Visiting the scale model Pluto in the Eugene solar system

I had another night of poor sleep followed by a late wakeup today. The strategy I’ve been using of walking my short walk route on days like this seems like it has been contributing to pushing me deeper into a funk rather than alleviating it so I tried something different this morning. One of the features of the riverbank trail system in Eugene is the scale model solar system, designed to show how truly vast astronomical distances are. I’ve been to all of the other points of interest before, but because of where it is on the path I had never been to the Pluto even though it’s part of the model. So instead of walking either of my usual routes I headed to the Owosso Bike Bridge and crossed the river while the sun was starting to come up.

One of the reasons that visiting the Pluto has been on my list of things to do is that it’s registered as a pokestop in Pokémon Go so I always see the indication that I’ve never been there when I’m in the are, such as when I cross the Owosso Bike Bridge after going to the store. You can see that whoever entered the info that caused this to become a pokestop seems to have an opinion about the issue of whether or not Pluto should count as a planet.

From the bridge I followed the part of the path I’ve never been down before and finally saw the scale model Pluto.

It’s quite tiny. As it should be, since it’s supposed to be to scale with the distance it is from the sun in Alton Baker Park.

As I was appreciating the model and the area it’s in there was a nice sunrise sky caused by the actual sun.

Then I headed home back across the bridge.

I’m not sure if I’ve completely banished the foul mood I started the day with, but I think it was a nice walk, at least.

Walking