Thanks to the Gereau family for bringing us along in December, 2010.

We had a short 36-hour visit, and it was cold in Silver Dollar City, but we had a blast.

A drive through a gorgeous part of our state to get there.

Learning about trout for the first time at the Shepherd of the Hills Fish Hatchery - http://mdc.mo.gov/regions/southwest/shepherd-hills-fish-hatchery .

Then fun in Silver Dollar City.

We were hooked, got the season pass and planned several visits.

There is much to do on the strip, and much to do off.

The bass in Table Rock Lake and the trout in Taneycomo really bring fishermen & women from around the country.

The drives are beautiful in the hills, as are the sunsets and sunrises.

We got there for the Fourth of July, Labor Day, and Christmas Break.

We also stopped at Lambert’s, in Ozark (~ 10 min south of Springfield).  The food and experience are worth the wait.

We’ll be back soon!

The Christmas Train, during which they tell the Nativity Story.

The Christmas tree has over 400,000 lights, and the park over 4 million!

Edwin Hubble, for whom the telescope is named,

was born in Marshfield, the seat of Webster

County; Marshfield is just to the NE of Springfield. 

A stretch of I-44 is named for him, and they have a

quarter-scale replica of the telescope.

Hubble (at the Mt. Wilson Observatory north of

Los Angeles) aggregated

1) proof of the redshift, gathered by V.M. Slipher (at the Lowell Observatory)

2) the concept of the universe starting via a Big Bang, as proposed by Catholic priest Georges Lemaitre (in an obscure journal; see http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/science/sc0022.html)...

3) much other evidence...

... to show how the red shifts of galaxies shows an expanding universe, which supports the concept that god started the universe through a Big Bang.

this history, and the linking of these concepts, is presented well in many places, including Episode 3 - “The Day we Found the Universe” of the Adler Planetarium’s (Chicago lakefront) podcast - http://www.adlerpodcast.com/adlermix/adler_mix.xml

While there see also Vatican Astronomer Br. Guy Consolmagno’s Episode 5 - “The Galileo Wars”.

For more on space and astronomy, please see also see the “St. Louis and the Moon” page.