When my husband and I hiked a section of the PCT this summer, he brought along “The Martian” on his phone.
He has an excellent reading voice, and each evening that we weren’t too exhausted, he’d read the book aloud. It was a fabulous way to end each night and, after the trip, we kept up the ritual. It took a lot longer to read the book that way, but it was fun to laugh out loud together. The book is hilarious.
If you’ve been living under a rock, or perhaps on Mars, “The Martian” is a fast moving, smart and snappy book about an astronaut who gets stranded on Mars alone. Then, for most of the book, Mark Watney tries to survive while Mars tries to kill him. It’s also been made into a movie starring Matt Damon.
Anyways, I know this blog is called ExploreNW but I’m sure you’ll forgive me if I divert your attention a bit outside the region. In fact, I’d like to send you all the way to the red planet. We’ll just call the blog ExploreMars for today.
NASA has posted an absolutely amazing interactive map of Mars with points of interest from the movie explained by Jim Green, director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters.
The map was already around, but with the renewed interest sparked by the movie, it’s no shock NASA has revamped it.
I love a good journey, and since I loved the book so much, I’m having fun looking at in a whole new way.
If you haven’t read the book or seen the movie, and don’t want spoilers, you can look at the map unannotated.
Or you can take a look at Watney’s trek, with the annotated descriptions. Click on the little bookmark icon to turn the track on and off.
When you go to the map, there’s a very good tutorial that walks you through how it works. It only take a minute or two to go through it. It’s worth it. Then have fun exploring.
Next up, some of the best hikes on Mars, in case you ever get stranded there and have time to kill.
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