Day #2 in Southern California: I Did Not Die in the Desert, But It Was Definitely a Possibility

If you wanted to die due to your own stupidity, the desert would actually be a great place to do it!

Also the mountains, if you're a stumbly type of person.

Fortunately the mountains weren't being particularly stumbly on this day, the day that we woke up early and drove up Palomar Mountain, leaving behind a misty, foggy morning at sea level and ending up in clear skies and views all the way to the misty, fog-covered Pacific Ocean. 

I felt super lucky that exactly one day of our trip overlapped with the summer dates of Palomar Observatory's guided tours, in my opinion an absolutely unmissable $5-per-person experience. But first, the visitor center!

Shout-out to strong female role model Margaret Burbidge!

You KNOW you want to know about all the potentially hazardous asteroids out there, as well as how close they're always coming to hitting us!

How many of these impact craters can you say you've visited? I've seen Berringer and Chicxulub!

I thought this display was super interesting--Palomar Observatory is still in heavy use, and this graphic shows the parts of the light spectrum that it can observe. All its projects, then, are stuff that fits within that specific spectrum--and there are so many projects!

A nice thing about showing up in time for the first tour of the day--and arriving pretty early for that, as well, ahem--is that we had the place nearly to ourselves, and there was nobody in the way of all my beautiful observatory views on the walk over to see it up close!

Selfie with Palomar!

I don't recall who was holding my proper camera for me while I was in selfie mode, but later I found this in my photo roll:

I am devastated to have to tell you that I did not see a SINGLE RATTLESNAKE ON MY ENTIRE TRIP! Later that day in the desert I was sure that every step I took would be the one that would bring me within rattling distance of a rattlesnake, but there was ne'er a rattle to be had, sigh...

And yes, I did take a new photo of Palomar Observatory at every step. It's just so pretty!

I don't know what I was really expecting for my $5 guided tour of Palomar Observatory, but it was honestly not getting to go INSIDE the observatory itself to get a close-up view of the telescope!

It's too big to actually see all in one frame, so my photos are just bits and pieces of the whole:

There's a giant mirror in there, a cage that an astronomer can sit in (but never does), and the machinery that moves the telescope.

Here you can kind of see the track that the dome rotates upon. There are physical marks all around the inside to align it properly:

We even got to go upstairs and walk on a catwalk circling the inside of the dome to see the telescope even closer:

Probably my most favorite photo of myself ever. I look so happy, lol!

During the tour, there were some guys who just KEPT asking questions about where one could conceivably go to see the telescope open up after dark. Such and such hiking trail, maybe? Or parking at this one particular campsite and walking onto the observatory grounds? Every time, the docent would be like, "There is NO way for the public to see the telescope in action. The observatory grounds close at dusk, there's no close vantage point from public land, etc., etc." Afterwards, walking back to the car, we were all, "Sooo... those old guys are going to try to sneak back into the observatory tonight, right?"

Although to be fair, omg I would LOVE to see the observatory doors open. That would have to be about 1000 times more magical than seeing them closed, and look how magical they look closed!

The beauty of having an activity that ends mid-morning is that you then still pretty much have the ENTIRE DAY to do more sightseeing! So even though the next place I wanted to go was another hour-plus away from the top of Palomar Mountain, we still arrived at the town nearest to it in time for an early lunch.

And then, it was off to see the giant sculptures of Galleta Meadows!

The sculptures are interspersed among the desert landscape north and south of the town of Borrego Springs, and when I was originally planning this part of the trip I thought we'd probably park the car somewhere central-ish--because I don't think we're meant to drive our rental car across the literal desert, ahem--and then just walk around between the sculptures that interested us.

And at first, that worked out great. Stepping out of the air-conditioned car into the 115-degree desert air felt like stepping into a clothes dryer--baking hot, with a baking hot wind blowing extra baking-hot air onto my face--and I LOVED it. It felt soooo warm and comfy, like sitting wrapped in a wool blanket in front of a hot fire on a cold night. All my muscles relaxed immediately, the tension that I constantly carry in my shoulders just immediately gone. I literally announced, "I LOVE it here. Omg I want to buy a house right here and live in the desert forever this feels so good."

So happy as a clam, I did walk between the first few sculptures, and then posed people to take their photos and took more close-up photos of the interesting way that metal rusts and the contrast of the sculptures and the landscape, etc. There were some great clouds. The sky was delightfully blue. The kid continued in her lifelong ambition to touch cacti and then regret it:

But I dunno, after a few minutes my body was still feeling great, all warm and cozy and happy, but my mind started to increasingly become filled with doom. I was plodding through the sand on the way to another giant sculpture in the distance, not tired at all and not sweaty and actually super comfortable, but inside my head I was like, "Huh. Am I about to die? I kind of think I'm about to die."

