Ancient History

"Map of the Salish Sea & Surrounding Basin, Stefan Freelan, WWU, 2009"
Per http://staff.wwu.edu/stefan/salish_sea.shtml the Salish Sea Map was produced using a Geographic Information System (GIS) and publically available spatial datasets for elevation, bathymetry and hydrology. 

BACK IN THE DAY: This week we had the opportunity to learn about some ancient history of our region. Specifically, about Salish Sea geology and about some of the life forms that inhabited land and water in the area.

I'll let the kids tell you a bit more about it, Annabelle's up first ... 

Thursday, Oct. 13, we went to the Mukilteo historical society meeting to listen to a presentation given by our uncle Jim (Haggart). The presentation was about what the Salish Sea was like 75 million years ago, and the creatures that lived there, mainly ammonites. Ammonites were small marine creatures with a shell that has a swirl in it. In the swirled shell the ammonite has many small chambers to hold gas or water, allowing it to change its buoyancy. Ammonites had many different variants. Some ammonites had more spike-like shells, while others had tall spiraled ones. It was very interesting learning about what these creatures were like and where you can find the fossils. It’s certainly fun learning about how fossils are found and what we can make of them. Jim also touched on how we, as humans, will once day be a fossil layer too. Imagine, years in the future, the inhabitants or visitors of Earth will find fossilized cell phones and speculate about our society, just like we have with the dinosaurs and other fossils ourselves.

And here's CJ's report ...

My uncle, Jim Haggart, is an adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia. He has a Bachelor's degree in Biology from the University of California, Davis, and, according to his profile at UBC's website, is a specialist in Mesozoic stratigraphy and paleontology, having undertaken research on successions of western North America, northern Europe, and east Asia. On 10/13, we got to visit one of Uncle Jim's presentations at the Rosehill Community Center, which is up north in Mukilteo. Jim's presentation was about life in the Salish Sea (which includes Puget Sound) about 75 million years ago, which was a very interesting subject.

When I walked in the unfortunately tiny room (the maximum capacity was just 45!), some of the first things I noticed were some shell fossils (and one modern shell) that were on a table near one of the corners of the room. I got a chance to ask Jim what creatures had the shells, and he said that the swirled shell fossils belonged to creatures called Ammonites, and that the modern shell resembling the fossils belonged to their present-day counterpart, the Nautilus. I later got a chance to ask Jim what differentiated the Ammonites and the Nautilus. He said that the Ammonites actually split off from the Nautilus about 475 million years ago, during the Ordovician. However, apparently, the reason the Ammonites died off, while the Nautilus continued into the modern day is apparently due to reproductive differences. While the Nautilus would lay eggs to distribute their offspring, Ammonites would use plankton to reproduce. However, using plankton to reproduce proved to be problematic for Ammonites during the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction about 66 million years ago.

According to the presentation and Jim's profile at the UBC website, Uncle Jim primarily studies prehistoric molluscs, such as Ammonites and earlier Nautilus. 
A while later, Jim talked about how the atmosphere during the Cretaceous period was very, very different, and had about 20-30 times more CO2 in the atmosphere than in the present day. The sea level was also higher, and there were little to no icecaps either. According to Jim, fossils are key to learning what Earth and life on Earth was like during the Cretaceous period. Sometimes, even things like ancient dinosaur tracks, while they are not complete fossils, can give some insight into what life lived in any given area.

One fossil that Jim talked about was the Courtenay (spelled that way) Elasmosaur, named for the town it was discovered in, Courtenay, California. According to the Courtenay Paleontology Museum's website, a man actually found the fossil of the Courtenay Elasmosaur in 1988 with his then-12-year-old daughter. According to the CPM's website, after months of investigation and correspondence with scientists such as the late Dr. Betsy Nicholls at the Royal Tyrrell Museum in southern Alberta, their discovery proved to be the first Elasmosaur recorded in British Columbia — the first of its kind west of the Canadian Rockies.

One more thing I would like to tell you about is getting fossils out of rocks. According to Jim, getting a fossil from a rock on a mountain or in a canyon into a museum is no walk in the park. Apparently, retrieving a fossil from a rock can take anywhere from 5 short minutes to hundreds of hours, depending on the tools you use, where the fossil is in the rock, and how efficiently you are working. Regardless of how long you take, you get to spend every second of that time working hard with your tools, trying to retrieve the ancient remains of some long-extinct species.

