I've been working a lot with the Adler Planetarium on my stories, so one afternoon they called me to ask if I wanted to come to an event that afternoon. Astronaut Pamela Melroy was giving a talk to young girls who had expressed an interest in the sciences. Of course I said "yes!" However, the only problem was that the talk started in five minutes!
So my editor (who would tell you that if she wasn't a journalist, she would be an astronaut) told me to jump in a cab and get down to the Planetarium - pronto! The whole time I was thinking to myself, "Now THIS is breaking news!" Traffic was heavy for a Wednesday afternoon and when we got about a mile from the Planetarium, the cab driver said that he couldn't get me any farther and that I should just get out and take the trail the rest of the way.
When I jumped out in the middle of the street, I asked the traffic director what was going on. And he looks at me like I'm a little bit uninformed and says, "We've got the President in town!" Apparently I missed the memo that the President and the First Lady were making an appearance on Oprah that day. It's always something, right?
So, I start running toward the Planetarium (in the rain, mind you) and all of a sudden I start to hear a helicopter... right above my head. You got it - the President and First Lady were taking off from a parking lot right next to me and heading to O'Hare where Air Force One was waiting.
But I had no time for chasing the President's helicopter, so I kept running through the rain and made it to the Planetarium only slightly late. And THEN I got to interview an astronaut.
Check out the link to the story: Inspiring girls to become new era astronauts
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