Hi all and letting you know-I’m suddenly buried with sprucing up my travel pieces and compiling them into a manuscript that's presentable to a publisher. Ruthie and I are convinced, naturally, that soon as it hits the stands at Barnes and Noble it’ll be a runaway best seller. As we work to make it happen, you’ll see remarks about how we’re doing right here…including any pain in the butt problems we’re having, whatever we do accomplish, and yeah my whining about Ruthie’s nagging to get it done. Meantime I'll keep posting now and then excerpts from the travel pieces…but not many (otherwise you won’t buy the book later on). Starting today our blog will include other stuff like my occasional humor columns for the Wisconsin Rapids Tribune. Finally, any comments you'd like to make following any of these pieces are most welcome. That’s it. Enjoy!

Here’s a timely piece for “This and That”

Goodbye Winter-Hello Spring!  

            Now that it’s finally warming up, it’s time for growing our tasty veggies. Ruthie and I are so nuts for our home grown ones that half the yard is a garden for them. And yeah, it’s still too cold for tomato and cucumber plants. But last week I planted seeds outside for the hardier stuff. When finished I had seed rows of carrots, radishes, and onions-quite a few actually-in our planter boxes.

             Seeing me bent over the boxes late the next day, Ruthie came over. “So, Garden Boy, what are you doing?”

            Eyes glued to the rows, I groused, “Nuts! Nothing’s sprouted yet!”

            She rolled up her eyes. “Honestly, Gilbert, they just went in yesterday!” (She calls me “Gilbert”, never “Dear” when seeing me act a bit…strangely). 

            “Well, the seed packets claim these are very fast-growing. I’m just checking.”

            Shaking her head, she laughed, “It’s getting dark! If you’re going to keep standing here…ha-ha!-want the flashlight?”

            She was right, I was being a goof. It was getting darker by the minute and the temperature was dropping. Then I groaned, “Did I just see a snowflake?” The weather guy had said it might snow, but only a little. Suddenly nervous I added, “Maybe we should tarp over these boxes.”

            “Gilbert, a little snow cover won’t hurt them. Let’s go inside.”

             I got up early the next morning, looked out the window, and? A little my eye! We'd been hit with six inches! Fortunately, the seed packets had also said these carrots and stuff are tough enough to handle it-which left the big question. Could I?

            Ruthie couldn’t. She yelled, “Get in here! Your radishes will survive but you’ll catch pneumonia!”

            Resigned, kind-of, I settled for peeking at the seeds I’d also planted in basement boxes beneath fluorescent lights. And lo, there they were, sprouts from our broccoli, cauliflower, beets, basil, and Ruthie’s dumb marigold seeds-jillions of them!

            Joining me moments later, she gasped, “Good grief, Gilbert, how much broccoli did you plant?” (I’m also called that when she’s ticked off).

             And yeah, I might’ve overdone it a tad. “Well, I’ve already thinned them, so no problem.”

            “No? Well, Garden Boy, that still leaves…” She started counting.

            Having already done that, I finished for her, “…thirty-four.” (There are. I just now went down and recounted them). And sure, much as we love the stuff, I had to admit-that’s a lot of broccoli. Not counting the cauliflower, another three dozen or so. As she went back up the stairs muttering something about having to buy another freezer, I did a double take at the beet sprouts. Already a couple inches tall and very healthy-looking, there had to be three or four hundred of them. Luckily, our pal Rita likes them, or else we’ll be buried beneath beets. She’ll be good for five or six bushels-I hope.

            Anyhow, I can’t wait ‘til a few weeks from now. Then I can zoom over to our local nursery for the delicate varieties of seedlings; tomatoes, cucumbers, squashes, peppers, and you name it. The only problem; I’m restricted from going there without adequate supervision-by you know who.

            Meantime this morning I looked at the outside boxes and yep, the snow is gone and all that stuff is poking up. In fact, Ruthie just now went out there to see them, too- which might be my other problem any second. So, can any of you readers come over in a few weeks for some carrots and radishes-lots lots of them?  

            “Gilbert!!!”

           

              

Part II; star gazing fun continues and even includes...a UFO?                                                

Waupaca Star Party

            Seeing my struggles with the planisphere, Rick said, “Bring it here and I’ll help you.” Examining it, he reassured, “It took me three years to figure mine out. Suddenly one night I was doing it! Keep at it and you’ll be fine.” He held up what looked like a thickened pen. “This laser is another helper.” Shooting its bright green beam skyward at what he called the Keystone Formation, he scribed a line from the star Vega on one side to Arcturus on the other. “The line between those pointer stars locates the M5 star cluster in the Keystone. It’s not visible to the naked eye and your binoculars will only show it as a tiny smudge.”

            He was right. Through our binoculars M5 was just a pea-sized bit of fog.

            “Now try it with my ‘scope.”

