. All in all, it was an excellent museum and one that we will visit again someday.

 

We stopped in Waddell on the way home to see the home where Kristine and Justin lived when Justin was just a baby and young boy. It hasn't changed much at all except that the trees in front completely hide the house.

 

It was a fun day and a busy one, once we got started. We missed our second scorpion treatment as we were gone when the exterminators came to do the treatment in the afternoon. It is now rescheduled for October 29, so we will make sure that someone will be home.

 

Josie has to work today, so the plan is to drive to Lake Pleasant and check on the fifth wheel and give Kristine and Justin a chance to see where we lived, off and on, for the last two years. The week is going well so far, and we all are enjoying the time together...