The Space Shuttle Endeavour is coming Friday. Call out the food trucks. Let the flyover parties begin!

After weather delayed Endeavour's departure from Florida for two days, NASA gave the go-ahead for a Wednesday take-off at dawn, the first leg of the highly anticipated farewell tour that has crowds waiting for a glimpse from Mississippi to Houston to California. And why not? It's a sight that will be hard to forget: the last space shuttle, securely piggybacked onto a modified Boeing 747 jet, flying low over the Golden Gate Bridge, the Bay Area and the state Capitol building, at 1,500 feet.

"The five-story space shuttle will be hard to miss from the observatory deck at Chabot," mused Melissa Rosengard, who put out an word Tuesday that the Chabot Space & Science Museum in the Oakland Hills was throwing a pajamas-optional flyover party, beginning at 8 a.m. Friday. Alas, vehicle reservations to NASA Ames' free flyover party at Moffett Field were already booked up by Tuesday (touting the availability of breakfast at the aforementioned food trucks). You can still walk in via VTA Bus route 51 and VTA light rail.

All the hallmarks of a happening are showing. Peninsula Bike Party announced a Space Shuttle Bike Ride, meeting early at the Mountain View Caltrain Station to ride over Moffett Field Friday morning, vehicle passes in hand. The Geek Club sent out word on meetup.com. A middle school in Elk Grove, the Sacramento Bee reported, will send 40 students to watch the Capitol flyover. It is the last chance to see the Endeavour in the air. If you never made the trek to Edwards Air Force Base in the Antelope Valley to watch the space shuttle landings in their heyday—the way many in this valley have—it's hard to describe the excitement. But it's real.

There are flyovers planned en route from Florida, over the Stennis Space Center on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, the Michoud Assembly Plant near New Orleans, the White Sands Test Facility.