Go Fourth

                          
Image Credit: NASA
ROCKET'S RED GLARE:  OK, so there's not really any rocket fire from NASA's Space Launch System yet - but soon, they say. 

Once the advanced, heavy-lift launch vehicle is operational, it will be the most powerful rocket in history, per NASA.

SLS is designed to carry the new Orion spacecraft, as well as transfer important cargo. The system is designed to provide the U.S. with a safe, affordable and sustainable means to expand our reach in the solar system. Hopefully one day it will carry astronauts to asteroids, Mars and maybe beyond.

SCRAMBLED STATES: While perusing a Goodwill store yesterday, we came across a game based on the "Scrambled States of America" book.

Since we've been working on memorizing states lately, and we love that book, we snatched the game up right away.

It was a good decision. The game is lots of fun, and you can't help but learn more about the states as you play. CJ won, beating Annabelle by one card. Christian and I didn't fare too well. :/

FIREWORKS FRONT ROW: This evening we'll be heading down to Lake Union, 'ground zero' for Seattle's official fireworks show.

As super good luck would have it, one of Christian's family members is pilot of a boat moored on the lake right now. Pictured below, it's very close to the barge which will be shooting off the fireworks. Should be a heckuva view!

SAM I Am

FREE & FINE:  So, the Seattle Public Library has a neat-o deal where one lucky library card holder or so per day gets a free museum pass for an attraction in the greater metro area. Weeks ago I'd hopped online at the appointed time and scored us a free pass to the Seattle Art Museum for July 3.

As I was planning our trip this morning, it took me about 10 seconds to figure out that this happens to be first free Thursday (the first Thursday of the month SAM is open free to all comers) and so our coupon was for naught. Oh well, SAM, here we come! 

Not surprisingly, it was crowded, and there were multiple daycare/summer camp groups there. 
As always, the Ford Tauruses (is that a word?) hanging over the entry drew the throngs of kids' oohs and aahs.  Unfortunately, beyond this big display, the groups of kids seem mostly disinterested in the art, and were far more interested in taking selfies. They were about  5-11 in age. But I digress. 

One of the first works of art we encountered was this, on the floor of a gallery. It was a black and white print of a woman with a big ol boulder on her head. Yay art! :)

I actually rather liked it and imagined all the portraits and people I could put boulders on. ... 

We spent a lot of time admiring Pacific Northwest Natives' art.

When we spied this totem pole, I couldn't help but wonder if it was one of the earliest examples of the dreaded 'duck face' selfie.

We also studied many an African mask. 

And we admired amazing textiles, including this kimono, more than 100 years old

 CJ started a staring contest with this portrait of Dr. Silvester Gardiner by John Singleton Copley. 

CJ lost that contest. 

We all loved this whimsical sculpture of a rodent atop a sleeping man's quilt. 

And we couldn't leave without creating some art of our own!

I expected Annabelle would be all over it ...  

 but I was also glad to see CJ get in on the act, too. 

Here's his drawing.

HOME SWEET HOME: This evening we watched a brand new episode of Anthony Bourdain: The Layover, where he spends 48 hours checking out foodie points of interest in a city. Tonight's city: Seattle!

It was fun to see him visit many a restaurant we've been to, and certainly our list of Must Visits has grown. Link to the episode summary here: http://www.travelchannel.com/tv-shows/the-layover/episodes/seattle

Wednesday

FAMILIAR FOOTSTEPS: For our morning stroll we headed to the hilltop to our east, Queen Anne. We parked on the crown at the south end, and ogled old Queen Anne High School's architecture for a bit.

We also relived some very-not-fond memories of CJ's kindergarten year at John Hay Elementary back in the day. I was surprised to see the playground there is still so prison yard like, given the relative wealth of their PTA.

We walked the neighborhood, and of course had to walk past my paternal grandparents family home of many decades. The old home looks wonderful. I'd love to walk around its halls again some day. 

We enjoyed the neighborhood's views of Seattle Center, and admired all of the flowers in bloom.

We stared up at the huge radio towers, too. 

SIZING IT UP: Today we got to pondering how big (or small) our sun would look if you were standing on Pluto.  We ended up finding a great "Bad Astronomy" article all about that topic. Turns out that our sun would just be a bright point of light in the sky, somewhat like stars appear to us here on Earth. However, it would be considerably brighter than the stars in our sky. In fact, according to yet another informative "Bad Astronomy" article, the sun would look more than 250 times brighter than the full Moon does from Earth

That led us to wonder about the difference, if any, of daytime and nighttime skies on Pluto. 

