Wednesday, 7/24/2024 - 11:20am
Amtrak Northeast Regional 94
Scheduled departure time 11:06 AM
Actual departure 11:20 AM
After much hemming & hawing, lots of research, copious planning time, and many moments of seriously considering the financial implications (and downright foolishness of my summer budgeting) - I am now on the first leg of this trip to England.
I honestly don't know how to explain how this trip is different from many of my others. Part of me feels like it's a buisiness trip - I have a list of places to visit in London - a VERY long list, beause when I came to England in 2000 I was most concerned with hiking in Cornwall, not exploring the wealth of history, art & artifacts housed in the capital of the United Kingdom.
When I arrived at that time, the thoughts I had were to see Boudicca's statue on the Thames (then covered & being renovated, much to my chagrin), take the Thames River Boat Tour, and maybe see a couple more things like The Tower - The Globe Theater (I REALLY wanted to see a play there) - Westminster Abbey.
-- Ashland Stop - Train depot & Henry Clay House across from my Business Class 7A window seat - Fredericksburg next. Total train time ~2 hrs, arrive ~ 1:00 PM --
I've learned so much more of what is in London since then. I learned a lot on that trip about what kinds of places I like to tour and what kinds of places I felt were a waste of my time. Wax Museum & Sherlock Holmes House - tourist traps to waste my time & $. Historical structures, Art, and Museums of important cultural value - totally worth every moment.
Being in places where I can walk where the great people of history have played out the great events on the world state - yes - it realy is priceless, but there is a price. It is the time, desire, transportation, housing & entrance fee. but what are these things when the moment I am there transformsme into having the view and a moment of stepping into that person's shoes, slippers or sandals?
On this trip, I will step into those of Edmond Halley, Elizabeth I, John Harrison, Victoria & Albert, and many more.
In 2000 I left England feeling that I had missed so much - I needed more time, but mostly I needed more information. What did I really want to see? Where did I really want to go? What places have the most value to me above all else? And what will I leave behind, knowing that I can still not do it all? I'm on my way and still not certain of all those questions.
Last summer - 2023 - crystallized more of this need to return than I had inspiration for since I had planned my New Zealand trip in 2018-2019.
A QUEST!
Any kind of international trip must be inspired by this need for Questing~ Any great changes or upheavals or great expenses in one's life must be motivated by some internal inspiration or desire to saly forth to worship at the feet of great teachers, learners, and awe-inspiring figures.
- England 2000 - Arthur's kingdom & mythological lands of this childhood
- Philly 2014(?) - John Bartram's gardens
- New Zealand 2019 - Tolkein & Peter Jackson's vision of those stories
- London 2024 - The Scientists of the Transit of Venus Expeditions
Yes - this begins with another Andrea Wulf book - books seem to begin al my quests ultimately - "
Chasing Venus" got me going to the April 2024 Eclipse - witnessing that moment of totality is a very different experience than the astronomers chasing the transit of Venus in 1762 & 1769. But it had a similar effect of inspiring a mass explosion in the public's interest in astronomical events.
There was another great solar eclipse in 2017 - I took my kids camping in the 97% range at Natural Bridge, VA. We stayed at
Cave Mountain Lake in the National Forest of western Virginia. We hiked to the Natural Bridge, toured the Local Cave, and saw most of an eclipse.
We, like many others, did not experience totality. But when the opportunity came again, seven years later, despite teh distance being farther for many of us - so many MORE people piled into our cars to traverse the nation in order to put ourselves into one of the narrow bands whch would experience the dark eerieness of
solar eclipse totality (much like what was made famous by "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court").
We were reminded of our smallness. Of our connection to a natural world where we can experience Awe in the wonder of great natural events. And we experience one of those brief moments where science, nature, and spirit intersect to join us together with each other & accross time & space to those who have come before - to make our mass hypnosis of this moment possible.
That is something like what happened to the world in 1769.
They lived in a world where they only yhad a vague idea of where they were in relation to everyone else.
The globe was mapped -- with more islands and Continents being found every year or so. It took years to circumnavigate the Earth. Explorers working primarily for profit and piracy were the rule at this time - without the gentlman scientists who would become more common in the 19th century, after the work of
Alexander Von Humboldt began to receive recognition.
In these years, Astronomers were the kings of the scientific community. They aided with navigation, mapmaking, and forecasting accurately the movements in the heavens. Their science was quantitative - they lived in a most precise world of numbers, only distantly guessed at by the land-bound Naturalists.
Astronomy did originate from the Astrologers many centuries before - also studying the heavens with meticulous mathematical calculations, but applying it to the behaviors of Man & Nature. Some of it was predictable science - patterns of growth, crops, harvests. Other of it was more hypothetical predictions of human personality and behaviors. Regardless of the applicaitons, they set the groundwork (and astrology continues to have a following in today's world).
Astronomers, however, have always been on the cutting edge of emperical science. This is what led me to read "Chasing Venus" and now back to London. They were trying to measure the scope of our solar system - the first tep in our measurement of the Universe.
Venus crosses between the Earth and the Sun every 122 years (and a second time 7 years later). Edwin Halley noted this pattern and the possibility of its being the key to unlocking the measuring stick of "the Universe" in the 1730s. At that time (and fo many more years) he was the chief astronomer at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich - far enough from London to be a safe retreat of Royals from the plague, but far enough to have very dark skies - THEN (definitely not a dark sky zone now).
His proposal was that if we could place Astronomers in the Northern Hemisphere and the Southern Hemisphere at similar latitudes, at known coordinates, with standard measurement, and coordinated time measuring tools - all with a high degree of precision AND accuracy - we could extrapolate the distance to the Sun from the Earth, which is the measuring stick of the Solar System.
The Astronomers knew where Venus would cross the sun completely and where it would only be partially visible. They were very good at predicting these movements of celestial objects. But the hard parts were the following things for which we did not yet have the science established: 1) distance - a single standard of measurement for all science (a standard meter), 2) sufficient resolution telescopes that would be compact, durable, and portable enough to make the trips to these distant locations (with smokey lenses to prevent blindness), 3) a way to reliably determine longitude and, the most uncontrolable factor once all the others were situated, 4) the inability of the major Empiress to make peace long enough for the scientists to cross into the borders of other empires without being seen as spies.
Read the
entire book by Ms. Wulf for a wonderful, literative account of these adventures.
Greenwich is the keystone of that epic quest and London is peppered in connective history. Some of where I will go will relate to the Transit & other places - well - just for fun & to satisfy an itch. I will be at Greenwich next Monday.
Today is Wednesday, July 24
- I depart from Dulless at around 10pm
Tomorrow - Thursday July 25
- I arrive in Heathrow ~11pm
- I hope to get my luggage to my hotel in Kensington, then go to the Victoria & Albert museum around 2:30
Friday - Jully 26
- I think I want to go to Richmond in the morning. I want to see the outlook for which my hometown is named - the one by Churchill. I'll maybe stay there for the day or go on over to the Thames. I have tickets to Shakespeare - Richard III that night on the south sid eo the River at the Globe. The rest of the day can be fluid & maybe I will see Boudicca, finally. I may just stay in Kensington & switch Richmond to next Wednesday.
Saturday - July 27 - The Britis hMuseum
Sunday - July 28 - Church - TBD, but ful service is around 11am everywhere
Monday - July 29 - Greenwich
Tuesday - July 30 - Leeds, Canturbury, Dover
Wednesday - July 31 - Pick up the extra items/locations I have most missed doing as I went around the rest of the week
** just arrived in Washington DC
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