I was driving I-4 westbound toward Orlando and pulled off to the side of the Interstate to join a red pickup truck in front of me and a car behind me. The radio said there was one minute to go to liftoff. I was just minutes from my home in Longwood near Wekiva State Park near the St Rt 434 exit. I could not make it home to watch on TV, but sitting here and eyeballing live would do just fine, I thought.
I rolled my window down, as the guy in the pickup truck in front of me did, and gazed to the left, eastbound, where I would soon see the Shuttle lift toward the heavens.
As many have said, I will never forget that blue sky. It was so erie in that it was one of the most beautiful clear blue skies I have ever seen.
When the Shuttle lifted off, it seemd so much closer to the naked eye than normal in the Orlando suburb--why, I will never know. Perhaps because of the cold made the air so clear. Perhaps because the gods zommed in for the three of us in our cars to watch seven new angels enter heaven.
As Challenger climbed, the radio station had already done its few seconds of liftoff coverage then already returned to normal programming, confident that all was well with Challenger.
When the Shuttle blew up, I immediately turned on the radio station. At first I was not sure what I saw I was so stunned. One thing told me it blew up. One thing told me I was just seeing things. About thirty seconds after it exploded, the radio station cut away from its rambling morning show and sounded that loud siren and then the words BULLETIN......BULLETIN! WE ARE GOING LIVE TO THE KENNEDY SPACE CENTER!
With those words, I knew then that it was the former, not the latter, and that indeed the Shuttle had blown up. I had already realized that by then since the debris and the contrails produced a sight that was unmistakeable.
After watchng the big "question mark" in the sky for a while produced by the path of the solid booster rockets before they were detonated, I started my engine to head home and watch the very tragic news on TV.
I will never forget the car behind me pulling out first and then the red pickup truck pulling away as I then moved back on the Interstate also. I will always wonder what was going through their minds as they watched what I watched unfold right before their eyes. We never spoke a word to each other as we stayed in our cars. Our thoughts were just to ourselves. I think we were all too sad and shocked to get out and say something.
For the better part of thirty minutes, the contrails remained in the sky above my home in the shape of a large "question mark".
It was cold out, I was getting my classroom ready for Monday. I walked out of my side door, and look overhead hoping to see the shuttle fly over. Instead, I saw what must have been what I now figure was part of the debris cloud (it looked like a strange sort of contrail).
I ran inside and turned on the radio, and found out that contact with the shuttle had been lost and that Houston was trying to find the shuttle. Later, the announcement was made that it had broken up on re-entry.