I Touched a Moon Rock

On a whim, and because my wife had reading and grading to do for school, I took the kids down to Julia Davis Park on Saturday, where an odd mix of vintage cars, Medieval folks from the SCA, a few military reenactors dressed in assorted WW II gear, and a touring NASA bus were all arrayed.

With all these things to do, the activity that my son was most interested in pursuing was getting on the NASA bus, where they had a couple very short video presentation, a real Moon rock that we could touch, and a little bit of NASA swag--including little pins in the shape of the first boot-print on the Moon.

So my daughter went and watched the various Renaissance duels while my son and I waited in the line for the NASA bus. For 1 and a half hours. In the sun. But he was willing to stick it out, and I was willing to stand there with him. Thankfully I had my iPod and he was able to play some videogames to keep himself entertained for a good bit.

I had a long and polite conversation with a conservative Christian who happened to like comic books and classic cartoons. (How did I know he was a conservative Christian? Because, like pretty much all conservative Christians I've ever met, he made sure to tell me at several points. This is apparently a rule.)

At last we made it into the thankfully air-conditioned bus for about 10 minutes of presentations that were fairly dull for me, to be honest. At that point my daughter had showed up and I let her get in line with us and go in, largely because I'd seen a good twenty kids appear at the last minute to join adults who had been waiting in line. This is one reason the line never seemed to move--groups of kids would just pop up and join the line. Frankly, it pissed me off, but after waiting so long, I wasn't going to stand on principle anymore and my daughter came in with us.

The Moon rock itself? It was a black, poorly lit sliver the size of my fingernail.

But I would do the whole thing over if asked, because my son was very excited by the tour itself and I was really proud of how well he was able to stay in the line with me without melting down or giving up. A case of the kids making the experience more enjoyable than it would have been otherwise.