When I look at the Stars...

Last night my planned date was a hit-no surprises there, I have to admit when there's a theme I normally excel ;)
So our theme was: stargazing. We had been wanting to go forever but it always rained or snowed or was at least cloudy everytime we tried to plan ahead for it. So by not saying out loud what we were going to do and keepin it a secret I tricked the weather gods. Our night was a 3 phase evening:

1st phase:

I made Cody drive and I just told him where or when to turn because his car has a link to hook my ipod up to and, of course, I had made a star-themed playlist. The playlist included hits like: constellations by jack johnson, yellow by coldplay, and selections from october sky. So I took us to our restaurant of choice: Apollo Burger...ya know....like...Apollo 13! (i know it's a stretch) I was thrilled when I remembered there was a restaurant like this cause there is a surprisingly low ammount of space-themed restaurants here in Provo....I know....a travisty.
The burgers were good and the fries were GREAT-perfect ammount of crispy and potatoe-i-goodness. In short, a good choice.
(disclaimer: I don't really like any of these photos of myself but my desire to share and blog is stronger than my desire to keep a certain image of myself ;)


Phase 2:
So phase two, I had Cody drive us to the Provo city Library-yeah, he wasn't expecting this curve ball, where we saw Chels and Dan! What can I say, great minds think a like. So I signed up for a library card. I feel very legit and a strange increase urge to read and gain knowledge...or atleast rent some of their movie selection. Anywho, so we got some books from the library to help us stargaze later. It's amazing how heavy astronomy books can be, but whatever...I gues they were good for the pics/charts. Then we had some fun reading some kids books like goodnight moon etc. (still on topic). Then we stopped by our apartment so Cody could change into pants to avoid the bugs (which didn't happen) and a flashlight and for me to get a blanket and our treats.

one of the books were filled with gems like this:

my favorite part: "The Fox: It's not a large constellation, and it has no very bright stars. It doesn't look much like a fox, either."

Phase 3:
So the main part of the evening. We drove up Provo Canyon and up Squaw Peak Trail-I know...how scandelous of us ;) So we stopped at the typical squaw peak look out just to see the view-it was pretty pretty I have to admit....and SUPER windy, and to prove it-the following:








BTW: my hair was staticky the rest of the freakin' evening!

So then we continued on up the trail for a ways and then we found a convenient spot to park off to the side of the trail and a beautiful green field over the rail-fence. So we set up camp in the field-picturesque, private and enough off the beaten trail to avoid cops coming and telling us to leave etc., but we paid for it in bug bites-the mosquitos were VERY excited that we were there. I didn't get bit too bad cause Cody is just SO tasty to mosquitos that they all swarmed to him. It also doesn't help that his bites instantly swell the second he gets bit- I dont know, it seems that nature doesn't want him to survive: tasty blood, yet allergic to bites, shrug. Ooo, wait, let me ask how they are doing....they're doing fine...he said he got 8/9 bites to which I replied..."that's it?" "ok, make it sensational, say 100's, say I was running through the woods screaming and slapping myself". Thank you. That's all I wanted-a good story for my blog 8)

so I'd say the first stars we saw were around 9:20ish and by 10:00 we could see a good ammount. The ones that we could recognize what they were would be: one of the dippers. If it was the lil' dipper than we also found the north star, but if it was the big dipper than we could have seen ursa major but it was hard cause the east part of the sky was really light from the city so we only could see the dipper part of it. OO! oh yeah, I saw a shooting star. It was SO cool! It lasted for like two and half seconds, so pretty long, and it was so bright-the tail turned white but the ball of rock going through the atmosphere was actually orangey-yellow, could tell it was burning up....it was so cool, it kind of took my breath away. Sadly Cody missed it. We also saw some satelites, planes, and tons of beautiful stars-seriously. It would get pretty windy so we were kind of cold even though it wasn't that cold. We lasted til about 11 and then we headed back. O yeah! I forgot the best part: our treats-also themed:

a 360 view of our spot:






hmm...i don't want to end on that pic cause frankly it's the least favorite of myself...oh yeah, so we watched My sister's keeper thursday night-talk about a DOWNER. I mean I have some sad/realistic movies that I love, that are life-affirming, but this was just...depressing....and we were both sufficiently bummed after it-don't go see it, the preview is very tempting, make it seem like it will be this warm fuzzy movie but it's really not...anywho......bce! (means 'everything' in Russian, pronounced: "fsyoe")