July 25th 2015- Goldendale Washington

This past week Mary and I had the unusual experience of having 48 hours offline and having to figure out where to go.  What to do?    The work week was pretty intense for me, so I was not paying much attention; I figured we could go anywhere for 48 hours and have a great time.  Toward the end of the week, though, Mar mentioned to me that she'd been looking at areas around Mt. Adams (a place we haven't been for a decade) and that she thought we should run east and north and base our short excursion out of Goldendale.   

Suddenly, I had a revelatory moment.   Goldendale was one of the places that Dad loved dearly and wanted to share with  people because the Astronomical Observatory  there was a treasure.  It is one of only ten 'dark sky' scopes on the planet, a resource beyond measure.  Dad would take busloads of students on field trips to view the stars and planets.

I had another epiphany as I realized we were rolling out on our short getaway just days from the anniversary of Dad's birth, July 28th.   He would have been 90 years old.   I could not imagine a better destination than Goldendale,  following in my father's footsteps on a path he loved deeply but which I'd never shared. 

So it was that Mar and I joined the large group of interested fans of astronomy at the Goldendale Observatory on Saturday evening before Dad's birthday.  The setting sun provided spectacular views of Mt. Adams and the slow unveiling of the night sky.  We looked through the reflecting telescope at the moon and were charmed by the 'whoa' from the kids looking through the lens.  We looked at the tiny image of Saturn and its rings through the big telescope.  Surrounded by scores of families and individuals who clearly cared about astronomy and wanted to experience and understand it,  I felt that I was standing next to Dad and taking joy from the eagerness around me.  Fitting, I think, for the commemoration.