Stargazing

Last night, was perfect. It wasn't all that cold outside, it was really dark out, and the skies were crystal clear. The moon was huuugggee and just beneath it, was a small point of light.


I was a little surprised when my dad got home from work and he suggested we go outside and use the telescope that I got for my birthday a few years ago. We don't use it a lot, and I was kind of in the middle of writing a super intense scene. But how could I possibly pass up looking at the moon and stars through a telescope?


So my dad, my brother (Ryan) and I all went outside. The lenses of the telescope were pretty dusty, but the sky was so clear that it hardly mattered. Through the scope, you could see the shadows of the craters on the edge of the moon, and it was amazing. We could have just stared at the moon all night, but I started to become curious about what the tiny point of light was under it.


We shifted the telescope and I got it into view. It definitely wasn't a star. It was much too close to be a star. But it was so bright that at first we thought it was Venus. This is about what it looked like: 

After a few seconds of looking at it though, I knew it couldn't be Venus. Venus doesn't have any moons. The tiny points of light around the planet are. I ended up narrowing it down to either Jupiter or Saturn because they both have a ridiculous amount of moons. And then Saturn has rings (at least, rings that we can see), so I decided that it had to be Jupiter.

When it turned out that it actually was Jupiter, I was pretty impressed with my astronomical object identification skills! As far as planets go anyway...

Then we got busy with the iPad, pointing it up at the sky and identifying the stars. (Seriously, there's this really awesome app. that allows you to point the camera at the sky and it will tell you what the object is! How cool is that?!!) We got to see Vega, the Ring Nebula, Altair (seeing that star was awesome because not only is it a very bright star in the night sky, it's also the name of one of my characters :) ), and even our lovely neighboring galaxy, M31 aka the Andromeda!

(Jupiter)

(Ring Nebula)

(Altair :D )

(Andromeda Galaxy... how inspiring is that!?)

All in all, it was a wonderful, inspirational night!

--Jess

Approaching the Rockies

Hello my bloggie friends! I've finally gotten a few precious minutes to write this post, so I'll try to be brief.

First of all, we're almost in the Rocky Mountains! I can see the outline of them from where I'm writing this and it's really cool! It's so weird how much flat land there is between Ohio and Washington... We're in Wyoming right now and might be visiting Yellowstone National Park in a day or two (I'll be keeping my fingers crossed). We went to go see Mt. Rushmore yesterday while we were still over in South Dakota. Here are a few pics:

(George, Thomas, Teddy and Abe)

Me and my new friends ;)

If you haven't seen them, you really missing out. I think it's so amazing how people actually carved these faces out of the side of that huge rock wall. I can hardly make a face out of a tiny ball of clay! These guys must have been really special to do something this big. Anyway, that was just for yesterday. Today we went to go see the Devil's Tower which was absolutely fantastic. Another 'must see' if you haven't seen it already. Here are a few pics of that.

This gigantic tower that formed from magma pressing up on the ground eventually creating this amazing formation is breathtaking. The coolest part is that you can see it from quite a few miles away since the land around it is pretty flat.

Seeing that was just about the most exciting thing that happened today. I'm still so surprised about how much progress we've made across the country! We'll be in Seattle in a few days!

Anyway, that's what's going on in the physical world. As far as my novel goes, well, I'm a little disappointed. I've had time to edit in the car but I don't feel like I'm making as much progress. Even worse, I haven't kept up with all of your blogs (even though I said I would...). In fact, I've hardly checked at all. So, sorry about that, guys :(


But. Here's the good news. When we get to Seattle, I'm buying myself my very own computer! It's going to be a small one, but who cares! My own baby laptop is better than no laptop at all! Hopefully then I'll be able to keep up with everything going on in the blogosphere! And you won't believe how excited I am for that!


What's up for you guys this week? How's you're W.I.P. coming along?


--Jess


P.S.

We saw this little guy on the way to the Devil's Tower and I think he really wanted say 'hi' to everyone!

Morning On The Water

The birds are singing shyly,

The water's almost still,

The sun dances on the surface,

With a slight and sudden trill.

A hummingbird flies past,

With quick and sudden grace,

The other birds still singing,

No voice takes on their place.

A heron swoops on past,

Scoops up a beam of light,

The sun still slowly dancing,

A bid takes sudden flight.

Clouds are passing overhead,

The horizon is sky blue,

The world is calm and still,

'Til a boat comes rolling through.

Now the water shatters,

Birds that sang, now not a sound,

The sun is dancing faster,

But peace cannot be found.

--Jess

Eyes In The Night

He watches the sun,

As it sets to bring night,

He watches the moon,

As it rises in sight.

He scans the horizon,

With hungry eyes,

He's perched on a cactus,

In search of his prize.

Then he sees it,

It's there then it's gone,

But he is too wise,

To lose it for long.

He flies to a tree,

With prey in his sight,

He attacks his target,

Then disappears into the night.

--Jess