Nightlife - March 2019

The Explorers Guild had a rather bold task ahead of itself when they decided to try and map the entire Academy of Sciences. First was that we were under a time constraint of 4 hours, the second was that there was so much to see and do and third is that in the Explorers Guild we tend to enjoy the act of wandering about which runs contrary to a time constraint. Needless to say, we still approached the challenge head-on. Despite the rain, traffic and various other commitments, 10 Explorers gathered underneath the giant T-Rex skeleton near the front and opened our field guides for direction. Our first task: getting a museum map and breaking it down, was pretty straight forward. Checking the signs around the museum we realized we would need to go the rainforest and planetarium first, otherwise, we would likely miss them altogether.

From here we officially started our stellar cartography. In each section of the museum, Explorers identified aspects of human interest. Specifically focusing on greed, fear and, curiosity (which often drive maps) we started in the rainforest. We were amazed by the technology which made it possible and it seemed like we were in a completely different world. Everything from Clive the low hanging fish, to the embedded centipede, and shadow spiders to the robot roaches and whittling snails were documented. We spent so much time in the rainforest that we almost missed our planetarium showing.

Luckily, we were able to slip in before the doors closed. In this space, we were in a vessel whose voyage was bound for massive and minute scales of life throughout Earth. Hummingbirdie let her hand and pencil take over. The masterful strokes (while flying around and in the dark!) led to some great stellar cartography work. As we exited, we also discovered that a few more Explorers had arrived and were joining us. Time though was starting to wane.

We headed to the aquarium and appreciated some of the more fanciful creatures. Our cartography couldn't keep up with our pace as we noted that we couldn't wander about too long. We hurried outside to a garden of dinosaurs and luckily they were friendly and let us play along with them. We were soon confronted with the realities of the time. The lights of the museum were slowly getting turned off all around us and like Cinderella, we had to leave the party.

In retrospect, we were only able to document a third of the museum, and even that seems like a stretch. It was a fanciful night and one filled with wonderful laughs and amazing sights. Surely we'll need to return should we want to fully document it, but for now we're rather pleased with our adventure.