We were sorry to miss Martha’s birthday again, but we spoke to her briefly online. She was about to sink her teeth into her third birthday cake. Not to mention a delicious beverage in a Greek restaurant.
Just as exciting, for me, was the continuation of my own birhday. Jenny and Helen had arranged for their present for me to be sent here to Buzz’s place and I wasn’t allowed to see it until we were all together, chatting online. It was lovely to see them both nd we had a good chat.
I opened the box online, and it did feel like one of those influencer-style unboxing videos on Instagram that come up and bore us from time to time. Thank you Helen and Jenny, it was a fantastic idea, something that I’d never thought to have asked for. I am now the proud owner of a Seestar S50, a smart telescope that (of course) is controlled via an app and will let me take some fab pictures of the night sky.
It’s a bit of a learning curve (where did that phrase come from?) but I’ll get there. Being the middle of the afternoon, the obvious celestial object to look at right now was the Sun. After several failed attempts, due to incompetence, plus clouds getting in the way, here is the very first decent image.
I have so many ideas of objects that I’d like to capture myself in the coming weeks and months. I have admired (and been envious of) many of the pictures taken by others over the years.
The following night, I stayed up late to see the night sky. The Moon was the obvious next target: it’s big, and just a few days from being full.
Because of street lights, and other issues, I couldn’t focus on any stars or planets, but that will come with time. Watch this space. Again, thank you very much, Jenny and Helen.
One of the best ways to see a city is on a bus tour. Here in Albuquerque, Liesel, Leslie and I chose to go on a Trolley Tour of the city. Our guide (sorry, I can’t recall her name) was very informative and, given all the various jobs she’s had over the years, in several states, she must be about 120 years old. Half Indian and half Spanish/Mexican.
I wondered whether all the landmarks would feature domes, but no, I think these were the only two. We passed by several buildings and sites that feature in the TV series Breaking Bad, but of course, not having watched it, despite several recommendations from lots of people, they didn’t mean much to us. Our guide was once a carpenter, and she was responsible for laying a floor in a room for a scene in Breaking Bad. One of the characters said it was a lovely wooden floor. Now, that is a claim to fame.
We drove along a section of the old Route 66, 18 miles of which is within the city boundaries.
The city supports local artists and is very proud of the murals that appear everywhere, on pretty much every otherwise blank wall.
What we find amazing is that none of the artwork has been spoilt by graffiti or tagging. So civilised.
The local Minor League Baseball Team is known as Albuquerque Isotopes, so named following a sequence in an old Simpsons episode, and a popular name due to the large number of scientific facilities in the state dealing with nuclear research. Remember that for your next pub quiz.
In the afternoon, Liesel and I visited the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science. Not at all because we wanted to escape the heat of the day! Actually, it’s a great place, lots of focus on dinosaurs and climate change.
Greeting us in the museum was the Bisti Beast, an animated model of Bistahieversor (meaning “Bistahi destroyer”), an early
ancestor of Tyrannosaurus rex.
Yes, of course I had to take a selfie using the camera on the life-size replica of the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity. Does that make us Martians?
In the planetarium, we watched Life: A Cosmic Story, telling us how life bgan on Earth. Being narrated by Jodie Foster wasn’t enough to prevent Liesel from nodding off a bit. Well, it was warm and dark and the seats were so comfortable…
Another video we watched was about the asteroid that ultimately made the dinosaurs extinct.
The Chicxulub Impact
The Chicxulub (CHIK-shoo-loob) crater is believed by scientists to have been created by the asteroid impact that ended the Cretaceous Period. The crater was named after a nearby village. “Chicxulub” is a Mayan word that means “sign of the horns.” Half of the crater is buried beneath the limestone plains of the Yucatan and half beneath the water and sediment of the Gulf of Mexico. Instruments have shown that the whole crater is about 112 miles in diameter. The object that created this crater was probably about six miles in diameter and traveling at a speed of 9 to 12 miles per second when it struck the Earth. On impact, it released energy equivalent to the explosion of more than five billion tons of TNT.
The plaque onsite has a typo, which I have corrected here in this reproduction. But what amazed me was, what great quality the film was from 65 million years ago,
Outside it was now 88°F according to the car’s display, 31°C.
Mick and Liesel's Antics 