If possible, I would like to see Uncle Jim give a speech about prehistoric life again, and I look forward to the next time that will happen.
Online sources:
https://www.eoas.ubc.ca/about/associate/J.Haggart.html
http://edmondsbeacon.villagesoup.com/p/mukilteo-historical-society/1581520/309265
http://www.courtenaymuseum.ca/fossils-dinosaurs/the-elasmosaur-find/

Also that evening, near the beginning of the meeting, a member of the Mukilteo Historical Society gave a short history lesson about Mukilteo, such as talking about some of the city's earlier residents, and also brought up an old Abstract of Title, which grants somebody ownership over some land. For Example, Morris Frost and Jack Denny were both owners of a certain property in Mukilteo's past.

The map at the top of the post is from a Web page of Professor Stefan Freeland of Western Washington University. On the page, he also has a link to a number of other great resources, incuding a NOAA Salish Sea activity book.

WILD IS THE WIND: The Washington and Oregon coasts are being hammered by high winds for the past couple of days, as the remnants of typhoon Songda have hit our shores. Rain from the storm has been soaking Seattle and other Puget Sound area cities, and there have been some strong wind gusts, as well. Yesterday, I watched the transformer near our house arc and explode. It was pretty spectacular - and it left us without power for a couple of hours.

According to a Tweet from the National Weather Service ... 

NWS SeattleVerified account‏@NWSSeattle

#Seattle has tallied two consecutive days of record rain totaling 3.11". That's over an inch more than July thru Sept totals combined. #wawx

The worst of the storm is supposed to hit this afternoon, at about 4 p.m. Winds are predicted in the 55 mph range. This evening also happens to be when we are scheduled to go help provide a meal for 45 homeless youth. We'll see how that goes. Here's hoping the power holds out! 
  http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/.e/interactive/html5-video-media/2016/10/14/West_Coast_Storm_Forecast_Winds.mp4

Writing for the Empire

    Graphic from StarWars.com Web site: http://www.starwars.com/news/star-wars-reads-2016

STAR WARS FOREVER: Last year, we learned about the most excellent "Star Wars Reads" week that is an annual event each October for five years running. 

Here's a link to some activity pages for this year's celebration: http://a.dilcdn.com/bl/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2016/08/SWR_2016_Activites.pdf

Last year, the kids each wrote an original Star Wars-inspired story for an Empire Writes Back challenge at The Museum of Flight. 

They decided to write stories again this year. 

Annabelle took her inspiration from the droid star of "The Force Awakens," BB-8. We talked about it, and figured there must have been several BBs before 8, and so she wrote a Seuss-inspired story about the droids who came before.

The BBs Before

BB-8 is a phenomenal robot,

courageous it is, and as fast as a shot.

As droids go, it isn’t much of a talker,

but it held the key to finding Luke Skywalker.

It trekked across planets, and zoomed through space,

aiding the Rebels, it held an important place.

It’s easy to work with the droid BB-8,

and all who have met it think it’s pretty great.

But you haven’t heard of the ones who came first,

the other BBs were certainly much worse.

Solid and sturdy was the first, BB-1,

but the noises it made were not very fun.

It crashed and it rattled as it rolled around.

Its owner hated that atrocious sound.

Noisy droids are no good when you’re sneaking about

on a rebel mission, and trying to scout.

Instead of quietly hiding, it went CLICK-CLACK,

and soon fell victim to Stormtrooper attack.

BB-2’s A.I. was less-than-stellar.

Its master asked questions, but it refused to tell her.

Even other droids thought BB-2 was rude.

They believed the small droid had a large attitude.

So they decided to jettison the bad bot.

It was floating in space, and believe it or not,

soon it was caught, flying just past a border,

Into the territory of the evil First Order.

An annoying droid fit right in their scheme.

The First Order recruited the small, mean machine.

BB-3 got a virus. It was no surprise,

when BB-3 wasn’t working, it visited sites.

On the web, BB-3 wasn’t careful enough.

(You should always check before you download stuff.)

It started to fidget, and sparks went flying.

Motherboards overloaded, its circuits were frying.

Trojans and malware all over its system,

it tried to debug, but always missed them.

First Order Spyware is what it downloaded.

The next day, like the Death Star, it went and exploded.

BB-4 was quite smart, but much too slow.

When asked a question, it failed to load.

In fact, one time it took so darn long,

by the time it answered, its friends were all gone.

