Up, Up, And Away!

The Artemis I rocket was scheduled to launch weeks ago, but technical delays, fuel leaks, and hurricanes kept pushing things back. The window for the latest launch opened at 1:04 a.m. this morning, but even an hour before that, the ground crews were struggling to deal with last minute details and problems that were cropping up. The rocket finally lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center at 1:48, and it certainly rocked the coast!

Of course, things are always happening right here on Earth, too. Yesterday I had an MRI on my right hand and wrist to see if they could figure out why I have been having so much pain the last few months. We normally have to go to Port Orange for MRIs and CT scans, but the company recently opened another facility in New Smyrna Beach, which is much closer to home. They asked me to arrive 30 minutes before my scheduled procedure, which we did, and they weren’t very busy, so we were in and out in good time.

When we left there, we stopped at Sweetwater Medical Supply, which provides my CPAP equipment, because they sent me the wrong hoses on the last shipment. While I was there, I also got a chin strap, which is supposed to help keep my mouth from opening when sleeping.

That only took a few minutes, and then we stopped at A OK Guns a couple of blocks away. In a blog post titled Busting Clays that, I wrote about shooting trap at our son’s house up in Alabama a couple of weeks ago, I reported that I had bought Terry a used Remington Model 1100 semi-automatic twelve-gauge shotgun a while back, but it doesn’t fit her well. I had purchased it from A OK Guns at a gun show a month or so before that, and when I stopped in last week, I mentioned that I needed to find something else for Terry that would fit her better. These folks are excellent to do business with, and the owner said if the gun didn’t work for her, I needed to pick out something else that would.

That something else turned out to be a new 20-gauge Charles Daly over-and-under, which I think will be much nicer for her. The owner of the shop gave me back all of the money I paid for the Remington, which covered the cost of the new shotgun, and put some cash back in my pocket. Then I made the mistake of looking around a little bit more and spotted a beautiful classic Beretta Silver Pigeon 20-gauge over-and-under. When it comes to fine shotguns, this is way up towards the top of the list in my mind and I’ve always wanted one. He made me an offer I couldn’t refuse, so it came home with us, too. Since I didn’t have a case to put it in, he loaned me one of his, and I wanted to drop it back off while we were in the area yesterday. I decided not to look at anything else because I didn’t want to hurt my credit card that much in one month, so I just dropped it off and got the heck out of there, budget intact.

From there, it was just another block or so to Stavro’s Pizza for an early dinner, which was as delicious as always.

After we ate, we decided to drive down and check out Flagler Avenue and the beach before we headed home. There are still lots of trees down in the area, and some of the shops still show damage from Hurricane Ian. Scientists predicted that as the water levels rise and the beaches erode, there are going to be fewer and fewer of beaches as the years go by. If yesterday was any indication, I believe that’s true because probably more than 1/3 of the beach is gone now. But that didn’t keep the surfers and a few families from being out having fun, even though it was a gray, cool day.

And why go to the beach unless you can take a picture of a pretty lady there, right? This is definitely the prettiest one I’ve ever seen on any beach anywhere.

And finally, here’s a chuckle to start your day from the collection of funny signs we see in our travels and that our readers share with us.

Thought For The Day – I never thought I would be one of those people who get up early to exercise, and it turns out I was right.