Driving the long stretch

I had good visits of the Astronomy Departments at New Mexico State University (NMSU) in Las Cruces and the University of Texas (UT) at Austin. I am between Memphis and Nashville, on my way to Columbus, OH to visit astronomers at Ohio State University.

At UT Austin, they had a conference between the astronomy and planetary people with some very interesting talks on exoplanets. They were kind to invite me to their conference dinner so I had a good chance to tell people about my falling planets, and my role in making the discovery paper determination of the parameters of TrES-3, the first observations of mutual events of Uranus, and setting up the LCOGT global telescope network.

Driving from Austin TX to Columbus OH is a long stretch! There is some distance in the middle of the US between the bigger astronomy departments. It was to place this stretch on a weekend that determined the day of the week of my visits. It has been a long trip already and I am not halfway there. I do miss Emily a lot. I really hope something direct comes out of my efforts, but meeting so many more people face-to-face is very valuable!