Day Five. Riding the roller coaster

At 5am this morning, the team in Tucson were looking at the weather forecast and it wasn't good at all for flying over the pass into CA. The message went out to the Moffett team - Saturday is very unlikely, probable arrival in the Bay is Monday. I woke to the news at 7am and felt like putting a shot of something 'medicinal' into my morning tea. This would mean a large number of plans to be unmade and new strategies done. But hey, that's airships.

Slowly the news got around the team and the deflation was palpable when I got into our 'camp' in building 20 (we're camped out on folding tables while the offices are being done). I composed the 'stiff upper lip and all that' message, knowing that everyone was feeling as down as I was. And we all pulled together, started to get things rescheduled and looked on the bright side. Hey, we get our weekend back! NASA were quietly relieved, no major potential showing of public on Saturday for them to figure out how to handle. 

I was picking up Brian's car at SFO tonight as he'd left it there when he headed out to Beaumont and if it remained much longer, I'd have to sell it to pay the parking fee. I got a text message. It said "We fly to Palm Springs tomorrow. Woot!!. See email".  I quickly did the double take in my head. But that was the original schedule. We always planned at least one day in Tucson with the FAA. But that would mean.....  we might make it in on Saturday!

It's a good job that cars are private and people couldn't hear me alternately laughing and cursing as I made my way back home. Well, it could all still change tomorrow.

Riding the airship roller coaster. And I know it isn't even remotely over yet. 

(the tracking shows the short flights done by the FAA this morning for an hour or so before the winds really got high.)

P.S If you believe in such things, I was once told that sometimes you have to truly give something up to get it back. Well, we all gave up on our cherished weekend arrival. Maybe we're going to get it back....