2018 - WOW 3

 

MLK Day weekend, 2018

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

(created Sun. Feb. 4,, 2018)



During Easter Break, 2016, we had relaxing fun in Eminence, Mansfield and Springfield, MO, so we planned a similar for Easter Break, 2017, to Branson and the nearby Big Cedar Lodge.


The plans changed a couple times and we took one five day trip for Easter, 2017 and a three-day weekend for MLK Day, 2018.


For this trip, we stayed in Branson, at bluegreen vacation’s Falls Village.


This is that travelogue.



  1. -Day 1 / Friday night - Ballwin to Branson

  2. -Day 2 / Saturday - Fish Hatchery and Fishing at Dogwood Canyon


  1. -Day 3 / Sunday - Snow, Mass at Our Lady of the Lake, and WOW - Wonders of Wildlife

  2. -Day 4 / Monday - More Snow, lunch at Lambert’s, replica Hubble Telescope and the drive home








This page presents


  1. -Day 4 / Monday - More Snow, lunch at Lambert’s, replica Hubble Telescope and the drive home













Day 4 / Monday - More Snow, lunch at Lambert’s, replica Hubble Telescope and the drive home


We awoke to more snow falling.



We had breakfast and got packed and moving.


The snow and ice made for nice views on the drive north along Highway 65.








We had lunch at Lambert’s and we also stopped and saw, from the warmth of the van, the replica Hubble Space Telescope, on the grounds of the Webster County Courthouse in Marshfield, MO... home of Edwin Hubble.







Why is there a replica of the Hubble Space Telescope in Missouri?


Because Edwin Hubble, who discovered the rate at which the universe is expanding, is from Marshfield, MO, which is along I-44 about 10 miles before Springfield.




Since it was cold and snowy and we were desiring to get home, and because we had seen it back in 2011, we took this photo of the scale model of the Hubble Space Telescope from the warmth of the van.


On our Astronomy page - http://vanvooren.us/VV/Astronomy.html, about three quarters (3/4) of the way down, you can read more about Hubble, and how the work of Henrietta Leavitt Swan, and Harlow Shapley and Visto Slipher and many others contributed to Hubble’s determining that there is a constant rate at which the universe is expanding.


You can also learn how that prompted a Catholic priest to deduce that the expansion must have had a starting point an that God presumably initiated that starting point, which we now call the Big Bang.



And, re-sharing what we also posted on our http://vanvooren.us/Missouri/Branson_and_Big_Cedar_Lodge_1.html page,





“The Hubble Highway”



This the 2016 statute revised the definition of


“The Hubble Highway”


to honor the Missouri-born astronomer who determined the constant rate at which the universe is expanding:


- http://www.moga.mo.gov/mostatutes/stathtml/22700003451.html:




Missouri Revised Statutes


Chapter 227

State Highway System


Section 227.345.1


August 28, 2016


Edwin P. Hubble Memorial Highway designated for portion of Interstate 44 in Webster County.


227.345. The portion of Interstate 44, except for the portion of such interstate designated under section 227.379, located in a county of the third classification without a township form of government and with more than thirty-one thousand but less than thirty-one thousand one hundred inhabitants shall be designated the "Edwin P. Hubble Memorial Highway".

(L. 2004 S.B. 767, A.L. 2006 S.B. 667, et al.)




So Dad was prepared to capture photos of both highway signs, but...    


Westbound sign:

  1. -Dad looked down at the map without having looked ahead and saw the sign too late to raise the smartphone and capture a photo.

  2. -BUT he confirms that the westbound sign is posted at I-44 mile marker 104.5.



Eastbound sign:

  1. -Dad made sure to be focused on the drive home

  2. -The heavy rain made it hard to capture a good image, but this is what Dad captured, at I-44 mile marker 94.8.



Recommendation on how to see them for yourselves...

  1. -look for the horizontal (left-to-right, aka “landscape”) signs ahead,

  2. -which contrast with the vertical (up-and-down, aka “portrait”) mile marker signs

  3. -and have your camera pointed and zoomed

  4. -take several photos as you approach and pass the signs





For pictures of the replica of the Hubble Space Telescope, in Marshfield, please see:

http://vanvooren.us/VV/Astronomy.html.

















Links to the rest of this travel journal:



WOW1


WOW 2 - Galleries


WOW 2 - Aquarium


WOW3