We found a cool artist's concept sketch from the European Southern Observatory of what the view from the Plutonian surface might look like. Here, the bright spot in the sky on the right is the sun, and Pluto's moon (or satellite) Charon is shown on the left. 

Pluto's orbit is very elliptical, ranging from 4.4 billion km to just over 7.3 billion km from the Sun. However, the average distance is 5.9 billion kilometers, which means it's about 39 times the Earth’s distance from the sun we share. Interestingly enough, though Pluto's so far away from ol Sol, it would still look 250 times brighter than a full moon looks on Earth. 

STORYBOARDING: We finally started putting down on paper a picture book idea we've been talking about for well over a year. We have a draft of the first few pages, and Annabelle has completed Page 1's artwork. It will have to remain under wraps for awhile though. Stay tuned.

FROZEN: The kids have been having fun with the Rocket Pop molds this summer. Here, they hold a lovely concoction consisting of Diet Mountain Dew and gummy Smurfs. A delicacy, I'd say. 

EYE CANDY: The Facebook feed produced a link to a lovely tribute to Seattle's beauty. Called "Seattle Dream Pt. II, the video was made by F-Stop Seattle using over 50,000 photos and 51 time lapsed photo shoots. 
Seattle Dream Pt. II from F-Stop Seattle on Vimeo.

Water World

PADDLING ABOUT:  Though we'd had a big Sunday, with about 7+ hours of pride parade activities, Monday morning we were up and out early, ready for another adventure.

Our Honda Fit was due for a recall-related service, and we took it to Seattle Honda, in the South Lake Union neighborhood. Knowing we'd have a couple hours to kill, we decided to use a Groupon we had for a couple of double kayak rentals at nearby Moss Bay, in Chandlers' Cove, at the southeast 'corner' of the lake.  

The staff was friendly and efficient and we were on the water in no time, Christian and Annabelle in one kayak, CJ and I in another.

I'm not gonna lie, I was a little afraid at first. It was my inaugural kayaking tour, it's a busy lake, it was choppy, planes are landing in the water by is, huge ships (some moving!) are around us, then there were dozens of other pleasure boaters and paddlers. My (crappy) pictures reflected my unease, so I don't have many to share. However, after about 20 minutes, we settled in to a not-terrifying pattern, thankfully. :)

Here's one of the Kenmore Air's planes coming in for a landing near us.

We paddled past the Museum of History and Industry a couple of times. It's one of our favorite spots to peruse as landlubbers (the building on the left, with the blue stripe.

We ventured semi-near the Aurora Bridge, but it would have taken more than our two-hour newbie paddle to make it there and back in our 2-hour rental window. 

We got a good look at the bow of the old Duwamish, a 123-foot, 1909 riveted steel fireboat that patrolled Seattle’s waterfront until 1985. It's parked near MOHAI now.

We saw an old Navy ship, the Assertive (the one on the right, below), a Stalwart class  Modified Tactical Auxiliary General Ocean Surveillance Ship on the east shore of the lake.  I found an eight-year-old Seattle Times article stating the ship was going to be converted to a NOAA research vessel. Looks like that's a long way from happening by my eyes. 

So I found a Wiki article about it and the NOAA project was a no-go, as were a couple of other proposed uses. It sounds like the poor ol' Assertive isn't going anywhere anytime soon. 

All in all, it was a wonderful couple of hours on the water.

FAB BOOK: On my last trip to the library, I spied a brand new kids' book about The Beatles! I snatched it up quickly!

Although CJ and Annabelle are pretty well versed in The Beatles since they completed a college course on the topic, there is still plenty to learn, as they found by reading this book. Also, the illustrations are really fun. :)   In addition to being entertaining, the book consciously made an effort to tie in with national curriculum requirements for studying social history of the 1960s in primary grades, and it shows how The Beatles influenced (and continues to influence) generations, showing their music in the context of a decade of social and scientific breakthroughs. 

OVERSTATED: A few things to catch up on. For starters, this weekend we took a walking field trip over to Lawton Elementary, where I recalled they had a big map of the U.S.A. painted on their playground. I thought it would provide a good opportunity for CJ and Annabelle to practice placing states on a map. 