BB tried to speak faster, but to no avail,

it had frozen on Hoth, and was stuck in the hail.

Preserved by the ice, it looked like brand new,

but when it thawed, water  had seeped in, too.

It started to stutter, and shiver and shudder,

BB-4 shut down, and now it’s just clutter.

The droid BB-5 was a fun friend to all.

It loved being played with; you’d always have a ball.

With cool things like gadgets and gizmos galore,

it was super snazzy rolling ‘round the floor.

The kids loved interacting with the small round robot,

They watched movies, played games, and had fun a whole lot!

It was swell to adventure with the spherical droid,

because when you were with it, your problems were void.

But one day his lights started flashing all wildly.

Nothing responded, to put it quite mildly.

Alas, 5’s motherboard had just up and died,

It would not turn back on, it was totally fried.

BB-6’s debut seemed a little too rushed,

and in the process, its gyroscope was crushed.

Poor BB-6 couldn’t even roll around.

You would always find it where you put it down.

A droid like a statue, and not a bit lighter,

is no good if you’re a roving rebel fighter.

Though not mobile, BB-6 gave good advice,

in fact, it was quite a nice little device.

But a mobile droid is simply a must,

so it was abandoned on Jakku, where it now collects dust.

BB-7 was great in so many ways,

but sadly, its tour of duty lasted only two days.

Cocky and brash, and a show off, too.

It was always crowing, “Look what I can do!”

One day 7 tried to make a big jump,

and ended up landing in a garbage dump!

It was salvaged for parts, only yielding a handful,

a kind of destruction that no droid could handle.

So 7 was replaced, and soon was forgot,

and that was the end of that boastful bot.

So that’s the tale of the first seven BBs,

the ones not good as 8, as you see.

But BB-8’s grateful for those who came first,

because even the best can learn from the worst.

Time and progress march on, and that’s just fine,

for someday, that means, we’ll get a cool BB-9!

 

CJ's story was inspired by how Stormtrooper Finn left left the Empire behind, casting off his armor and joining the Rebels.  

The Man Behind the Mask

by CJ

Here we go again. Just another day at the office, trapped in a tin can with an army of a hundred faceless soldiers headed to some desolate outpost. These villagers aren't even going to know what hit them. And why we hit them doesn't even matter. It's certainly not their fault. At the end of the day, we're all just pawns in the First Order's evil plot for galactic domination.

Hurtling through solar systems, stuck in this prison of a starship, my hatred for the First Order grows with every passing moment. But it's something I must silently seethe over. I dare never speak out about my true feelings - how much I despise them, and myself for that matter. There’s no room for dissension or questioning in these ranks. Independent thought would mean execution on the spot.

As I sit contemplating my reason for being here, I remember that my life has been taken from me by the First Order. With every day, I find new reasons to loathe my captors. At the moment, one thing that's bugging me is the way my body feels in this hellish suit of armor. This getup terrifies those who see it from the outside, but believe me, being on the inside is no picnic in a meadow on Naboo.

Every day, I am forced to encase myself inside these Clone War hand-me-downs. Oh sure, the supervisor tells us with a painted-on-smile, “An upgrade is coming soon!"  Well, that's what they told the Empire's Stormtroopers thirty years ago. We all know there’s no intent of fulfilling their hollow promise of better armor. They don’t actually give a tauntaun’s tail about any of the troops who give their lives for the First Order's dubious goals.

This putrid helmet is tight and sweaty to the point I become nauseated. The lenses in my helmet are just as black as the space surrounding our ship, or as my soul on a miserable day like this. And the lenses are a bad joke. They’ve been mercilessly pelted by the sand of countless desert planets, becoming thrashed in the process. The armor compresses my chest to the point where breathing normally is all-but-impossible. Forever lightheaded, I've come very close to passing out too many times to count. Wearing this armor for hours on end every day kinda makes it feel like having a hutt forever parked on your chest.

And this armor gets as hot as the inside of one of Mustafar's molten volcanoes. Every single mission, within seconds, sweat starts sliding from my head all the way down to the bottom of my boots. There, it drenches my woven wampa socks. By the end of the day, I don’t know who smells worse, me or some filthy Wookiee.

   

I can’t help but wonder how many other stricken souls have sweat in this suit, and I wonder, where they are now? Maybe they're peacefully living out their lives with their loving families, sitting by the campfire, swapping stories on a serene forest moon like Endor. Maybe they get to tell their kids and grandkids about their days under the control of the evil First Order and how they broke free from its tyrannical grip to become heroic freedom fighters.

