A Starry Adventure....
Sep. 13th, 2015 08:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lydamorehouseA friend of mine who has a fairly powerful telescope put out the call last night for a star party. She usually goes down to a place in rural Minnesota run by the Minnesota Astronomical Society that's known as Grove Observatory. Last night was a new moon, clear skies, so the conditions were PERFECT.
Mason and I set off at 10:30 pm.... and never made it.
The worst part? We were following the directions perfectly. Only... I stopped trusting my instincts, as happens sometimes. We'd gotten to Goodhue County Highway 1 when the trouble started. The directions said go south, but our options were to take Goodhue Cty. Hwy 1 East or Goodhue Cty. Hway West. I had a vague memory that there's some highway rule about west being south, so I chose that option. (I was right.) However, because it wasn't on the directions that way, I started to worry if we'd made the right choice. Mason, who hates getting lost, REALLY started to worry.
This is one of those times when my Morehouse 'talk it through' trait works against me. Because, of course, I was vocalizing all my thoughts. "Do you think we've gone to far?", "Does 'T' intersection mean ANY 'T'?", etc.
I pretty much sent Mason over the edge with worry.
Trying to call our friend didn't help much because cell phone reception was spotty (AND my phone had run out battery, so Mason and I were struggling with an unfamiliar phone, Shawn's.) We ended up exchanging back and firths, basically talking over each other, and by the time we got good directions, we were already headed back to the city and Mason did NOT want to turn around again (we'd turned around at least four times.) We apologized to our friend a bunch, cried a little, yelled a lot, but, in the end, kind of decided it was a little hilariously awful.
However, it wasn't entirely a wash. I was determined that Mason at least take breath and notice the stars. So, at a stop sign on Goodhue Cty Hwy 1, I stopped the car so we could look up. It was BREATHTAKING. You could see the Milky Way. Mason had never seen that with such clarity.
Space is big. I mean, really big.
Mason and I set off at 10:30 pm.... and never made it.
The worst part? We were following the directions perfectly. Only... I stopped trusting my instincts, as happens sometimes. We'd gotten to Goodhue County Highway 1 when the trouble started. The directions said go south, but our options were to take Goodhue Cty. Hwy 1 East or Goodhue Cty. Hway West. I had a vague memory that there's some highway rule about west being south, so I chose that option. (I was right.) However, because it wasn't on the directions that way, I started to worry if we'd made the right choice. Mason, who hates getting lost, REALLY started to worry.
This is one of those times when my Morehouse 'talk it through' trait works against me. Because, of course, I was vocalizing all my thoughts. "Do you think we've gone to far?", "Does 'T' intersection mean ANY 'T'?", etc.
I pretty much sent Mason over the edge with worry.
Trying to call our friend didn't help much because cell phone reception was spotty (AND my phone had run out battery, so Mason and I were struggling with an unfamiliar phone, Shawn's.) We ended up exchanging back and firths, basically talking over each other, and by the time we got good directions, we were already headed back to the city and Mason did NOT want to turn around again (we'd turned around at least four times.) We apologized to our friend a bunch, cried a little, yelled a lot, but, in the end, kind of decided it was a little hilariously awful.
However, it wasn't entirely a wash. I was determined that Mason at least take breath and notice the stars. So, at a stop sign on Goodhue Cty Hwy 1, I stopped the car so we could look up. It was BREATHTAKING. You could see the Milky Way. Mason had never seen that with such clarity.
Space is big. I mean, really big.