Guest Post: Neil Stewart: Big Bend designated International Dark Sky Park

Posted By Neil Patrick Stewart

2012/02/16 02:17 CST

Topics: dark sky preservation, Earth

Last week, I received a press release (PDF) with the headline "Big Bend National Park Designated As International Dark Sky Park." Big Bend is one of the dark-sky places that Tyler Nordgren visited during his "Stars Above, Earth Below" tour of America's national parks in 2007-2008. It is also one of my brother's favorite places on Earth. So I asked Neil to write something about this announcement for me. Neil is a director, writer, actor, teacher, and producer. He has written over 100 articles for major magazines such as Gotham, Los Angeles Confidential, Vegas, USA Today, and Delta Sky, as well as a trivia book, Fact, Fact Bullsh*t --ESL.

Neil Patrick Stewart

by Neil Patrick Stewart

When I was a teenager in Fort Worth, Texas, there was an aura of mysticism around "the eighth-grade trip." We didn't know much about it. We only knew that it was the final rite of passage from middle school to high school, that it was supposed to