It was right here, I tell ya!

                                                                            Flying low over Monterey Park                                                         Photo: D. Smith

A bunch of people from my office gathered in the office building parking lot on Friday to witness the Space Shuttle Endeavour's historic flyover of the Los Angeles basin.

It wasn't long before we could see it coming straight at us from the west, then turn north, so we got this really great sideways view.  The combined girth of the 747 plus the shuttle is HUGE.  Much larger in person than I've thought it to be in various photos I've seen.

Although I could see it perfectly clearly with the naked - well, eyeglass-enhanced, is perhaps a better description - eye, my pictures were less than stellar.  The above photo was taken by my friend Danika.  In it, you can see the shuttle just to the right of the tower, just above the tree line.  If you blow it up a bit, you can see the two escort planes directly above it.

It was quite a sight, let me tell you.  It looped around again so it could be seen by all on its way to Pasadena, so we had a lovely view more than once.

Our co-worker Kevin was in Pasadena, not far from the Rose Bowl.  Here is his photo of the Rose Bowl flyover, as taken from the Colorado Street Bridge:

-Photo: K. Klaus

Not long after that, we started getting photos from our Orange County office.   They are close to the Los Angeles Angel's of Anaheim's Angel Stadium there. (That's a mouthful, but that's what it is, officially speaking.)  They said they were right in the path of the flyover, and you can sure tell by the angles at which these photos were taken.

These are the photos our O.C, co-worker Tom got:

Photo: T. Huang

 Nice going, Tom!

                                                                                                                                                                                            Photo: T. Huang

Wow.  It's practically going right over your head!

Photo: T. Huang

Thar she goes!

My friend Robin writes that it flew slightly east of her home in Torrance.  "Close enough you could practically  read the name.  It filled the whole sky!"  [You can see my link to her blog post, RoboClow, "Space Shuttles Are Magic", in the column to the right of this post.]

She's right.  The pictures do not do justice to the awesomeness of seeing it so close!

Next stop for the Endeavour was Los Angeles airport.  From there it will be a slow truck ride to her new home at the California Science Center a few miles away.  (It's probably on the road now as I'm posting this.)

What an awesome, historic day, Friday was!

I can't wait to see the Exhibit once it opens in October.  That will be a lot of fun.

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this post!