The Week We Walked to the Planets (Almost)

This week we continued with school, but only on a part time basis.  I started my part time job...teaching Spanish lessons in my home in the afternoon after I have homeschooled the boys.  Next week we plan to go to our full schedule.  It will be quite an adjustment.

For part of this week we were down in Anchorage for a quick trip.  We decided on one rainy afternoon while we were there to do the Anchorage Light Speed Planet Walk.  Basically, you can walk (ok, not a good idea on a rainy day!) from the sun to Pluto. The walk is a scale model of the distance between the planets.  At each stop you can see a replica of the heavenly body in porportion to the others.  The sun is a huge disc on a street corner in downtown.  At each stop you can read about each planet and how they were named (mostly after Roman gods).  You are supposed to be able to walk at "light speed" (one step per second) and to do the whole distance would take 5 and half hours!  Well, we knew this wasn't doable in the rain.  So we decided that we would see the Sun and the four inner planets by walking and then try to find the others at "warp speed" by driving to them.  While our idea was great it didn't pan out as we had hoped.  The last three planets we couldn't find because you can't reach them by car (they are on walking trails).  While we loved the concept of the Planet Walk we wished that there would have been a way to do the last part by car.  But we had fun trying and learned a lot...it was like doing school without doing school!

Here is a live view of the Sun station.