The fireworks set off across Los Angeles were so bright, astronauts spotted them from space.
"You're floating, and your body, all these little aches and pains, and everything heal up, and you feel like you're 30 years old again," the 70-year-old veteran astronaut said.
As NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams return to Earth after an unplanned nine months in space, here's how they spent their time.
NASA said it expected the return trip to end at about 5:57 p.m., when the Dragon is scheduled to splash down off the Florida coast.
The Crew-10 mission, part of a routine staff rotation jointly operated by NASA and SpaceX, took off at 7:03 p.m. ET Friday from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
SpaceX postponed a mission on Wednesday to bring the next crew set to work on the International Space Station (ISS) and begin the return of a pair of astronauts back to Earth.