Saturday, May 25, 2013

Remembering Gus Grissom

We left Indiana to return to Tennessee, where Cam and Amy's twins will be born next week.

At Peru, Indiana, we stopped in for the afternoon to see the Gus Grissom Air Museum. You may remember Virgil Ivan "Gus" Grissom; he was killed on the launch pad at Cape Kennedy in January 1967 while testing the Apollo I rocket as the United States began it's effort to put a man on the moon.  A fire broke out in the command capsule cockpit and Grissom, along with Roger B. Chaffee and Edward White died there.


F-4C  II Phantom Cockpit
A very interesting and sad article about how Gus Grissom's widow was treated by NASA can be seen on   THIS LINK    to the Arlington National Cemetery website.

This is a disturbing piece about how little concern has been shown toward the family of a great American hero, Distinguished Flying Cross recipient and Korean War veteran.



There are lots of outdoor exhibits at the Gus Grissom Air Museum

Next, we stopped for a few days near Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky. Wayne is getting a head cold, it seems. While he nurses his cold, I will see the caves.  Wayne isn't a spelunker anyway.

Upon arrival, we opened the closet door to see the rod had broken and dumped our clothes into a great heap on the floor. Ugh.  Wayne wasn't up to taking on the challenge of this project so we closed the door and I washed a load of clothes to have something to wear the next day.  I looked around, in vain, to find someone to help me with the repair of the closet.  The following morning, I made my way to Lowes, bought a new rod and some wire shelving and repaired the closet, adding two nice long shelves below the hanging clothes for stacking casual clothes and shoes.  This should keep the weight on the hanging rod to a minimum. Frankly, I'm pretty pleased with my work.

In the afternoon, I felt my throat becoming scratchy. It worsened; by morning, I had a full-blown head cold too.  I didn't get to see Mammoth Cave.  It remains on my list of "must see" parks.

Finally on the day Cam and Amy's twins were due to be delivered, we felt well enough to take on the last leg of our journey to Nashville, Tennessee.  

I snapped one photo of the Louisville, Kentucky skyline that is worth sharing.
Turned out the grand babies were born before we even reached Louisville.  Oh well, there wasn't much we could have done to help anyway.  Facebook is wonderful but I'll never understand how we've come to the point of taking a smartphone into the hospital delivery room for instant pictures to share....

3 comments:

  1. Sharing the delivery room pictures is a little much but then I'm old. I'm sure my son and his wife will probably do the same thing when they have a child. Have a wonderful time with those babies and I sure hope you guys are feeling a whole lot better.

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  2. Colds can be so miserable. Have you tried taking Zinc? It does wonders for John and I.

    I am glad that we found your blog...through Sandie Dixson.

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  3. Zinc saves me every time! The old hard lozenges were tough to take after a while but the new melts are terrific -- even the nightime one that has a little melatonin to help with sleep.

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