Gus Grissom - Astronaut

Maybe you recognize his name. Gus was from Mitchell Indiana near Spring Mill State Park. He died on January 27, 1967. I was in high school when it happened. I probably did not pay close attention to his death at that age but I knew it happened. Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee were in the Apollo-1 command module for a pre-launch test Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The hatch was sealed and the interior contained 100% oxygen. A spark from somewhere ignited the oxygen and all three died instantly. It set the Apollo program back for some time while the cause and changes were made. 

For more details about the Air Force Base., use this link:
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Canaveral_Air_Force_Station 

Go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gus_Grissom for history of Gus and the space program.

I took these photos last Friday at the 50th anniversary memorial at Launch Pad 34 were they died. The remains of the launch pad can be seen in the photos. Many of the original launch pads have been dismantled as they became obsolete. 

Cape Canaveral Air Force Station is actually a separate property from the Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island. You can take a tour to see many of the old launch pads at the Cape when you visit Kennedy Space Center. 

Launch Pad 34 where it happened.

About 300 family, friends, military and NASA officials attended the 50th memorial.
The memorial is held every year just prior to the exact time of the fire which was January 27, 1967 at 6:31pm.

These are special made heat resistive bricks that pave the area around the launch pad.
If you watch the launches, you can understand why these are needed. 

These are the two flame deflectors that route the exhaust away from the launch stand. They were moved into place on rails. These are the originals for launch pad 34. You can see the bricks on the ground. 

For more details about Launch Pad 34, use this link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Canaveral_Air_Force_Station_Launch_Complex_34

Looking up through the launch stand.
It was used from October 1961 through October 1968 to launch Saturn 1 and 1B rockets.

Lily Koppel from the New York Times was present and published this story the next day. Lily is the author of the book "Astronaut Wives" and was the basis for the TV series last year.
See https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/28/us/apollo-1-memorial.html?_r=0

Several speakers were heard before the 6:31pm moment.

The memorial begins. You can see launch Pad 37 in the background.The International Space Station flew overhead during the memorial.

Bagpipes

Taps

Mrs Grissom and Gus lived in Mitchell Indiana and moved to Houston, TX when Gus was an astronaut. She still lives in Houston.

Merry Christmas from Florida

Christmas in Florida does not feel like Christmas when you have lived in Indiana for 65 years. The forecast here is 85 degrees today, sunny and somewhat humid. Air conditioners running on Christmas? 

Merry Christmas everyone

Where we are

Live Oaks with Spanish Moss are everywhere plus lots of palm and pine trees

Adelaid Lake near our motor home

Florida At Last

We arrived at our Adelaid Shores winter site at 6:00 pm after a nine hour drive from Hilton Head Island. Some daylight until 5:45 pm was helpful and somewhat better than Indiana which is probably dark by 5:15 pm. It's still difficult to back in in near darkness. We went from near freezing with jackets to sweating while setting up on site with biting mosquitoes. Our air conditioners are running instead of the diesel furnace. 

We can take this weather OK! Now we need a Christmas tree.

The Jeep towed fine but it caused problems when disconnecting because it would not engage the transfer case. After 15 minutes of aggravation, it's finally in gear with no error codes. It appears to be a procedure problem. There are 21 steps to connect up for towing and 17 steps to disconnect and get it ready to drive again. One wrong move and we will be calling the roll back again. What a pain. 

Crossing the state line on I-95 with orange barrels (yes road work is everywhere in December).

Adelaid Shores with lot 298 marked if you can see it. US 27 is the highway to the right.

More to follow after we get rested up.

Hilton Head

We left North Carolina on Thursday (Jeep in tow again, not on a rollback) and arrived at Hilton Head Motorcoach Resort Thursday afternoon. Our friends Bob and Jan own a lot so they suggested we stop in. We rented the lot next to them for three days. The entire area was damaged by the hurricane. Bob said there were 500 trees that suffered damage in the resort. Most of it has been cleaned up and now the sun shines through the remaining trees. The island still has piles of brush and logs along the roads but everything is about back to normal. Crews are still hauling these piles out, seven days a week. If you wanted firewood there is enough to supply all of the southeast states for the winter. The live oaks seemed to survive well. 

