Observatory

Astronomy is perhaps the science whose discoveries owe least to chance, in which human understanding appears in its whole magnitude, and through which man can best learn how small he is.
-- G. C. Lichtenberg

Saturday, November 27, 1999
One year ago: River Walk
Two years ago: Thanksgiving

Jack didn't feel great today; he was stiff and sore, and his stomach was bothering him. So when he was resting on his dad's recliner this morning, I decided to go for a walk by myself.

I wasn't entirely alone, though. Bo, a black lab that was visiting for the weekend, accompanied me. After I let Jack's mom know which direction I was heading (so someone would know where to look in case I broke a leg and couldn't walk back) I walked up the gravel road, in the direction Jack and I took on our Labor Day weekend walk. This time, instead of leaving the road and heading towards the bluff, I just kept heading up the gradual slope.

Bo kept near me most of the time, but did cast off into the woods on either side, sniffing and smelling the ground. He found a deer foot, cut off by some hunter, and carried it for a ways before dropping it.

As the road got higher and curved around to a side valley, the trees changed from scrub oak to some kind of conifer. A stream was running down to the river far below, and the sound of running water was very tempting to Bo. He was wise enough not to attempt to scramble down, waiting until the stream was just a few feet below the road.

When I was almost at the top of the bluff, and I could see where the trees petered out to open country, I turned around and headed down. Bo found another deer's foot and carried it proudly for some distance, dropped it, then picked up the one he'd left behind before! I stopped at a boulder where I'd rested on the way up, and rested again. I drank the soda that I'd carried in my pocket, but I never did open the book I'd brought along with me. I contemplated the landscape, instead!

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One of Jack's favorite things, when he was living in this area, was to go to the Goldendale Observatory and look through the telescope. They were doing a program tonight, and Jack wanted to go. His older daughter A---- and her cousin (who did end up spending the night last night and tonight) had no interest in this activity -- they wanted to go bowling! Why? I have no idea. Jack didn't think it was a good notion for his younger daughter to join the older girls, so she was convinced to go to the observatory with us. Her sister and cousin put some heavy pressure on for her to go with the program, I think, for fear that Jack would decide not to go at all.

We dropped the girls off at the bowling alley, which was one of the more low-key ones I've ever seen. The sign outside was hardly noticeable. We crossed town and drove up the hill to the observatory. This is a state facility that was donated by someone who thought such a thing should exist, and be open to the general public.

Steve Stout, the same guy who used to run it when Jack lived here, is still running it now, with a crew of volunteers. We got a good view of Jupiter, Saturn, and the Pleiades, then moved into the auditorium for a few words on what was visible in the skies tonight. We walked outside for some constellation viewing, then back to the main scope for one more object. By this time we needed to go pick up the girls at the bowling alley.

Oops! They weren't at the bowling alley -- apparently they'd irritated the management, who were mopping the floors and closing up shop anyway. They'd been hanging around in the general area. Good thing that Goldendale is so dead on a Saturday that there hadn't been any way for them to get in trouble.