"As a kid, if you were to ask me of one place on earth that I would most like to visit I would have answered you without hesitation; Cape Canaveral! It was a magical place to me! Little did I realize that in the years that would follow I would be granted clearance to explore the ruins of the long abandoned historic launch pads. Yes, I stood where rockets came to life, and I stood where they met their demise and and melted upon themselves. Black stains on the aging concrete was a constant reminder. As I stood there I cast my eyes upward searching for that mystical keyhole in the sky that window where the rocket was swallowed into that eternal silence among the stars. I am often asked how I felt and what I saw as I explored these historic sites, well, I hope the following will give you an idea. The breakers of man-made thunder that once rolled across the heavens and rained down from here have long since subsided giving way to the tranquility that now blankets the area. The preexisting harmony and coexistence of high technology and nature is all but over with nature readily reclaiming total dominionship leaving only rusted relics and skeletal remains of a time that once was. The pads that once were bathed in light and publicity now stood abandoned, aged and dull baking and decaying in the scorching sun. Once the eyes of the world were focused on these sites, but now only the eyes of the varmints that inhabit the ruins and the surrounding marshy terrain. A towering gantry stood before me faded in the blistering sun. The once brilliant red has now faded to a dull chalky orange. The bay area that once embraced a gleaming rocket was now empty, her windswept decks badly decayed. All the various levels are strangely deserted. An eerie silence now envelopes this area occasionally to be broken by the creaking and rattling of the structure. The wheels of the gantry have permanently mated themselves to the aged and deteriorated railroad tracks with a bond of oxidation. The elevator that once scaled the heights of the gantry is now driven in place. Rust stains now splotch the aging and heaving concrete beneath the gantry with rusted debris scattered all about. Like wrinkles that have developed and deepened upon my face over the span of time, cracks now appear on the face of the aging and warping concrete. Large clumps of persistent weeds and flowers have now sprouted filling the gaps, cracks, and seams, victoriously shooting up threatening to overtake the disintegrating concrete that in places has already crumpled to sand. There it stood aged and proud awaiting for a tomorrow, a tomorrow that will never come! The umbilical tower looms high above the pad reaching towards the clouds by day and the starry heavens by night. Tirelessly reaching to a place where a rocket once stood......a place where a rocket will never stand any more!"