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Saturday, September 06, 2008
we've had a full day.
Today (well, OK, yesterday) we had a family event that we look forward to each year almost as much as Christmas and the Fair: it was the day we had tickets for Lick Observatory's summer visitor's program. We all love the observatory. We also all love the 3 1/2-hour drive to get there, especially the last bit (well, on the way there it's the last bit; on the way home it's the first bit, but then that's in the middle of the night and you can't see anything -- oh shut up, Rachel) which is on a lonely winding road where the scenery (and, minus pavement, the road) looks just like it did a hundred years ago. The steep-but-smooth hills crisscrossed with cow trails, the tumbleweed, the solitary ranches with small old houses and big older barns... it all makes me understand what gave early Californians the urge to write stirring novels. (Don't worry, I won't inflict any more purple prose on you. I'm all out.)
Also, we saw what appears to be a mine shaft cut into an embankment, which we'd somehow never noticed before on any of our many drives past it; obviously the local youth know all about it, though, seeing as how it's covered with graffiti and littered with beer bottles. Open letter to juvenile miscreants: You think you're all cool but you're not. In fact, you're really pretty lame.
Further also, while we were at the observatory we were looking at the readout from their seismograph and we basically saw this earthquake happen -- although we didn't feel it.
ALSO further also -- this is not so nice, so be prepared for a shift in mood -- we drove past what we thought was a car accident on the lonely winding road on the way there, but it turns out, sadly and kind of freakily, that it is something more sinister (maybe the half-mile of sheriff's deputies' cars parked in the road should have clued us in...), according to the news.
Plus I got to eat at KFC and that's just not something that happens every day. And they had a jukebox (seeing as how it's one of those KFCs that's also an A&W) and the jukebox was free. Exactly how much more awesome can something be than this day?
The observatory shindig got over around 11; I drove home, because I'm the one who's used to staying up till all hours. We pulled in at 2:10 AM and I hadn't yawned once. (I didn't even need caffeine.) Now even T must admit that all this late-night Internetting is worthwhile.
And now I have run out of parentheses so I must close.
Comments
Oooh, sounds like a great day.
Posted by: Kat with a K at September 6, 2008 12:27 PM
Even if I didn't know it from all the other stories, any woman raising kids who love visiting an observatory has to be doing something right. (Or maybe it's refraining from doing something wrong?Not sure why kids end up blase.)
Posted by: dichroic at September 7, 2008 10:29 PM
Ooooh, the observatory. Fun! Always good stuff there.
That's a lot of excitement on the way there and back, too.
Sounds like a perfect day, to me.
Posted by: mary at September 8, 2008 06:26 AM
So what was the deal with the car and the cops? You can't just stop at sinister.
Posted by: jennifer at September 9, 2008 10:19 AM
