Yes, it is kind of sad to see it retired. I narrowly missed watching shuttle launches twice. On both occasions, I was in Florida for seminars and learned after I got there, that there were going to be shuttle launches. The first was in the morning while our seminar was going on and we couldn't leave.
The second time, our seminar was ending at noon on Friday. The launch was to be at 2:00 PM if I remember correctly. We were in Orlando and hadn't rented a car, but one of the guys attending the seminar said he would drive us across to Cape Canaveral. We rushed through our test and left for the Cape. It turned out that he hadn't put gas in the car and there was no place to stop along the way. We had to go back about 10 or 15 miles to gas up. We were about halfway across the peninsula when Rhonda said, "There it goes." We could only see a small shape with the flame at the bottom of it. So, technically I saw a launch, but one gets a much better view on TV.