Solar Sailing

My work has required me to come to the DC area for some on-site support, so for the next month or so we will be here.

Yesterday we decided to head towards the National Mall and get some geocaches in the DC area.  I found one named Solar Sailing that is a virtual cache which means there is no log to sign, just some questions to answer.

Solar Sailing cache located at the National Mall in DC.

This cache is based on a display that is in scale with our solar system.  It is pretty neat, especially when you see how close Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars are to the Sun with the rest of the planets so much further away.

The starting place for our trip through our solar system.

 It was a nice day to be out walking around even though the temperature was a little nippy.  As long as you were moving and had some type of jacket on, it was enjoyable.

Courtney, Ethan, Ian, Tia, Avery, Chloe, and Don standing at the Sun.

 We wanted to tour some of the Smithsonians while we were at the National Mall today, but time got the best of us and my main thing was to get some DC caches, so the only one we actually went into was the National Air and Space Museum. 

Courtney, Ethan, Ian, Tia, Misty, Avery, and Chloe standing at the Sun.

The questions for the cache are below which helped us all learn some neat facts about the planets in our solar system while doing this cache.

#1 What state would you be in if you walked to the closest star using this solar system scale ? 
#2 The Golden Orb is what scale of the Sun's size ?

#3 The Earth's image was created using what ?

#4a What is in the foreground of the picture of Jupiter ?

#4b How many Earth?s would fit in the "Red Spot" Storm ?

#5a The image of Uranus was made from what data ?

#5b How tilted is Uranus ?

#6a What kind of image is used of Pluto ( The left Image )

#6b If you weighed 100lbs on Earth, How much would you weigh on Pluto ?

So with us at the ending point of the cache, we decided to walk back to the car, which was about a mile and a half away.

Ian, Ethan, Courtney, Tia, Misty, Avery and Chloe at the end of our solar system journey.

While walking back to the car and with it getting dark I noticed that a man was following us.  To check out my suspensions,  I paused at a corner on the street, for about five minutes and the individual walked down a path a little ways and then stopped like he was waiting on something.

Once we started to walk towards our car again, he walked back up onto the sidewalk and started to trail us again.  At this point there was no doubt that he was following us and since we were walking away from the populated area, Misty and I started to get really concerned.

I called 911 and reported the incident by telling them we were being followed and gave a description of the man.  I made sure he knew that I knew he was following us and that he saw me on the phone.

I guess he decided that it was not worth his risk and so he turned around and went the other direction.  We still had to walk close to a mile to get to the car, so I kept looking over my shoulder to make sure he was not still trailing us and also kept an eye of where we were in case I had to call the police back in a hurry.

Luckily we never saw him again and made it back to the car and home safe.  We have no idea why he was following us and are happy it did not become a bad situation.

I'm sure the Lord was watching out for us and kept us safe.

So needless to say, I do not think we will be going back to the National Mall for a while and when we do, make sure we leave while there is plenty of daylight to walk back to the vehicle.  We probably will not park so far away either.

Until next time may God keep you safe too!

Thanks!

Don, Misty, and kids...