I’m no Paris Hilton but camping was definitely not anything my family did. Zach comes to this project with lots of family wisdom on how to choose the best campsite and how to operate a camp shower, and I basically contribute the ability to say when I am hungry and complain about bugs.
So I’ve been learning a lot of new things on this trip. One thing that I’ve learned is that national parks are full of nerrrrrrds.
At our campground, I saw one guy sitting outside his wagon with a box next to him proudly labeled “Books for X-Country Trip.” Now don’t get me wrong, I brought books to read on the trip too. But the difference between me and this guy was that I did not lovingly hand select which vintage paperbacks I would bring with me, while chuckling along to “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” on NPR and sipping on Smuggington Grove’s Eco-Sustainable Chardonnay. I have a very strong feeling that this guy did.
There was an astronomy program listed for that evening. We didn’t exactly have any nightclub openings to hit up so off to stargaze we went. The skies in the Badlands are incredibly dark so you can really see an astonishing number of stars. The Milky Way is huge and bright and Jupiter is basically enormous.
I even learned some new facts about stars, because there were no less than three astronomers present to share their thoughts on stars. I hoped there would be a question and answer period because I wanted to ask them what exactly the applied purpose of astronomy is in 2009. Apparently there are people who still learn lots of stuff about constellations past the age of 10, who knew?
They had some fancy-pants telescopes set up for us, but since the amphitheater was near a road, plenty of people kept driving by with headlights or walking with flashlights. Obviously, light can undo your night vision, forcing you to not look at stars for a little bit while your eyes readjust.
Eventually the guy with the biggest telescope reached his breaking point and he walked down to the road and yelled, “NO WHITE LIGHT! WHITE LIGHT BAD! WE are TRYING to DO ASTRONOMY!”
He said this last not unlike a person would say “I am TRYING to SAVE THIS CHILD’S LIFE!” or “I am TRYING to DISABLE THIS BOMB!”