Strangely enough, when I think about this early travel, I don’t especially think about Disney World, Epcot Center, MGM Studios or Sea World… Although it was fun as a kid. Oh well, I remember the Pirates of the Caribbean and the dark, wet atmosphere, and all those crazy electronics. I remember the darkness of the Space Mountain, the earthquake and fire at the MGM Studio (I took a picture under the Roger Rabbit bulldozer, and with Jessica Rabbit and I LOVED the Dick Tracy set, with the skyscrapers in the distance), as well as my Medieval Times fun eating with my hands, taking a stupid picture with a king (I still had braces and had a metallic smile) and watching my knight getting beaten up. Yes, it was fun, especially the candy and the exotic foods I had in Epcot, and all the scifi imagery that I still appreciate today in novels and movies. However, what still haunt my memories are a few images that popped here and there. Of course there is the “Monsieur Paume” who followed us and who didn’t know where he was or what he was doing there (he had lost his group, I think… and he was looking for the beach in Orlando. I can still see him with his bathing suit and his towel at the hotel, asking at the counter how far was the beach…) The streets of Orlando, deserted and looking like a city of the 1950’s, and a spoon oddly abandoned on the pavement. The Florida countryside, with the neat, modern highways piercing through the wild, wet landscape of the Everglades… and the space shuttle, at rest, majestic, at Cape Kennedy. I didn’t see it leave the planet but, well, it is something I definitely want to see one of these days. It looked so imposing, so beautiful… I couldn’t stop thinking that it was actually going to leave the atmosphere and be in space…
Today, still, I am fascinated by shuttles and satellites, as you can see them glowing from the earth on beautiful clear nights.
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