Goddard Space Flight Center, as seen from one small corner

Distance: 30 minutes driving, without traffic

Cost: Free

More info: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/visitor/home/index.html 

*********

My son M is crazy for space. He reads about it almost every day, in books and encyclopedias and in a few of the apps that we've downloaded onto our iPhones and his Touch. It's not unusual for us to be driving in the car, and he'll start talking about the gravity on one of Jupiter's moons. And when he gets together with his friends, they jam about the latest space discoveries which could indicate life on planets other than ours.

So, that being said, we need to explore every space-related attraction within driving distance of home. There are the two Smithsonian Air and Space museums, which we've been to several times. But outside of the beltway, off the Baltimore-Washington Parkway in a little town called Greenbelt, is a branch of NASA that does research on the conditions for life in space.

The Goddard Space Center isn't flashy. The campus itself is huge, but visitors are restricted to a small corner of it, outside the armed guards and eight-foot fencing, which has enough interactive exhibits to entertain a 7-year-old for at least an hour. Witness below.

 Outside the entrance of the visitors center.

 Reading about solar panels below a model of the Hubble Space Telescope.

Watching a movie about the birth of galaxies and matter in space.

Lots of pretty pictures on the ceiling and walls.

They have a "rocket garden" outside the center, where you can see various retired rockets and walk an exhibit that explains what has been learned about conditions favoring life in space. I was surprised to learn that some meteorites have been found with amino acids and other organic molecules embedded in their minerals!

Scientists call conditions that favor life on other planets "The Goldilocks Zone," meaning that that atmosphere is "just right" for living chemistry. Did you know that one of Jupiter's moons has water underneath an icy crust, and that it's possible, if there are heat vents beneath this ocean, we could find bacteria living there one day?

And here's Michael, in broken snippets, explaining how Earth got it's Moon so long ago.

Visiting the Amish Market

Are you familiar with the Amish? I wasn't until we moved from California to Maryland, and even then I didn't see an Amish person, knowingly, until we drove to Pennsylvania one weekend to pick up a puppy. That was about 7 years ago. More recently, I've seen the Amish in Germantown, Maryland, at the Lancaster County Dutch Market.

When we drove the Pennsylvania so long ago, it was very clear from the horse-drawn carriages and the battery-operated hand tools we observed (in place of wired electrical devices) that the Amish are hard core. I don't know enough about their culture to explain more details here. In general, they seem to avoid some of the technologies that make mainstream American life easy.

Which begs the question, How are they getting from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, to Germantown, Maryland, each weekend?  I'm guessing that they've made an exception where it comes to commerce and earning a living from the general population of lazy Americans.

But I digress. In Germantown you can visit an indoor market that features some of the most delicious soft pretzels, baked desserts, cheeses, fresh and cured meats, poultry, game, and barbecue in central Maryland. Prices are comparable to what you would pay at your neighborhood grocery store, more or less. And, you get to see the Amish in their traditional style. Women wear very conservative dresses with aprons and bonnets; men wear simple shirts and pants with pageboy haircuts. (The older men usually have full sideburns and beard while the women all wear their hair in a bun.)

The market vendors take cash only, so you can stop by the ATM and buy your week of groceries, or you can spend $5 on a couple of pretzel dogs and just stop by to say hello. Either way, this is a trip that anyone should take at least once if they live nearby.

Kayaking on Clopper Lake

Place: Clopper Lake, which is part of Seneca Creek State Park in Germantown, Maryland

Distance: About 20 minutes from home by car

Cost: $9/hour/kayak + $1.50 for water = $21

Duration: 40 minutes driving + 1 hour kayaking = about 2 hours

********

There's a great park not too far from our house that offers a variety of outdoor activities that are great for parents and kids. We've already tried the recycled tire playground numerous times, and we hiked the lake a few weeks ago, sort of by accident. (It's surprising how far a 3-year-old can walk when there's no other way to get home: 4.5 miles!) We've also rented boats a few times, first the paddle boats, then a canoe, which was hard to manage in the stronger breeze that tends to occupy the middle of the lake. 

Today we tried the kayaks, and it was a huge success, even with a 7-year-old manning his own craft. He was a bit discouraged in the middle, fighting against the breeze to get back to the boat house. The ripples on the lake have an unnerving effect of making you feel like you're coasting backward, even when you're paddling hard to move ahead. (The view of the shore, however, confirms that you're getting there slowly.) 

At one point Michael concluded that this was NOT fun. However, once we made it back to the dock, he was pleased with the experience, and I think he really enjoyed my compliments on his technique, his new haircut, and how handsome he looked seated in the boat with his sunglasses and hat.

As for me, the paddling was fairly easy to do, but it didn't take long for me to have the distinct sense that I was getting a workout, particularly in the chest muscles and shoulders. That alone is reason to come back!

Squeezing out every last drop of summer fun

School starts on Monday, and we have several things to do before then. One of them is kayaking. The others are listed below:

1. Visit Goddard Space Flight Center
2. Visit the National Zoo (and get there by Metro, because Katie was too little to remember the last time she rode it)
3. Eat at Benihana
4. Learn the Thriller dance routine (okay, not before Monday, but hopefully before October)
5. Learn the lyrics to Sugar Hill Gang's song Rapper's Delight

The last two items are really just for me. I've wanted to do them for so long and haven't tried, not even for five minutes. And it's easy to neglect goals like this, because there's always so much other, more serious stuff to do. Projects for work, bills to be paid, groceries that need getting, the gym membership that must be justified...

But I realized a while ago that play is just as important as work. Not just for kids, but for grownups, too. If you're not having some regular fun, if you're not laughing and being silly at least some of the time, you end up with frown lines and a beer gut.