When it really comes to being totally awestruck, I mean witnessing an event that became one of the worst disasters in history, it was the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger.
That fateful morning I was getting ready for work, listening to the television. I just lived right up the coast from Cape Canaveral, in Jacksonville, Florida.
I was a teenager then, working at a lumberyard. I went out the door, jumped on my 10 speed, and started out (my job was only a 20 minute bike ride away)
I stopped about 5 minutes into my ride too look up and too the south, hoping too catch a glimpse of the Challenger shooting up into the morning sky.
I saw it alright. I saw the long plume from the exhaust of the booster rockets, following it with my eyes too that little bright point of light which was the shuttle.
Seconds after fixed my eyes on it, I saw it come apart, with those trails of smoke going in different directions. I didn't care and peddled as fast as I could back home and ran inside.
There it was live on TV. The Challenger had exploded. I just stood there. Needless to say, I didn't go to work, and it took some time for it too sink in that I actually witnessed this horrible event. How in the heck I managed to choose the time I did too look up, I don't know. Sometimes I wish I never would have.
Sorry, this isn't eye candy related. Just the discussion of rare occurrences, or whatever one wants to call them, got my mind racing back to that day of days. Apologies for taking things off topic..