Stargazing

Last Friday we went stargazing at the Wild Basin Wilderness Preserve. We showed up 15 minutes late and joined a raucous group of Adventure Girls, Wild Basin Wilderness Preserve volunteers and two member of the University of Texas Astronomy Club. We viewed Vega and Jupiter from three telescopes just outside the Preserve’s main building. At 8:30 we were instructed to finish up our stargazing, gather our belongings and begin forming a line at the beginning of the trail behind us. It was at that point that I hauled ass back down to the parking lot to get Maly’s stroller. I hurried back through the gravel parking lot, through a mini trail, up two flights of stairs, over a bridge, through another trail, battled two tree-perched ninjas and finally met Elise and Maly to begin our tour of whatever it was that we were going to be touring in the dark on this rocky trail. We put Maly in her stroller and made after the rest of the group that had a good head start on us. We hurried to catch up with the others, along the way Maly was bouncing around in her stroller as I plowed over rocks and limbs. If she grows up to be a normal physical funtioning human I will be surprised after the jarring I subjected her to on the trail. We finally caught up with the rest of the group as they were circling the end of the trail and heading back to the Preserve. I still have no idea why we were guided down that trail after dark. My guess is that there were members of the UT Astronomy Club hiding in the bushes attempting to recruit Adventure Girls. Thankfully we showed up late and dodged the $3 per person fee otherwise I would’ve had the Preserve pay for Maly’s accupuncture therapy.