We played a game where they had to work their way across the U.S., coast to coast, but could only progress if they were naming the neighboring state they were stepping onto. It proved a little challenging in that darn Midwest and Mississippi delta region.  ;)

Also worth noting: Lawton has recently repainted the murals on the concrete walls lining the playground. We four all deemed them a big improvement over what was previously there.

Rainbow Connection

PRIDE APLENTY: Sunday, we attended the Seattle Pride parade for the first time. What an experience! It's one of the largest pride parades in the nation, and we knew there would be a big crowd, so we checked out a map of the parade route, and on Saturday night, went and stashed a car (filled with lawn chairs, rain tarps, blankets, snacks and such) a block away from its start. Sunday morning, we caught an 8:30 bus to downtown, retrieved our supplies, and easily secured front row spots in the parade's first block. Score!

I was happy to find he kindly looked right at my camera during one shot. Way to hit the mark, George! His acting training is showing through. :)\

George's husband Brad was with him. Brad had on a great hat featuring an old Mariners trident logo on the front and on the side there was a riff on Hall of Fame broadcaster Dave Neihaus' famous "My oh my!" proclamation, with the second myyy being spelled with a few extra ys, as a nod to George Takei's book "Oh Myyy, There Goes the Internet."  Brad also runs a popular Facebook page "Oh Myyy" 

We were surprised to see Seattle-based rapper Macklemore in the parade, as that wasn't pre-announced. He was riding top a sweet old Cadillac Seville.   The crowd pretty much freaked out when he came rolling by.

There were politicos in the parade, as well, including Seattle Mayor Ed Murray and his husband, who is a Seattle Parks Department administrator.  

There were lots of colorful costumes. We saw a Caped Crusader ... 

and some rainbow dalmatians.

There were a number of church contingents, including some unofficial marchers before the parade. They were warning parade watchers to repent and turn away from sin and debauchery (as they define it). 

They were met with smiles and polite rebukes and reminders to "Judge not, that ye be not judged." (Matthew 7:1-3 KJV). 

Other church groups participating were open and embrace diversity. In fact, my favorite sign of the day was carried by a woman in a church contingent. It read "I love gay people. Or, as I call them, 'people."  

Good one. :) 

We saw lots of motorcycles (including a group called Hells Fairies!).  

                            
There were some cool cars, too. Check out this funky paint job!

And this "Barbie's Dream Hearse" was my personal favorite. 

There were dozens of corporate groups marching, including 'GLAmazons' from Amazon. 

The lovely person above bought Annabelle a beaded necklace at 9:30 that morning, 90 minutes before the parade's start. 

The event was billed as the city's biggest ever pride parade. It started right on time at 11 and let me tell you, it was FOUR ENTIRE HOURS of fun. That's a long darn parade. 

And since we were on the first half block of it, the kids got So. Much. Swag. Bracelets, necklaces, sunglasses, t-shirts, stickers, temporary tattoos, postcards, sunscreen, shopping bags, and candy, Candy, CANDY. At one point Annabelle declared, "This is better than Halloween. We don't even have to go anywhere - they come to us!"

CJ and Annabelle probably got more than their fair share of stuff because they were decked out in My Little Pony hoodies, and CJ had his Rainbow Dash socks on with shorts, and Annabelle had on pants she'd made with fabric that had many a rainbow printed on it. 

All told, it was big fun to see so many happy people in one place. 

You can check out my whole Seattle Pride photo album on Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/9430651@N03/

FLOATING SAUCER:  Saturday afternoon we had one TV on World Cup soccer and another on NASA-TV, watching live coverage of the first Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) test flight. 

In the future, NASA expects technologies like LDSD will be used in order to get larger payloads to Mars, and pave the way for future human explorers. The technology is expected to enable delivery of supplies and materials needed for long-duration missions to the Red Planet.

As we watched, a high-altitude balloon launch occurred from the U.S. Navy's Pacific Missile Range Facility in Kauai, Hawaii. the Hawaiian island facility.  The balloon lifted the saucer-shaped LDSD aloft, to a height of about 120,000 feet over the Pacific Ocean, at which point it dropped the saucer.  The vehicle splashed down in the ocean at approximately 2:35 p.m. our time, the engineering test flight concluded. Fortunately, the test vehicle hardware, black box data recorder and parachute were all recovered.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
For more information about the LDSD space technology demonstration mission, go to: http://go.usa.gov/kzZQ