Celebrate the 40th anniversary of the moon landing with Nixon and the astronauts
July 20th is the 40th anniversary of the moon landing and there will be loads of celebrations and commemorations around the country. You can read about many of the events on the NASA Web site, but two events of special note are the Summer Moon Festival in Wapakoneta, Ohio (Neil Armstrong’s home town) and Splashdown 2009, on the USS Hornet, the ship tasked with plucking the Columbia capsule containing the three astronauts out of the Pacific Ocean.
The Summer Moon Festival (July 13 -20, 2009) seems especially intriguing, because in addition to the World’s Largest Moon Pie, the town is promising visitors that they’ll get to see (and nibble on?) a life-size statue of an astronaut made entirely of, you guessed it, cheese.
This “sample” cheese astronaut is “just” 40 pounds, but I’m sure you get the picture…
(Photo courtesy The Cheese Lady: www.sarahcheeselady.com)
The USS Hornet’s Splashdown 2009 event (July 23-26) will be fun as well, especially if they display this photo of then President Richard Nixon telling jokes to the astronauts while they were in a quarantine capsule (in case they had “moon germs”) on the USS Hornet.
Photo from the book Hornet Plus Three: The Story of the Apollo 11 Recovery, by Bob Fish.
Related posts:
- Montreal celebrates 40th anniversary of John and Yoko’s bed-in for peace
- Moving Memphis memories
- Souvenir Sunday: Moon Pies and Goo Goo Clusters from Nashville Int’l Airport
- Anniversary of Beatles touch-down at JFK
Greetings from: Albany International Airport
Tidbits for travelers: Pet park at JFK, Books at BWI
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