Yeah, right. Who am I kidding? Now that I think about it, the armor was probably harvested from the bodies of soldiers left for dead on a forgettable battleground.

There is no honor in this army. We’re intergalactic laughingstocks. I’ve seen all the memes about Stormtroopers, the countless people making fun our shooting skills, and the claims that we’re all just hive-minded losers. They have no idea. This is not the life I chose. This is a fate that was forced upon me, at gunpoint, while still but a boy. ...

The familiar voice crackles over the ship’s speaker, barking orders about readying our blasters and serving the Supreme Leader. My squadmates begin mindlessly rushing towards to exit of the ship. I sit, with images of the past, present, and potential futures swirling in my mind.

Slowly, so slowly, I stand and disarm my blaster.

It’s time to twist fate, to take control. I’d rather die today with a sliver of dignity than slowly lose what’s left of my sorry soul over an eternity.

Now I’m running down the ramp, knowing it will be the last time. My last seconds as a Stormtrooper. I’m either going to die right here on this planet, or I’m going to escape to a new life entirely.

May the Force be with me.

Clowning Around

CREEPY CAKE: Another weekend, another birthday, another cake to make. This go 'round it was for Rick. He, like me, detests clowns. Therefore, it only made sense that we make him a clown cake. 

Here was our to-do list for Saturday, authored by Annabelle. (More on the bead thing later.)

The first thing we got to doing for the clown was making teeth and eyes out of gumpaste. That was fun and easy. 

Our clown was modeled after Pennywise, as played by Tim Curry in Stephen King's "It" back in 1990 in a TV miniseries. When Pennywise was in attack mode, he had yellow-ish irises. 

 We actually made the clown's head out of crispy rice treat, molded.

 It had to be crumb coated before being covered in fondant.

 The head sat atop a round cake, made with rainbow batter. 

Oh how I wish I had red cotton candy for the clown's hair. Instead, I had to make spun sugar. That's a little bit tricky. My first four batches were a big failure.

 By the fifth time, I hit my stride, fortunately. 

In the end, our clown cake had funny looking hair that was hard to attach. Bummer. 
He was ugly and creepy, though, so that's a plus.If I had it to do over again, I would use that super thin red licorice for hair if I couldn't get red cotton candy.

 Annabelle had another clown art project. She made a scary clown out of Perler beads

It turned out really well! I mean, creepy, but that was the desired effect.

VIRAL ASSIGNMENT: This math problem was popping up all over social media today. So, I made it the kids' math homework. 

CJ had no trouble with it. Likewise, 

JUST PASSING BY:  There are lots of opportunities for Seattle area people to enjoy watching International Space Station flyovers in the next couple of weeks. It gets dark so early now that it doesn't even require staying up late.

Red and Black

INTO THE DARK: Summer is further and further in the rearview mirror. In fact, it feels like it's dark about 6 p.m. round here these days. 

A couple of nights ago, I sent the kids up to the garden to try to find some tomatoes for dinner. I also sent a flashlight and my phone's video camera with them. 
https://youtu.be/N-SrlFV92t0

Miserable Matinee

NO THANKS: This afternoon we had free passes to see a new IMAX move, "Voyage of Time." We were excited to go, and Christian even took off a little time from work to come see it (which meant he had to work late tonight). Unfortunately, attending was a poor choice. None of us liked the movie. Eight thumbs way down.

When Annabelle emailed me her review of the film. The subject line read: "Voyage of Time (AKA Oh dear god, why?)"

Here's what she had to say about the film. ... 

Voyage of Time is a “documentary” about the origin of Earth and life on Earth. It starts by showing us a random black screen with white text, addressing us as “My child” and telling the audience that the movie will “immerse” them in a world that includes them. It then shows a random little girl in a blue dress, staring at a flower while Brad Pitt (the narrator for this movie) calls her “my child” as well. The context is very confusing, but before you can think about it you’re launched into a collection of pictures of nebulas and stars. Somehow, with a few explosions and supernovas, we switch to a shot of early earth, floating in space. The sun is nowhere in sight, nor are the other planets, but Brad Pitt continues to explain that suddenly, in a thunderstorm coming out of thin air (quite literally, as the atmosphere hasn’t formed yet), it rains and earth is doused with water.

