On Wednesday, (6th September) we drove into Portland, and spent the afternoon at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI). What a cool time we all had!
Our first stop was the planetarium, where we were given a tour of the current night sky - here in the Northern hemisphere. A few nights earlier, Jane and I had looked up into the sky and felt completely lost. There were no familiar stars or constellations. Even though I had heard of the 'Big Dipper' (Ursa major), I didn't really know what it looked like, or how to find it in relation to Polaris (the North Star).
Our tour in the planetarium really helped us to understand where we are in relation to the universe. I would highly recommend it. The guy who narrated was passionate about astronomy, but also very entertaining. The kids were impressed too; even though it was quite heavy in parts. Unfortunately no photos were allowed, so my post is somewhat photo free. Also unfortunately, the skies over Washington and Oregon are so full of smoke and ash following the forest fires, that we're not able to put our night viewing into practice yet!
Following this, we went onto a submarine (which Logan will write about), an exhibition about Pompeii (which Jonty will write about), and a stunning and slightly strange movie about the US National Parks Service narrated by Robert Redford.
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| The Grant family before Portland in the smoke-covered late afternoon sun (taken outside OMSI) |
Pompeii was a city that was big and full of braggers in Italy. It was destroyed in a volcanic eruption when Mt Vesuvius erupted.
Hundreds of years later people found the city and discovered dead people and dogs covered in ash. They also found houses and pottery and statues.
In the houses they have an atrium which collects rain water into a pool. There was normally a statue inside.
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| This is the statue of Apollo in the atrium. He has no clothes on, not even underwear! |
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| This is a marble statue of the owner of the house. |
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| This is some cooking stuff they found. |
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| Eliza by the map. |
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| Me with another statue. |
the people from Pompeii liked to decorate their houses. they painted the walls and made pictures with tiles, called mosiacs.
Being rich did not save them from a volcano!
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