Have you hugged a national park? It's National Park Week!

[Jane Houston Jones]

Hi everyone, we're still up on cloud nine after last weekend's awesome 
star party at Mojave National Preserve!  It was so great to see many of 
you over the weekend. There were at least 4 families from our astronomy 
list who joined us, in addition to the 4 families worth of astronomers.  
There were over 50 people there, and another 15 on Friday night for our 
first night impromptu star party. Many staff and friends of the Mojave 
National Preserve. http://www.preservethemojave.org/index.php

Here is a set of pictures I took. Each of us took lots of pictures on 
the hikes, and Mojo has some spectacular panoramas that will make their 
way to a blog soon.  I'm busy writing up a story about the Chuckwalla 
lizards of Amboy Cratrer and other tales myself. One park visit, so much 
to learn and share!  
http://photo.whiteoaks.com/2010-04-11-mojavejane/index.html.

We're heading to our no-frills observing site off the I-10 Red Cloud 
Road between Chiriaco Summit and Desert Center in a few hours. But first 
we'll head up into Joshua Tree National Park from the south to check out 
the Colorado Desert wildflowers, and to hug one of our very favorite 
national parks. This week is National Park Week (in addition to Earth 
Week and National Astronomy Week)  But this means there is free 
admission to every one of the nations National Parks April 17-25th. 
http://www.nationalparks.org/explore/?fa=national-park-week  I hope you 
make it to one of our local parks this week! Find your closest ones on 
this link - there are 4 national parks within 100 miles of my zip code, 
and we're heading to one of them!

Next weekend we'll be out on the sidewalks once again. We'll be in 
Pasadena Friday night and Monrovia Saturday night to share moon, Venus, 
Saturn and Mars (and maybe Mercury) with all of you who stop by! See you 
under the stars!!

Jane

-- 
Jane Houston Jones
Monrovia, CA
Website: www.whiteoaks.com
Old Town Astronomers:  http://www.otastro.org
What's Up March 2010? Saturn & 21Lutetia! http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/whatsup.cfm
What's Up Podcast on YouTube: http://bit.ly/bBUANa
Twitter: http://twitter.com/jhjones  http://twitter.com/CassiniSaturn 
Blog: http://jane.whiteoaks.com/