            Out burst more of our “Wow’s!” as we took our turns. Seen through his 14” Meade, the cluster’s bright center of closely packed stars had a lovely halo of outlying ones. After re-aligning his ‘scope, he next showed us the Dumbbell cluster and the Swan nebula.                      

            Jeff called to us from atop his ladder “Come up and see it with my twenty-two inch!”

            Fascinated with the cluster’s greatly magnified image, I kept staring at it ‘til Ruthie tugged my pants leg. “OK, dear, let someone else have a turn.”

            Our exclamations were echoed by others all over the site as they, too, zeroed in on whatever they were itching to see. Better, the viewing was enhanced by perfect conditions; no interfering moonlight, a clear sky, and the cooler air temperature.

            As a surprise add-on to the excitement someone yelled, “Look to the west! What is that!”

             A very bright object was blinking on and off at regular intervals in its orbital trail across all the other stars.

            “I’ve never seen a satellite do that!”

            “Without red and green running lights that’s no plane!”

            A “Close Encounters” fan just went ahead and said it. “Maybe it’s a UFO!”

            As it winked out of sight, one of the pro-astronomers was a party killer. “Nah-it’s a satellite tumbling end over end. The panels are reflecting light from the sun that we can’t see.”

            Finally, Ruthie nudged me. “It’s been great fun, dear, but its way past midnight. Let’s go home.”            

            As we headed for the car, I kept raising the binoculars for final peeks at the Andromeda Nebula. I’d spent many a frustrating evening failing to even locate it. Tonight these NCSF people had taught me where to search it out and then shown what it looked like when brought closer in their ‘scopes. Seen now through our 7X50 binoculars the huge spiral nebula was still only a small patch of brightened haze. Even so, it looked awesome.

            As Ruthie waved me towards our car, I thought-It’s definitely time to give our stingy kids some stronger hints about that new ‘scope!  

            I’m tired of all this cold weather. So, here’s a travel piece not so much about the place but what was above it…on a nice summer night!

                                                Waupaca Star Party

            I stared wide-eyed at what was all around us. “Ruthie, look at all these telescopes!”

            It was an open field at Waupaca’s Hartman Creek campgrounds where the Northern Cross Science Foundation (NCSF) was holding a weekend star gazing event. Until now we-two star gazers had scanned the night sky with only the binoculars and our dilapidated little two-inch telescope on its wobbly tripod. NCSF encouraged the public to join in with them here, so we’d jumped at the chance. Tonight we’d get to peer at planets and stars through more powerful ‘scopes with their owners lending their expertise besides.

            At near dusk we hurried for the “Public Telescope Viewing Section” like kids to a toy store. The first ‘scope we came to stood eight feet tall on its Dobson mount, a wide platform based solidly on the ground. Beside it was a stepladder for looking through the eyepiece on top.

            Owner Jeff looked down at us from the ladder. “Like it? I built it from scratch.” Rightfully proud, he added, “My reflector has a twenty-two inch mirror-the largest one here. When it’s darker, come and see some great close-ups of fantastic star clusters!”

            There were still only two points of light in the sky, the most brilliant being Venus over the west horizon, while fainter and directly above was Saturn.

            Catching us looking up, another NCSF member, Rick, called us over to his 14-inch Star-finder Meade refractor. “It’s still a bit light out, but I’ve got Saturn zeroed in. Take a look.”

             First at the eyepiece, Ruthie exclaimed, “Wow!”, then looked some more as I fidgeted for my turn. When it was, a “Wow!” escaped me, too. A totally mesmerizing sight if ever there was one, Saturn’s banded image stood out clearly against a background tinted deep blue in the fading light. Shown edge-on, her rings were a sharp line dividing the planet in two.

            As Ruthie and I were wowing back and forth, a group of youngsters were doing likewise at a 4-inch refractor on a nearby table. Owner Charlotte was switching the kids back and forth between this one and her homemade 10-inch reflector. When we joined in, I was already thinking about buying us a new ‘scope. I asked Charlotte, “Which of these do you like best?”

             “Both have their good points. My refractor’s like a ship captain’s telescope and gives double the magnification than a same-sized reflector. But my reflector’s mirror catches way more of the light from these objects and has a larger field of view.”

            Someone beat me to the punch. “How much?”

            “This Dobson reflector goes for $350. Not bad considering what they used to run.”

            Fired-up to get one some years back, my buying flame had been snuffed out at seeing the cost. Whereas-now? I muttered to Ruthie, “Let’s give our cheapo kids some birthday gift hints.”

             “Dear, they’ve been ignoring your hints about ‘scopes for years.”

            Soon the Milky Way was a great highway of brilliant points across the night sky. I had our plan-i-sphere, a plate-sized astronomy tool for locating the constellations at the right dates and times of night. Not as easy as it looks, I had to orient myself directly north, dial the proper setting while holding it over my head, and shine a low interference red-filtered penlight to read it. Assuming I knew which constellation I was using as a reference to begin with.

             I growled, “Sweetie, I need three hands with this thing!”

