 Happy New Year and thank you Longview!
We had a terrific turnout Dec. 21 for our first-ever Solstice Lantern Walk through the Solar System. We brightened the longest night and celebrated the return of longer days and we met great people. Here are some highlights. Under clear skies and a nearly full moon, we estimate that 400 - 500 people walked from the Sun to Pluto. What a great bunch of happy people - many walkers were dressed up with lanterns and lights. Our route followed the Solar System Walk given to the City of Longview by the Friends of Galileo Astronomy Club in 2001. The walk is a series of granite markers showing the relative distances between the Sun and the planets. The markers follow the path on the west side of Lake Sacajawea, over 1.64 miles. (Map of Solar System Walk) We had passports for people to take to each planet to get a stamp. The event was so popular we ran out of passports. Thank you to Pat and Rena at Copies Today / Speedy Litho for donating the printing for our passports! They looked great! (speedylitho.com) We had a variety of community groups sponsoring planets or otherwise helping with this event. The planets were lit up in a small way or in a big way. Kids got candy at several planets, and people got to know some of the great clubs in our community. Our judges Marin, Ava and Noel walked the whole route and judged each planet on these criteria:
We will announce the winner of the Out of This World Award and the People's Choice Award (thank you, online voters) at our next club meeting (details below). * * * * * If you walked the whole Solar System (3.7 billion miles!), you saw: The Sun - Friends of Galileo Astronomy Club started off the event with lanterns and passports and candy for the kids. friendsofgalileo.com Mercury - Kelso Freemasons Lodge #94 demonstrated that Masons are solid people. We had sponsors who had physical difficulties setting up and taking down - thank you Mike, Don, Craig, and Katie for jumping right in to help. bluelodge-wa.org/kelso94/our_lodge.htm Venus - Girl Scouts of Western Washington made Venus one of our most popular planets. They even had line ups! It might have had something to do with cookies. And thank you, Girl Scouts, for also helping other sponsors. girlscoutsww.org Earth - Longview Garden Club had an interesting projection on the inside of their canopy. Did you see it? longviewgardenclub.org Santa Claus - He traveled between the Sun and Mars. Ho ho ho! Mars - Shinju Dojo Aikido was our first planet sponsor! A lot of people were interested to learn about a low-impact, non-competitive martial art, taught right here in Longview. shinjudojo.com Jupiter - Longview Freemasons Lodge #263 sure added a lot of light to a dark evening, with an antique lantern collection. longviewlodge.org Saturn - The Lilac Academy for Bright and Curious Girls did a terrific job with a booth - and with lighting up the path for hundreds of feet. Well done, home schoolers! (They're awesome and really should make a web site) Uranus - The Boy Scouts of America, Cascade Pacific Council didn't just have a good set up and interesting information about their planet ("12 Facts About Uranus"!), they added s'mores and a warming tent! Both were very welcome at that point in the walk. cpcbsa.org Sacajawea - Stageworks Northwest Theatre definitely had the largest planet team. Check out their plays - maybe next time we can talk them into short performances during the Solstice Walk. stageworksnorthwest.com Neptune - Even with TWO astronomy clubs involved in this event, the Mount St. Helens Hiking Club was the only one to bring along a telescope. mtsthelensclub.org Pluto - Four members of Rose City Astronomers came all the way from Portland to set up at the far end of the solar system. Check out their calendar for events next time you're in Portland. rosecityastronomers.net The Space Shuttle Friends of Galileo member Chuck Ring drove a van between the Sun and Pluto for those unable to walk the round trip. Phil Sari of Columbia Ford generously loaned us the van. Thank you, Phil and Chuck! colford.net Thank you also to - Andrea Horton of Gyros Gyros Restaurant for your generous financial donation (Gyros-Gyros on Facebook) - Emiley Siters for loaning us canopies from Youth and Family Link. linkprogram.org * * * * * Most of all, thank you everyone who came out for a new event! You got a chance to meet some of the terrific people here in Longview and to learn about local clubs. Do you want another Solstice Lantern Walk in 2019? Come to the next meeting of Friends of Galileo Astronomy Club and help make it happen. Next meeting: 7:00 PM, Wednesday, January 16, 2019 Mark Morris High School, Physics classroom D8 Directions and map on our About page Happy New Year!
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