After a while, I was like, "Hey, does anyone else here feel like they are actually genuinely about to die?", and my partner was all, "Cool, cool, I'm gonna go bring the car around, okay?"

From then on, we drove between groups of sculptures...

Okay, based on the color of my skin in this photo, I probably was a little closer to dying than not dying. 

Surely this serpent is everyone's favorite sculpture. It was definitely mine!

Its spiny undulations actually continue across the road, and it's definitely the most interactive, with lots of serpenty bits to peek around and climb under:

Excepting the serpent, my favorite sculptures were in the slightly wilder, clearly less visited section south of town. Instead of bare ground, we drove down trails bordered by all kinds of cacti:

Because if you didn't get too close to a cactus or ten, were you even in the desert?!?

The best dinosaur sculptures are also in the south section:

I was trying to make it look like the dinosaur was about to eat me, but tbh I'm not sure what I actually got.

By late afternoon, we'd only seen about half of the 100+ sculptures, but we'd definitely put enough unsanctioned off-road miles on our rental car, so we headed back to civilization, taking a different route that led through some former gold mining towns turned tourist stops.

Another important trope: if you don't find yourself drinking a flight of local hard ciders, each one more unappealing than the last (come on--GRAPEFRUIT cider?!?), in a hipster cidery off the highway, are you even on vacation in California?

Tomorrow, we go to San Diego Zoo to see the pandas!

And here's the rest of our trip!

• Day 1: Cabrillo National Monument
• Day 2: Palomar Observatory and Borrego Springs sculptures

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I Read The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs Because I'm a Sucker for a Gossipy Paleontologist

My amateur paleontologist glory days!

The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World by Steve Brusatte
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In which I rediscover (for the hundred millionth time) that dinosaurs are awesome, and continue my journey to read everything ever written about them.

I was a Space Kid, not a Dinosaur Kid, so I didn’t actually get interested in dinosaurs until my older kid did, around the age of five or so. Let me tell you, you have not SEEN obsession until you’ve seen a five-year-old whose Special Interest is propped up, encouraged, and in every way indulged by a parent who’s just as obsessively taken it as her life’s mission to do such. The kid in question is now an adult doing oceanography on a research vessel in the South Pacific, and I’m still over here reading dinosaur books!

Allosaurus at age 5. I honestly can't remember if I scanned the picture backwards or if her reverse writing really was that extreme back then. She writes going the normal direction now!

So: dinosaurs. I most enjoy books written for the non-academic, and I MOST most enjoy books that mention the personalities involved, because I think it’s interesting to follow their research, look for their discoveries in the museums I visit, suss out any gossip about them… you know, the usual! So I liked all the name-dropping that Brusatte did, talking about his lifelong interest and work in paleontology, etc., nearly as much as I did the actual paleontology. Anyway, if you don’t at least minimally cyberstalk the other paleontologists that Brusatte mentions, how are you going to learn that Poland’s leading paleontologist, Grzegorz Niedzwiedzki, is high-key hot? “Steely face,” indeed, Brusatte!

I’m interested in the analytical work of paleontologists after they get home from the field, so I’m glad that Brusatte also talked about this quite a bit--probably so he could quietly be a bit braggy about his own contributions, but still. His contributions are pretty cool! I texted my other kid, who’s in college and worried that her Statistics class is too babyish, to tell her that Brusatte essentially uses statistics to make his dinosaur family trees and other cool dinosaur discoveries. She wasn’t that excited because she thinks dinosaurs are boring, but now she knows some more options!

We also get info about the historical paleontologists along with this history of dinosaurs. Although he doesn’t mention my favorite paleontologist, Mary Anning, which is fine because she didn’t actually find dinosaurs, he does briefly discuss my second-favorite period in paleontology, the Bone Wars.

checking out some of Mary Anning's best finds

What’s my favorite period, you say? The discovery of Sue and all the drama surrounding who got to own her!

Sue!

Oh, and he mentions my favorite non-dinosaur, the Sarcosuchus!

SuperCroc!

I also like hearing about the life and works of these paleontologists because they give me more tips and ideas for my own fossil hunting--that Riker Hill Fossil Site that Paul Olsen got national protection for is conveniently located in between the Thomas Edison National Historical Park (you’ve got to make advanced reservations for the house tour) and Morristown National Historical Park, and depending on how dirty you got fossil hunting, there’s a Medieval Times not too far away, either!

