My favorite book about spaceships

You might have gathered from all of the astronaut and space stuff I always purchased for you and all of the cool space and air ports that we visited when together, that I really like spaceships! That's why today I'm sharing with you the cover of one of my favorite books.

It came out in 1977 or so, and I begged my mom to order it for me. It was called "Starlog Spaceships" and had pictures of cool spaceships that appeared in movies and TV shows. It also included a little information about each one.

Why did (do?) I like spaceship so much? Well, I grew up at the time when we were trying to reach the moon, so rockets and spaceships like Gemini and Apollo (and then the space shuttle) always were on television. My favorite TV shows were "Star Trek," "The Six Million Dollar Man" and "Planet of the Apes," and they all had spaceships in them (Or did I like the shows because they had spaceships in them?).

One of your favorite books as a toddler was "Spaceman Sam", which was about a little boy who pretended when he got up in the morning that he was in a spaceship! It had all of these wonderful tabs that could be pulled so you could pretend you yourself were running the spaceship just like Spaceman Sam. I still have the book and can't wait to show it to you!

RVs, So Cal roads/hikes and Seve Austin

Last night I watched a DVD of "The Six Million Dollar Man" and was taken back to all of the drives and hikes we took around Southern California. The episode involved Steve Austin driving around an RV, and bad guys were trying to capture him.

The countryside they drove around looked alot like the area around Agua Dulce, Calif., near Vasquez Rocks (though the "Kirk Rocks" never were shown) and the an area north of Santa Clarita in San Fransquito Canyon. We've driven and hiked both areas! But the episode was filmed in 1977, and the area has changed a lot in the past 35 years!

The RV also brought back memories of you. I'll always remember how much you liked to go to RV shows and check out those cool "homes on wheels"!

Our 'Six Million Dollar Man' DVDs

I have been spending the last few nights watching old "Six Million Dollar Man" episodes on DVD. I'm up to season 4, having started to watch the show when we were still together in the green house in Lancaster.

You were utterly fascinated by the box that the DVDs came in. Besides having a hologram on the top of the box that showed the Six Million Dollar Man running toward you, when you lifted the lid a recording went on that recited the show's opening words: "Steve Austin, astronaut, a man barely alive...(etc.)" You loved to open that lid again and again and puzzled over exactly how words could come from a box!

One other "Six Million Dollar Man" memory I have of you: Whenever the opening sequence ran, there are a couple of seconds where a doctor, with his back turned to us, is watching Steve Austin run on a set of monitors. You'd always ask, "Who is that guy? Why is he doing that?!" and get really exasperated by it!

The Six Millions Dollar Boys

Remember watching DVDs of old "The Six Million Dollar Man" and "The Bionic Woman" episodes with me? You particularly liked "The Bionic Woman," especially one in which Jamie Summers went on this dune buggy race across the desert. You'd take three little Matchbox cars and reimagine the race, pretending one car was driven by Steve Austin, another by Jamie Summers, and a third by Oscar Goldman. I'd then introduce a fourth car driven by some baddie that was trying to stop Steve, Jamie and Oscar from winning the race. I can't wait for us to be together again so I can show you that episode; I have all of "The Six Million Dollar Man" and the first season of "The Bionic Woman" on DVD.

Sometimes I'd print out coloring book pages I'd found online, and we'd color the sheets while watching the episodes! I've included here my favorite coloring page, of Steve and Jamie running together.