TITUSVILLE, Fla. – A Bahamian girl’s seaborne school project has landed on the sandy doorstep of NASA.

United Space Alliance worker Jill Vogel found a message in a bottle from a student at the Holy Name Catholic School in Bimini, about 220 miles southeast of Titusville and closest to Florida of all the Bahamas islands.

Vogel recently found the bottle while volunteering for a beach cleanup near the space shuttle launch pads at Kennedy Space Center, Florida, Today reported Saturday.

“Dear Sea penpal,” the note began, going on to explain that the bottle wasn’t litter, but a Columbus Day project. “I hope you respond to my letter.”

Respond they will.

Vogel and others have collected space memorabilia – crew photos, pins, stickers and other NASA gear – to send to the 9-year-old girl and her classmates.

Dog crosses mountains to find her way back home

ELY, Nev. – A dog that ran off during at a road-trip rest stop apparently made her way nearly 80 miles across Nevada’s high desert and two mountain ranges to return home a week later.

Moon, a Siberian husky, was reunited April 14 with owner Doug Dashiell, who had last seen her April 6 near Railroad Valley, about 77 miles from his home in Ely.

Moon, who is nearly 2 years old, was no worse for the wear, with the exception of stinking like a skunk that apparently sprayed her somewhere along the journey.

“I’ve had trouble with her running away before. She’s always come home,” Dashiell said. But he didn’t expect her to show up after a week had passed.

Then the White Pine Veterinary Clinic called Dashiell and told him Moon was back in town.

She had wandered up to an Ely residence where Alvin Molea took her home, fed her and gave her a place to sleep. Molea called the clinic because the dog was wearing a tag from it.

The dog’s journey would have taken her across the White River and Ward mountain ranges.