Far Afield

WATERSHED MOMENTS: This morning was non-typical for the 'campus.' Christian and the kids struck out on a field trip while I stayed behind to tend to some business. It confused the dogs. ;)

The trio's destination was the Cedar River Watershed Educational Center. Located in North Bend, about a hour southeast of Seattle, it's nestled above the shores of Rattlesnake Lake in the Cascade foothills. The watershed is where Seattle and Bellevue get the bulk of their drinking water. 

The field trip group was met by a docent who explained the overall ins and outs of the facility and the water cycle to the group.

 After the intro, it was a self-directed tour with a number of interactive displays. 

 Each visitor was given a ball with a number on it, and they tracked that ball through the whole water cycle system.

One station was a scale that showed how many gallons of water the visitor had in their body. CJ apparently has around 11.7 gallons of water within.

 Annabelle has a couple gallons less. 

CJ enjoyed reading the signs on the displays and was frustrated that he didn't get to read each and every one. He's itching to go back.  

 Binoculars let visitors take in a view of Rattlesnake Ridge. 

I couldn't help but wonder why the name 'rattlesnake' since there really aren't any rattlers around here. The field trip trio said that it was explained at the interpretive center that the origin is unknown. The accepted theory is that camas plant (Camassia) was prevalent in the area. The plant has flowers on stalks which form into seed pods. When wind hits the seed pods, it makes a rattling sound, hence the name of geographical features in the area. Interesting!

CJ offers this review of the field trip: 

For thousands of years, animals and humans in Washington have inhabited the Cedar River, as well as the area surrounding the river. The Cedar River is near-east of my hometown, Seattle, and a watershed facility installed nearby filters and cleans the water to provide to Seattle's citizens. On October 5, we visited the Cedar River Watershed Education Center, which, as its name implies, is a place where you can learn more about the watershed and the history of the watershed. When we visited the watershed, our tour lasted about two hours, and I feel like I learned some very interesting things over there.

First off, I learned about the water cycle. As Wikipedia describes it, the water cycle describes the continuous movement of water on, above and below the surface of the Earth. Chances are, if you happen to live on planet Earth (and even several places that aren't Earth), you have drank quite a bit of water, and seen some of the places water will go in the water cycle. According to the museum (and a pamphlet given to me at the museum), water, among other places, can go to the clouds, snow, ocean, plants, animals, rivers, and the water in question can and will often become groundwater at one point or another. An interesting factoid I learned at the Education Center was the fact that a 4-gallon jug of water would last just a single minute in the shower. As I learned later in the museum, showers can actually use up quite a bit of water, and it is easy to waste several gallons in the shower. According to the museum, ways you can save water in the shower include installing a low-flow shower head, which can save about half the water you would use in a shower of the same length, as well as just taking shorter, more efficient showers.

Outside the museum, I have sometimes hear people complaining about how their tap water tastes dirty, even when the water is supposedly clean. As I learned from the museum, in most cases like these, the dirty taste can be attributed to blue-green algae. If I remember correctly, in the summertime, blue-green algae starts dying, and releases a chemical in the process into its body of water. Even when this water is thoroughly cleaned and purified, like the water I drink here in Seattle, it can still taste dirty due to the chemicals from the blue-green algae.

People often assume that bottled water that you can buy from the store is better in some capacity than the tap water that they can walk to their faucet and get. While it is apparently true that water bottling companies will sometimes alter the water they put in their bottles and sell to consumers, according to the museum, often times, they just bottle tap water and then sell it! Personally, I think it would be interesting to do a taste test between identically sized and sourced 2 servings of tap water, with the only difference being the vessel (glass vs. plastic bottle), and then seeing if the consumers in the test thought that the servings were different.

One fact that I knew before, but still surprised me to an extent, is the fact that about 70% of your body is composed of water. In the museum, there was a scale where I could stand and learn how many gallons of water are in my body. According to the scale, there were about 11.6 gallons of water in my body, which genuinely surprised me. At an earlier point in the trip, I got to ask Christopher, one of the people working at the Education Center, what would happen to your body. Chris said that you would almost instantaneously die, and that your body would be comparable to a dried raisin.

I look forward to visiting the Cedar River Watershed Education Center again, and I wonder what new things I will learn that time.

MEANWHILE, IN WEST TEXAS: This morning, there was an important test conducted by Kent, Washington's own Blue Origin. As part of the current 'space race' to get USA-based manned spaceflight back on track, the New Shepard test was a safety check to make sure the crew capsule can safely escape a rocket launch.

We've watched the video three times now and it's still oh-so-exciting. 
https://youtu.be/bqUIX3Z4r3k

Blue Origin peeps are probably having a big party tonight. It appeared the capsule drifted back down to Earth perfectly under parachutes.

But the crew capsule landing wasn't the end of the story. Keep watching the video to watch the Blue Origin rocket come on back down to Earth. This particular rocket has successfully landed on Earth FIVE times now. Reusable components is the future of spaceflight, and Blue Origin is part of that.

The video narrators mentioned the capsule and rocket would be returning to Kent post flight. We're going to write to Blue Origin and ask where and when we might be able to see them!