There He Is!

It was absolutely amazing. Plot and Duck had seen the route of the Space Shuttle piggypacking on the back of the 747 for this morning's final fly-by, so they hiked up to Billy Goat Hill and waited by the fence under the old swing. It was hazy, but warm. Nothing happened. Someone said "I just heard on the radio he's flying over Sacramento now."

Another half an hour passed, during which there was plenty of conversation from the others gathered to observe.

All right, not conversation but mono-versation -- one guy telling stories about different people in the neighborhood that nobody else knew.

Still, we waited.

"There he is!" someone said, and we turned to see, in the distance, an airplane, flying in and out of the fogbank. You could tell it was the shuttle with binoculars but it was very barely visible. Then he turned, flew over the bay, in back of the TransAmerica Tower and the Banker's Heart, and disappeared out of our view as he headed for the Golden Gate.

"Well, that wasn't all that much, was it?" someone said. Someone else, who may have been Plotnik, said "That's the essence of Saint Plotniko right there. Great things happen here and half the time you can't see them."

And then he heard a low rumble.

Which got louder.

And louder.

And then, in the heart of an enormous roar of engines, the 747 rose right out of the sky behind Billy Goat Hill and passed practically over our heads. It took up the entire sky.

 What a sight, what an experience. What a town!