I am fortunate to be able to see the fire trail of the shuttle launch from my front door. It's quite cool! Means a lot to a scifi fan. Real people, in a real ship, going into real space. I've also met two real astronauts, as opposed to those that play ones on tv. Will post those pix someday.
Here's a video of the 3.15.09 launch that I took from my house. Sorry I had the camera the wrong way so it's sideways.
From the KSC website: