We listened to a ranger talk on the geology of the park and then took a “stop and look” bus tour to the southern end of the park where we could see the northern rim of the Grand Canyon, 90 miles in the distance. Bryce Canyon has some of the clearest air in the United States with a medium daily visibility of over 100 miles. Chicago’s medium daily visibility is only 25 miles.
Cliff, our bus driver, like most tour bus drivers, was somewhat of a raconteur. He regaled us with a number of Butch Cassidy tales, reminiscent of the earliest Robin Hood legends in both authenticity and story line. Cliff is one of the “believers” that Butch and Sundance were never killed in Bolivia, but came back to the United States and lived out law-abiding lives. I had heard this before. Butch’s youngest sister had made the same claim shortly after the Newman/Redford movie came out. Our driver added some new details to the story. According to Cliff, Butch and Sundance worked their way up to the United States through South and Central America. They even spent some time with Pancho Villa. He didn’t tell us what Sundance ended up doing, but he did reveal that Butch spent the rest of his life running a store in Oregon. On sporadic occasions, Butch would even visit family members in Utah. Cliff must know what he talking about. After all, he has a 95 year old friend who told him most of what he knows about Butch.
We enjoyed our star gazing the previous evening so much that we decided to tackle the night mountain driving required to attend a ranger-run astronomy program. Similar to one we attended in Yellowstone, the program consisted of an hour lecture presentation followed by actual viewing of the sky through telescopes.
Normally, I don’t care for scientific explanations of the universe. Like the guy in the Walt Whitman poem, “When I heard the Learn’d Astronomer,” I prefer to simply gaze at the stars. As it worked out, I did not need to worry about any scientific explanations from the ranger in charge of the night lecture. The ranger who presented the lecture must have attended the same ranger training school that produced the Hopper. You may recall that the Hopper believed that his presentation would be more effective if he acted like a clown. The guy tonight must have concluded that his presentation would be improved if he made people in the audience look like clowns. He wanted to teach us that “days” on Mercury are longer than years on that little planet. One way of making his point would have been to state that Mercury revolves around the sun far more rapidly than it rotates on its axis. He could have added that Mercury orbits the Sun two times while making only a single rotation on its axis.
Instead of devoting a sentence or two to Mercury’s days and years, our ranger had a different approach. He solicited a couple of volunteers to act as the Sun and Mercury. The guy who acted as the Sun had an easy task; he simply stood in the middle of the room with a puzzled look on his face. The poor woman who portrayed Mercury was repeatedly pushed and pulled in large circles around the “Sun.” Every once in a while, the ranger would twist the woman to show us how Mercury rotates more slowly than it revolves. At two points in this spectacle, he said he needed “some help," and pushed a button which inexplicably produced a full volume blast of Gloria Gaynor shouting out about ten seconds of one of her forgettable songs. I am still pondering as to what purpose was served by the ear-shattering Gaynor blips.
After suffering through the fifteen minute explanation of the Mercury year/day topic, we retreated to the parking lot to wait until it was time to use the telescopes. Because there were long lines in front of the scopes, we wandered over to where a ranger was explaining the constellations. He used a laser pointer to point to the stars. We had seen one of those lasers during the Yellowstone sky show and were impressed with it. Demonstrating my superior education, I explained to Carole that the laser was not exactly a new tool. I reminded Carole that, years ago, Police Commissioner Gordon used to summon Bat Man by shining the image of a bat on the moon. The ranger’s presentation on the constellations was crisp and witty. I knew that he would be good when he repeatedly took shots at The International Astronomical Union, the organization that killed Pluto and infuriated people in my home town, the birth place of Clyde Tombaugh. Years before Clyde discovered the former planet of Pluto, he attended school at West Mackey School; he probably copied off of my Dad's papers.
We enjoyed our star gazing the previous evening so much that we decided to tackle the night mountain driving required to attend a ranger-run astronomy program. Similar to one we attended in Yellowstone, the program consisted of an hour lecture presentation followed by actual viewing of the sky through telescopes.
Normally, I don’t care for scientific explanations of the universe. Like the guy in the Walt Whitman poem, “When I heard the Learn’d Astronomer,” I prefer to simply gaze at the stars. As it worked out, I did not need to worry about any scientific explanations from the ranger in charge of the night lecture. The ranger who presented the lecture must have attended the same ranger training school that produced the Hopper. You may recall that the Hopper believed that his presentation would be more effective if he acted like a clown. The guy tonight must have concluded that his presentation would be improved if he made people in the audience look like clowns. He wanted to teach us that “days” on Mercury are longer than years on that little planet. One way of making his point would have been to state that Mercury revolves around the sun far more rapidly than it rotates on its axis. He could have added that Mercury orbits the Sun two times while making only a single rotation on its axis.
Instead of devoting a sentence or two to Mercury’s days and years, our ranger had a different approach. He solicited a couple of volunteers to act as the Sun and Mercury. The guy who acted as the Sun had an easy task; he simply stood in the middle of the room with a puzzled look on his face. The poor woman who portrayed Mercury was repeatedly pushed and pulled in large circles around the “Sun.” Every once in a while, the ranger would twist the woman to show us how Mercury rotates more slowly than it revolves. At two points in this spectacle, he said he needed “some help," and pushed a button which inexplicably produced a full volume blast of Gloria Gaynor shouting out about ten seconds of one of her forgettable songs. I am still pondering as to what purpose was served by the ear-shattering Gaynor blips.
After suffering through the fifteen minute explanation of the Mercury year/day topic, we retreated to the parking lot to wait until it was time to use the telescopes. Because there were long lines in front of the scopes, we wandered over to where a ranger was explaining the constellations. He used a laser pointer to point to the stars. We had seen one of those lasers during the Yellowstone sky show and were impressed with it. Demonstrating my superior education, I explained to Carole that the laser was not exactly a new tool. I reminded Carole that, years ago, Police Commissioner Gordon used to summon Bat Man by shining the image of a bat on the moon. The ranger’s presentation on the constellations was crisp and witty. I knew that he would be good when he repeatedly took shots at The International Astronomical Union, the organization that killed Pluto and infuriated people in my home town, the birth place of Clyde Tombaugh. Years before Clyde discovered the former planet of Pluto, he attended school at West Mackey School; he probably copied off of my Dad's papers.
Did you tell everyone your connection to Pluto?
ReplyDeleteI added a line about old Clyde going to school with my father.
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