Also the Burpee Museum of Natural History in Rockford, Illinois, where I learned that I must go to see the most complete skeleton of a T. rex ever found. I’ve got extended family in Rockford, so I’ll be putting on my fake mustache and skulking around corners so I don’t have to small-talk, but I’ll be there!

And the Chicxulub Crater. I’ve actually been there before, but I have NOT been inside every single cenote yet, so obviously I have to go back.

I've been inside some of the cenotes, though!

I really appreciated the extensive author’s notes at the end of the book, with all the recommended reading I could want. I requested several more titles from the library, thanks to those notes, so I should be flush with dinosaur reading through the new year!

P. S. View all my reviews.

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Before the Greatest Moment of My Life, I Spent 24 Hours in Columbus, Ohio

You know, as you do!

My kid goes to college in Ohio, not in the path of totality, but I figured that if I picked her up from college on the Friday before the eclipse, and hustled her back home as soon as the Moon had finished its transit of the Sun, she'd only have to miss one day of classes AND she could experience the greatest moment of my life with me.

And as a bonus, she could watch her sister walk the runway in our town's Trashion/Refashion Show, which was ALSO that weekend!

And as another bonus, she and I could go to the live show of our favorite podcast, Welcome to Night Vale, which was performing in Columbus also ALSO that weekend!

So that's what I did!

Around here, people are already joking about how overblown our city's crowd predictions for the eclipse were, as if the city council was just being dramatic because we didn't end up quintupling our population that day, after all. But let me tell you that I drove from here to Columbus, Ohio, and back TWICE that long weekend, and traffic was no fun. There were speed traps every few miles for the entire trip, and although the traffic was moving pretty well, the highways were soooo crowded and it was exhausting to have to constantly be on high alert. Like, just let me put my cruise control on for a few minutes, ugh!

I was SO happy to grab the kid, check into our hotel, and veg out for a couple of hours... while watching the eclipse countdown on cable news, of course!

And then off to our favorite show!

Afterwards, it had been my ultimate dream to go to the Sonic two minutes from our hotel and buy their super weird and disgusting-sounding eclipse slushie float, but Sonic saved me from myself by having a drive-through employee who was all, "Welcome to Sonic. Hold a minute, please," and then... just never came back to take my order? The kid and I waited a couple of minutes, then I thought I'd maybe swing around and take another run at it, and I pulled back up to the drive-through line just as another car was entering and I could hear the employee say over the speaker, "Welcome to Sonic. Hold a minute, please." And then... he never came back. 

We waited another couple of minutes before the kid could convince me to bail and drive over to a different fast food place, also a couple of minutes from our hotel. I hotly protested because I've never been to a Raising Cane's before and therefore have not pored over the menu to decide what I want and practice my order, but fortunately the kid's reassurances that the menu is so easy even I could figure it out while in the drive-through line held true. Now that I am old, I REALLY love a simple drive-through menu!

I also REALLY love a hot hotel breakfast! This one had mini omelets and sausage patties, which are all excellent with toast for making your own breakfast sandwich. One of my favorite things in life is a breakfast that's already included so you don't have to think about it.

In related news, I swear that I find the best things on TikTok. A couple of days before this trip, I'd seen a TikTok about things to do in Columbus that weekend, and in it was news about this fairly new Titanic artifacts exhibit at the COSI.

I mean, we're already going to be there, and it *is* one of my Special Interests, and it *is* almost the anniversary of its sinking...

Here we go!

Is this the most expensive LEGO set? It is $680!!! It would have been cool to be the curator responsible for assembling it for display, though...

When you enter the exhibit, you're given a boarding pass for a real passenger on the Titanic. The kid got to be someone fancy!

I, however, don't like my own particular odds nearly as much...

The exhibit is produced in part by RMS Titanic, Inc., the only company that's allowed to retrieve artifacts from the Titanic site. Recovering the artifacts allows them to be preserved, and the company also works with other organizations to do scientific and historical research at the site. They also produce several exhibits of Titanic artifacts around the country.

Crow's Nest bell

The best part was when they'd put an artifact next to a photo of it before it was recovered:

They recovered so many of these that I think there's a set in every one of their simultaneous artifact exhibitions:

I would be very interested in putting together THIS as a LEGO model--it's the Titanic as it was discovered on the ocean floor:

This is a porthole with a solid bronze frame. Imagine the pressure it would take to warp it like this!

Okay, this is the coolest part: it's a hands-on exhibit where you can touch a real piece from the Titanic!

