Like other tourists before us, my wife, Joan, our son, Nate, and I were breathless as we reached the 20-story top of Temple IV in the Mayan ruins of Tikal in northern Guatemala. It was a high point of a March spring break visit with Nate, an Iowa State University student who's studying water movement in mountains miles away in the southeast part of the country. If you've seen the first-released Star Wars movie, you already know the view that awaited us from our limestone ledge barely above the jungle canopy. Here, George Lucas filmed other tall Tikal pyramids poking above the trees to depict the rebel moon, a base for attacking the Galactic Empire's Death Star.
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