THE SPACE SHUTTLE VISITS MY TOWN
The Space Shuttle Endeavour visited the town where I used to live, in Westchester, CA, on its three-day journey from Los Angeles International Airport to the Natural History Museum in downtown L.A., where it lives in retirement, forever.
The Shuttle spent the night of its first day in a parking lot behind my bank and a Quizno's, where my wife and I went the next morning to look at it, followed by breakfast at The Coffee Company restaurant, located across the street.
In the late morning, the Shuttle began to move east on city streets, very slowly under its own power, carried by an enormous platform with its own motors. It covered less than two miles by evening, when it parked next to Randy's Donuts, which was walking distance from my house.
From the moment it arrived large numbers of people scurried around to prepare the Shuttle for the first serious challenge on its route: driving across a bridge over the 405 Freeway.
No one was sure how much weight the bridge could handle so the platform's motors, each the size of a tiny car, were removed. The Shuttle was attached to the back of a Toyota truck whose job was to tow it across the bridge while the entire process was filmed for a commercial for the next Super Bowl. 7,000 people on location watched it happen in real time.
FYI, I recommend Randy's apple fritters, which are justly famous, but they will not help to keep your own weight down.