Most of the trees are green, making the island look like summer instead of the dead of winter we are used to up north. Temps dropped as we arrived due to the cold front that was following us as we moved south. Low last night was about 40 degrees, way too cold. Tomorrow, Sunday, we are heading to Avon Park, Florida, our site for the winter. The day time temperatures there are low 80's and low 60's at night. 

Next stop: Florida.

I-26 south bound in SC

Bob and Jan Oakley, formally from Pennsylvania, are full timers like us. We met them in Red Bay when our motor home and theirs were both being assembled. 

Hilton Head Motorcoach Resort lot 191 where we stayed for three days.

There are about 400 lots in the resort. You can purchase one for yourself,
with prices starting at about $60,000.

Debris along the roads on the island waiting for pickup by crews
with large trucks and cranes mounted on the truck.

The light house at Harbor Town on the south end of the island. 

The harbor is empty, crews are repairing docks.

This cruise boat is still operation.

The live oaks are still intact.

Flowers in December!

North Carolina Transportation Museum

Spencer, North Carolina is located north east of Charlotte on I-85. We are at a campground in the area, saw the Museum sign and decided to visit. Entry fee was $6.00 each plus $4.00 to take a short train ride. It turned out to be a bargain for the small fee. It's a large site that was a railroad yard and repair center. The State of NC and a foundation operates the museum. When you think of a museum, it's usually in a building. This museum involves many buildings on many acres. Lots of railroad history plus some auto and airplane history. The largest building was the Back Shop where locomotives were overhauled. That building is the size of two football fields. It was the largest building in North Carolina for many years. It's being renovated and will contain more displays including a Piedmont Airlines DC-3 airplane. That building opens next year. Here is the link to the web site http://www.nctrans.org/ for more details.

The North Carolina Transportation Museum Foundation has a number of volunteers and some of them actually restore locomotives and train cars in the roundhouse. If you have ever stood next to a locomotive, you can imagine the work that it would take to do restoration. Just the size of the bolts would be a struggle to work with. During operation, these engines required inspection every 125 miles and major work every 250 miles so in their day, there was plenty of employment in the railroad business. At it's peak, 3000 people worked at Spencer. 

The site began in 1896 and closed in 1977 when it was turned over to North Carolina. The first museum exhibits opened in 1983. The 37-stall Bob Julian Roundhouse is very interesting. The turntable in the yard would rotate a train to connect with the track that went into one of the 37 stalls. Inspections and minor repairs were done at the roundhouse with major repairs in the large Back Shop building.

For a history of steam locomotives visit this web site https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_locomotive

I took too many photos to load here but here are some of them:

One building contains antique cars. Most are Fords. I saw a Buick and Edsel.
My dad would know every one of these cars and it's history.
I can't tell you much myself but these are worth a fortune.

A hot rod in it's day

This one I know all about. A Chevrolet Corvair from the 1960's. I worked on these cars at Chris Volz Motors in Milan, Indiana. They were aluminum air cooled rear engines and the screws and bolts always seized up and snapped off in the aluminum engine block. The other mechanics hid from the service manager when one of these came in for work!

The turn table lined up engines and cars to enter the roundhouse

It rotates around to the track to each roundhouse bay.
It's used today to get engines and cars in and out of the roundhouse.

This engine was built by Lima Locomotive Works #1925.
It was hauled to California and won a steam engine race

Another view of the #1925

Several engines were in the roundhouse.
This is an Atlantic Coast Line LEGACY 4-6-0 Ten Wheeler Steam Locomotive

The coal hole inside a steam locomotive.
They had to shovel the coal in from the coal tender that was just behind the engine.

Seaboard Air Line #544, one of over 200 undelivered Russian Decapods

The cow catcher

This diesel-electric locomotive in the roundhouse is the Southern Railway #6900,
built by Electro-Motive Division of General Motors in 1951. It's in service at the museum.

A luxury car used by a railroad executive. This car is huge and long as two regular cars.
It's like a motor home on the rails.

This light was an one of the trains that carried FDR across the US after he died in office.

A mail car used until airplanes took over mail delivery across the US.

This was a hospital car used to carry injured troops to hospitals in the US from WWII and Korea.

Lunch was good at Bebops in Spencer, across the highway from the museum