Often we go on a short vacation around my birthday. This year Alex planned the first two days as part of the Congressional Award. We went to Flagstaff, Arizona, which is somewhere we had never been. The contrast between our city and Flagstaff is great. One is in a valley, while the other is in the mountains. One is in a desert, while the other is in a forest. One barely gets rain while the other gets lots of snow...
Alex rode shotgun during the first two days, the part that he planned out. He almost let us pass our exit because he forgot to write down what exit we should get off at. On the job training at its finest.
On our first day we visited the Lowell Observatory. Alex LOVES astronomy! We have never been to an observatory before. Alex had a schedule of events and took us from lecture to lecture. He loved every minute. (Sabrina, not so much.) I found the lectures about the history of the observatory and about space quite interesting. Alex was on the edge of his front row seat leaning forward totally engaged.
We got to see several humongous telescopes and listen to lectures about them. They were quite impressive. It would have been awesome to actually get to look through them.
We all got the chance to view the sun through a telescope with special filters. It was, of course, something we had never had the opportunity to do before. I'm sure we would have looked longer if others weren't waiting for their turn.
We also spent time at the observatory's small museum.
Of course, the snow was just as exciting to the kids. We also saw deer at the observatory, which is something else our city does not have.
Sabrina's favorite part of the afternoon was the gift shop. That sneaky girl bought a necklace and pretended it was for her, only to later give it to me as a birthday gift.
We left the observatory to check into our hotel, which Alex helped Frank find online. Then we went to Walmart for gloves that would work in the snow. I couldn't find those in our desert, but thought surely a place that gets snow will have them. Well, they got 9 inches of snow two days before we got there, so the pickings were so slim we ended up getting work gloves. Thankfully they worked out just fine. We also got dinner.
After eating we went back to the Lowell Observatory for the evening's lectures. We also had the amazing opportunity to look through a very high powered telescope to see the Orion Nebula! It was breathtakingly beautiful! I never thought I would see something like that with my own eyes!
During the evening there were science demonstrations. Sabrina absolutely loved this part of the observatory. After the demonstrations both Alex and Sabrina had a lot of fun experimenting with the various things on display, with permission. They conducted their own experiments with whether or not the static electricity would pass through our gloves, (regular gloves no; texting gloves yes). Sabrina earned her Jr Astronomer patch.
We spent 6 and a half hours at the observatory. I am very thankful that we were allowed to leave and come back. This was a perfect day for Alex.
Marie-Anne
