Back in Maryland

This last week of class in California was a lot of fun – everyone in the class was wonderful. We had a lot of fun in class, hiking, going out, and playing miniature golf.

While at Ames Research Center, we went on a tour of the facilities. We got to tour the vertical simulator where the astronauts train for flight – the simulator moves in six directions. The first picture is of a model of the facility, the next is the cab in the facility and the final one is of me inside one of the simulator cabs in the high bay.




We also got to tour the two big wind tunnels. This was amazing – there is a 40’ x 80’ facility and an 80’ x 120’ facility. We started in the smaller tunnel where the model helicopter body was located in the test area. We then got to walk through the tunnel circuit back through the turbines. There are six enormous turbines that circulate the air. We walked through these and then into the large wind tunnel. It was hard to get good pictures inside because it was not well lit (or in places, completely dark).



I left California on Friday afternoon and got back to Maryland very early Saturday morning. When I got to the airport I found out that the Denver airport lost my luggage. This weekend we were supposed to go to Chris’ cousins wedding in West Virginia but we were unable because of my travel.

Since we were home, we got a few things accomplished. Fortunately they were small projects that we think make a big difference in the appearance of the house. We finally removed the ugly wall on the front porch and installed the temporary railing (next year we plan on completely re-arranging the porch setup). We also replaced the old ugly light fixture in the front, hung up some plants, and put up our house numbers. We think that it is such a huge improvement!