I am floating somewhere between cloud nine and heaven.
Okay, so maybe I'm not that high up, but I am pretty much a happy being. Monday night at the observatory was beyond Epic. Yes, Epic with a capital “e” because it was just that amazing.
Laura and I had been floating around all day doing this and that (which did include a trip to D.I.) when we decided to retire to our rooms for a little while before going to work. It was 6:15 when I received a call from Professor Cotts, who is in charge of the Astronomy department, telling me that there were five cars worth of people waiting for us at the observatory. Now there were two astounding things about this: a) we don't open until seven o'clock during the month of November and b) the most we get is a group of scouts numbering perhaps twelve kids, a few parents, and the leaders. Five cars worth of people was nothing short of insane.
So, I scrambled from my room and got Laura before we dashed over to the Ashcroft with all haste. When we got there lo and behold there were five cars full of people waiting for us, and before we got everyone settled we ran out of seats. For the first time that I know of the observatory was so full some people had to stand during the presentation, and as things continued we got more and more people flooding in.
The source of this excitement? Last Wednesday there was a story in The Spectrum about the observatory and about how Laura and I work there, and it just so happened that they re-printed the story on the front page for the Monday edition. Exciting much? When my institute teacher gave me a copy of the story this morning I couldn't help but laugh because Laura and I had no idea that it had been re-printed (we were really confused when people kept mentioning the story in that day's paper about us).
There was just one big problem. For the past month our poor thirty year old telescope, which is a big beastly orange thing, has been out of alignment. We had contacted Professor Cotts about it, but as of yet nothing had been done about it and we were being flooded with people. So, in a panic, I dashed up to the dome to escape the flood of people and placed an emergency call to the professor in hopes of getting someone up to fix the telescope. Professor Cotts was understandably stunned at the number of people crammed into the observatory, but she promised she would call a guy by the name of Neil (who I figured was a professor) to come and fix the telescope. I didn't really expect him to come, but, since we had three more groups on the way and there was some chance of him coming, I went outside to wait anyway.
It wasn't more than ten minutes before a figure came charging out of the darkness with a book on the universe in hand and blew past me with a smile. I was, in a word, shocked because he couldn't be more than a few older than me. Was this Neil? Since there was no sign of the other groups in sight I slipped up into the dome and, wonder of wonders, there was the guy from moments before already working on fixing the telescope. We quickly got past the introductions (he already knew who I was, no shock there) before going back to dealing with the literal flood of humanity that had converged on our tiny observatory.
To make a long story short I will simply give you the larger picture for the rest of my night at the Ashcroft. Laura and I were there from 6:25 until 9:10 at night, and during that time we filled the room several times over and gave six presentations—which doesn't include the two presentations Neil gave outside. We figure over sixty people came to the observatory and two or three other groups had called asking about the coming Monday. Not only were the numbers epic but I learned that Mars is starting to come up sooner along with Orion and Taurus...and I learned how to fix the alignment on the telescope. By the time we sent the last group away and had turned off the porch light Laura and I were tired (I don't know how Neil was doing).
Somehow Laura and I managed to get the whole thing locked up before we climbed into my boat of a car, and soon we were back on our way to the comfort of our dorm rooms. But the story doesn't end there my friends! Neil was following along behind us, and when we got onto what turns into Center Street in Cedar City things got amusing... Yeah, pretty sure Neil started to race us down that street without really intending to. It wasn't until we hit the light right near the Wendy's that it turned into a real race, and that was because Neil did the challenging edging forwards while laughing his head off at us. Oh yes, we accepted and the game was on. I will admit that driving a Crown Victoria was at a disadvantage, especially when he was driving a lighter drifter-style car, but I was determined to win anyway. We shot off along Center Street at a grand five miles over the speed limit, and Neil quickly gained something of a lead. But! Slowly we edged forward, and it seemed we were going to have some chance of at least tying when suddenly Neil put on his brakes. Before Laura and I knew it Neil was behind us, and we had won. I was confused but definitely giddy.
It was a beautiful night of good laughs, record numbers, and handsome geeks in shining glasses. What about that wouldn't be wonderful? Now if I could figure out whether or not the handsome geek already has a girlfriend...
