American West Heritage Star Party

The American West Heritage Center in Wellsville, Utah, Cache Valley, hosted a star party last night for the Perseid Meteor Shower. Sara invited us to go with her and the kids while Jared was playing in a dusk-to-dawn volleyball tournament (they call that playing?).

The Heritage center is an old farm with a bunch of farm kind of stuff to do. Jackson and Tanner rode the ponies. This is Tanner. He didn't like the ponies so much because he didn't like the helmet he had to wear. I think he would have been okay if he could have worn a helmet that he picked out, but this is the only one that fit him.

I think Jackson liked the ponies.

The farm animal section had goats, sheep with a ram that rammed the gate, and some peacocks.

The goats got a bit aggressive when someone with hay came inside the pen.

Across from the animals was this train. The engineer drove it around a big loop three times at a pretty high speed.

Chieko is sitting by herself, because Sara and the kids are in the caboose.

The caboose was a little scrunchy, so after Sara pried herself out, we road the train again in the open cars.

At the end of our evening (we left about 10 p.m.; the party went on until midnight), we attended a Glow in the Dark Tea Party in the Opera House, where we ate cake, cookies, and cucumber sandwiches with lemonade under black lights and with those glow things that you can make into bracelets. But we were told to leave the glow sticks on the table when we left. Tanner got hold of a broken one, and after that his hand and a spot on his nose glowed green for a while.

Before we left, Sara needed to feed Annabelle, so Jackson and I sat on the top rail of a fence cowboy style and looked out over a field at the stars while we waited. We saw an animal streak across the field that might have been a coyote, or a very fast house cat.

Up in this relatively dark valley, we could see the edge of the Milky Way galaxy, and I spent some time explaining to Jackson what the Milky Way is--like two dinner plates sandwiched together and spinning through space. The earth and our sun are on the dinner plates, and when we look out toward the edge of the dinner plates, we can see millions of stars that look like a band of milk. And so on. My explanation was rather lengthy.

At the end, Jackson said, "You know what, Grandpa?"

I said, "What?"

Jackson said, "When you talk you shake this rail."

Oh, and we did see a couple of meteors streak across the sky right after we came out of the tea party.

PS Our prayers are with little Owen.