The book Rocket Boys and the movie October Sky based on the book have been around since the late ninties but we just discovered them recently. As we were driving through southern West Virginia in early December we began reading the book aloud. It’s the true story of a group of high school friends in a coal mining community who teach themselves to build and fly amateur rockets in the late 1950’s just after the launch of Sputnik. It’s also a poignant cultural study of a particular place and time in American history. Tonight we watched the movie which does a reasonable job of telling an abridged version of the story. Definitely worth watching and most definitely worth reading!
Queen Mary 2’s arrival in the Port of Dakar, Senegal was heralded in the local press and greeted with ceremony. Our own excursion took us on a coach journey through the streets of the capital city to visit a Wolof village and the shore of Lake Retba, the salty lake famed for an intense pink color.
Today’s safari adventure transported us out into the Dorob National Park to have up close encounters with little creatures that are well adapted to the extreme heat and lack of water in the Namib Desert.
With a UNESCO World Heritage Site, two national parks, dozens of museums, and hundreds of tours offered in the Cape Town area there is more than plenty to do. For our two day visit we opted to concentrate on African wildlife visiting the Aquila Private Game Reserve and the Boulders Beach Penguin Colony for a wonderful chance to these fabulous animals in their own habitat.
The book Rocket Boys and the movie October Sky based on the book have been around since the late ninties but we just discovered them recently. As we were driving through southern West Virginia in early December we began reading the book aloud. It’s the true story of a group of high school friends in a coal mining community who teach themselves to build and fly amateur rockets in the late 1950’s just after the launch of Sputnik. It’s also a poignant cultural study of a particular place and time in American history. Tonight we watched the movie which does a reasonable job of telling an abridged version of the story. Definitely worth watching and most definitely worth reading!
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