We see sweeping shots of rivers, craters, and steam. It’s not explained, but instead we get some flashy CGI showing blobs that are apparently bacteria. Then it somehow continues, in the span of less than 30 minutes, to go from the first land animals, to dinosaurs, to giraffes, humans, and then love accompanied by pictures of whales, with random cuts to our original blue-dress girl in-between. It almost seems like a mishmash of poorly written versions of theories, such as showing baboons and chimpanzees, and then cutting directly to early humans, implying that this evolution happened in a split second while our backs were turned.

It could definitely use improvement, and maybe if they hadn’t restricted themselves to a 45-minute run time and randomly pausing to make the dialogue dramatic, they could have told more of a story. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it unless you really, desperately need a quick way to learn the history of earth and are willing to spend most of your time listening to “dramatic” reading and looking at random pictures of stars and a little girl in a blue dress.

CJ's scathing review. 

"This film has been rated G"-The MPAA rating of Voyage Of Time: The IMAX Experience, displayed at the end of the film.

G ... For Godawful.

A short while back, my mom got tickets for a free preview screening of this promising-looking documentary film. We could see it at the Pacific Science Center's breathtaking Boeing IMAX theater, being extremely large and high-quality. The film we went to see is known as Voyage Of Time: The IMAX Experience, which, according to the film's page at the PacSci website, a one-of-a-kind celebration of life and the grand history of the cosmos, transporting audiences into a vast yet up-close-and personal journey that spans the eons from the Big Bang to the dinosaur age to our present human world … and beyond.

At least, that's what we were promised.

Voyage of Time opens with a bizarre shot of Flash Gordon serial-style text scrolling down the screen, complete with Brad Pitt's disembodied voice addressing "My Child", who is the unfortunate viewer in this case. Brad Pitt then asks "My Child" to watch his movie, which we can already tell will be a beautiful journey.

Cut to Earth being created while unfitting opera singing plays in the background! After the Earth gets created, we get gratuitous shots of islands made of hardened lava, complete with some Ms. Butterworths lava dripping down the rocks. After Brad Pitt provides some forgettable dialogue, we see bacteria. Bacteria that is there to bore the audience. After Brad Pitt tells us about the bacteria, we jump a few eons into the future and get cuttlefish (this is probably the best part of the movie). After we see some creepy-cute cuttlefish staring at us with the magic of CGI, we see proto-mammals. Uninteresting proto-mammals. Here are some dinos! Not like there were any eons with interesting life between the cuttlefish and these guys, right? Right‽

Suddenly, Brad Pitt lectures us about the beauty of being alive and being able to breathe air. Like this isn't something you do every day. But then we see the meteor that kills the dinos. Bummer.

Then, life finds a way and giraffes appear! Can't forget the baboons, chimps, and a bit later, the primitive humans, right?

We get an extended sequence where the humans start hunting and exploring and all that crap that you can get better info about in other places.

The film ends with this irrelevant shot of a girl sitting down in a parking lot. Though she was introduced at the beginning of the movie, she feels very out of place with all the shots of the prehistoric life.

That's the recap of this dumpster of a documentary. As we hear in the movie, Mr. Pitt got hid diploma in narration from the WilliAM ShaTNEr SchOOl oF NarrAtiOn, where you learn how to stutter and speak oddly. The film provides some shoehorned attempts to make you emotional for the animals, like including an out-of-place sequence where Brad Pitt tells us about love among whales (yes, really. To see a better example of love among whales in cinema, see Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home) and other speculation presented as fact. If you ever feel the need to watch this, whether it be on the same screen that much better movies like The Avengers or Star Wars: The Force Awakens played on or on Hulu or Netflix, you're only watching for the cuttlefish.

Actually, I think they may have been too kind. I walked out of the theater muttering that was 45 minutes of my life I'd never get back and wondering why I struggled to stay awake during the movie. I should have at least gotten a nap out of the deal. 

Pretentious, and abound with theories presented as fact, I detested the movie. Sure, it was visually appealing in parts, but that didn't make up for the annoyances, by my measure. I sure am glad we didn't pay for the tickets. 

On the way out, we noticed this poster. Now *there's* a movie that we'll most certainly enjoy more.

CALLING CARDS: Annabelle continues to leave little art objects out and about during our travels. Here's a tiny narwhal she left on a window ledge. Hopefully it brought a smile to someone.

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!