In related news, thank goodness for this one shot of me, because all the other dozen the kid took of me TOUCHING THE TITANIC are... unflattering, ahem. I have a bad habit of wearing an exceptionally gormless, open-mouthed expression when I am beside myself with delight, and am, for that reason, considering making a sticker for my phone that contains one of two phrases: either "Close Your Mouth" or "Fix Your Face." You can see how either of these phrases would be endlessly useful in a wide variety of circumstances!

Mouth closed, face more or less fixed, and TOUCHING THE TITANIC!

Please also note that in the photo above I am representing in my Maritime Museum of the Atlantic Titanic merch.

I found where I live!

The exhibit actually had a LOT of paper artifacts--these luggage tags, several currencies of paper money, playing cards, etc.--and I never did learn how they hadn't dissolved in the water:

The occasional recreation was peppered among the artifacts, and I was SO INTO IT:

Found the doorknob to my cabin door!

Okay, y'all: I am so in love with the third-class dishes! I found out that the Titanic Museum in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, actually sells recreations, so that's now on my holiday wish list...

More paper artifacts--how did these survive?!?

Here's a glimpse of the kid's fancy first-class cabin:

I'm also a really big fan of my third-class floor tile. We DO have a couple more rooms in the house that need new flooring...

Here's MY room! I also want that blanket...

Okay, this is horrifying: did you know that something like 1/5 of Titanic's boiler room crew were CHILDREN?!? Look at those little faces!

Lol that they had an iceberg--with some kind of condenser involved because that is real ice!--that you could take your photo with:

Mouth not closed. Face not fixed. Oh, well!

This is one of the lifeboat hoists:

And this is also really cool: they projected the footprint of the lifeboat onto the floor so you could see how you fit into it:

Closest my third-class self will ever get to a lifeboat!

Of course this kid is examining the lifeboat like they're old friends. Lucky first-classer!

They had some portraits of people they KNEW we'd know from the Titanic movie, of course:

ANOTHER PAPER ARTIFACT!!!

Okay, moment of truth! Do I live or do I die?

Poor Johannes...

Now it's the kid's turn:

I love that she devoted the rest of her life to charity. What a beautiful response to tragedy.

I was also surprised to see clothing on exhibit. How did THIS also survive?!?

Look at that beautiful visible mending. I didn't even realize you could hand-sew that stitch!

Afterwards in the gift shop, my mean kid would not let me buy a tiny Titanic and iceberg in a floaty thing OR a Titanic and iceberg ice cube tray. To be fair, they both *are* on Amazon at nearly half the price, so it was a good save on her part, but still. I have longed for that floaty Titanic thing every day since.

Since we were already at COSI and who knew if we'd ever come again, we decided to quickly swing through a couple more exhibits before we hit the road. This Oceans exhibit was actually an amusing interactive water play area that we enjoyed just as much as the toddlers we were playing alongside:

And this Dinosaurs gallery features artifacts from the American Museum of Natural History!

Here are a couple of Apatosaurus vertebrae:

These are Ornithopod tracks on sandstone:

You had to check out the labels very closely to see what was a cast and what was real. I feel like I'm the only person annoyed by that! I strongly believe that casts should be a non-realistic color:

I love a good Dinosaur As Bird model!

I also don't usually see amber on display, so I was VERY stoked about this:

And then just when we thought we were about to leave... we found an augmented reality sandbox. We must now sculpt all of the landforms!

I am still distraught that I didn't come home with this Layers of the Earth candle--every layer is a different color and scent!--but the kid managed to wrestle it out of my hands, and good thing, too, because it was FIFTY DOLLARS. For something I WILL LITERALLY BURN AWAY.

Also this Sun stuffie at FORTY-FIVE DOLLARS JUST NO:

Sigh...

After a lovely morning spent at the museum, the kid and I were hoofing it back to the car when suddenly she announced, "I am STARVING!" I said, "OMG me, TOO! Let's grab lunch before we head home." I pulled out my phone to see what Dr. Google Maps recommended for lunch nearby, but then when I looked at it I was all, "Oh, NO!!!" We had accidentally spent five hours at a children's hands-on science museum! I'd thought it had been maybe... half that? Maaaaybe three hours, tops? I think we must have been in some kind of fugue state to not notice all that time passing! 

So that was ixnay on a sit-down lunch, and full steam ahead on a gas station lunch so we could get back into the stream of traffic headed towards the path of totality. It was an absolute slog of a drive, but the kid was back in time to surprise Luna before dinner!!

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