Urban Park Rangers Geology

Wednesday was Geology with Central Park's Urban Park Rangers. The kids learned about Manhattan Schist, marble, sedimentary, igneous and metamorphic rock, and glaciers and how they transform the landscape. And they went rock climbing.

This was not a good day for us, and Mikro took a fall on a huge rock 40 feet over my head and screamed like he was being killed. I physically can't climb. I had no idea what was happening and freaked out completely. (Visions of compound fractures danced in her head...) Luckily, Kev was with us, and he was able to climb up to him and attend to him. It was nothing serious, just some scrapes and a pretty bruised up hand. (And I think my son has now learned that climbing without having both hands free is a very bad move...) But my nerves were shot for the day. (Other stuff happening right now has us pretty much stretched thin in the resilience to stress department.)

And as my kid was screaming in pain and fear, a bird watcher approached me and groused "What are these kids doing in here?!? This is a quiet area!" Um, yeah, sorry he scared the birds with his howling, but let me find out if my kid needs life flight before you complain about the noise. I managed to not snark, and just said "It's a class. Ask the ranger..." while waiting to hear if my kid was really hurt...

We sat on a bench, gave a long lecture about safety, and took our time just sitting and calming down after the adrenaline rush. Once everyone was feeling better, we took a little walk, saw some birds, watched the Red Eared Sliders engaging in courtship behavior, and said hello to a Polish king. And then I decided that we really needed to end the day on a better note, so we went to Mikro's favorite place on earth... about which, I'll do a separate post.