            Continued in Part II; how we did and what else we saw.

           

            Switching to “This and That”, here’s a piece the Rapids Tribune published about my woes with our tech-dependent world.                                        

                                                            Tech Save Us    

            I keep hearing how our technology saves us precious time and makes life easier. And fine-but what’ll save me from technology?

            Years ago I was taking a college exam online, but being computer illiterate I was sweating it. Sure enough, while fumbling along I hit the wrong key and deleted my exam! Luckily, alongside me was computer-savvy Ruthie who helped recapture it. But it was panic city and I’ve been struggling with our high-tech world ever since.

            One day my van warned with its digital display “Low pressure in tire #5!” I couldn’t have told you which was #1, let alone #5, so I air-gauged them all. It was the spare I’d recently put on and yes it was low, so just this once I awarded the van’s computer some points. But I hated it for ordering me around.

            These electronic marvels really give me the creeps when they talk. This happened when our hi-tech grandkids steered me into an automated check-out line at the supermarket. As I slid bar-coded items past the scanner, an eerie metallic voice suddenly blared, “ERROR! PLEASE SCAN AGAIN!” Scared out of my wits I complied but again the menacing voice told me I’d screwed up. Trying to obey the confounded thing a third time, I shut down the system.

            Glaring at me like I was an idiot relic from pre-techie times, a harassed-looking clerk re-started it. Next the kids demoted me to bagging while they effortlessly ran the items through. But to this day I avoid automated check-outs and go to human ones no matter how long the line. 

            Hooking up our new DVD player, I tried reading the directions for a change. I was soon scratching my head over- “Connect Y Pb Pr (COMPONENT-OUT) jacks to corresponding Comp-Video. If using Comp-Video in-jacks (Progressive Scan), set Progressive to On...etc.". (I’m not making this up).

                                                         They must be kidding, right?

                    

            Desperately throwing up my hands, I went to Emergency Plan B! Somehow comprehending all this instruction gibberish, she untangled my wire spaghetti bowl and had the DVD running in a jiffy.

            No use my trying to fight these gadgets, either, because some, like my multi-function cell phone, are like Arnold the killer-robot in “The Terminator”. Shoot him, burn him, or blow him up, he never stops! While in water up to my waist and raking weeds out of our channel, I’d forgotten the phone was in my shorts pocket. Coated with drippy mud after its soaking, it looked very dead. Having nothing to lose though knowing it was hopelessnowing, I plugged it into the charger, smirking-Heh-heh! Here’s one gadget that won’t pester me any more!...and it’s run fine ever since.
             Besides  indestructible, all of its built-in apps (I’m afraid to try) make it even smarter than me. Maybe if I coax it, it'll teach me to send text messages and use it as a camera. If it will, I’ll promise it I won’t give it any more mud baths.     

            Clearly, to keep climbing this high-tech mountain I’m on, I’ll need help. Fortunately, our library staff is always happy to direct me to “Computers for Idiots”. Also, our grandson, who’s built talking robots, can maybe convince me I needn’t flee from them. Meantime, it’s a good thing I’m married to…Emergency Plan B. “Ruthiee!!”  

                                               

           

                                               

Our continuing adventure atop Mt. Evans…and the wind up there!

Topping Mt. Evans-II

                                    

                                            Give her a camera and there’s no stopping her

           

            I yelled, “Let’s go before we’re blown off!”

            Undeterred, she had the camera pointed a thousand feet down at the sparkling oval of Summit Lake. “Wait! The sun’s changing the lake’s color to emerald!”

            Half an hour later we were down there. Across the lake we saw hikers climbing a trail winding up the flanks of the mountain to the peak we’d just been on. Delighted, we saw several supposedly wild and shy mountain goats maybe twenty feet to our right. Fed up with us because we wouldn’t feed them (not allowed), they had gone back to munching the dry grass.

            And just ahead, punctuating our wilderness scene in a way laughingly out of synch with all of this-was a crew filming a deodorant commercial! Carrying a tall, white reflector panel, two crew members walked past us up the trail. Coming down it a hundred feet farther on, along with her male fellow model was a tall, beautiful brunette in hiking shorts and short-sleeve blouse.

                                  

                                  Flank of Mt. Evans and the crew going back up for another take

           

            The director called to her, “Kathy, you mind doing another take? This panel we’re setting up will give you much better lighting!”

            Cheerfully saluting him with her water bottle she said, “Sure! Be happy to!” and headed back up, her co-star in tow.

            Looking at me, Ruthie snickered, “Dear, are you sure this is a Fourteener we’re on!?” This drew a laugh out of me too. Then she caught me staring hungrily at the buffet tables they had set up. Still smiling, she shook her head and nudged me toward the car. “Come on, dear! You can buy us dinner in Boulder!”

Hi and we’re back from our trip to N. Carolina…where it was warm. Anyhow, here’s another place we visited, which seldom is…except for the day we were there.                                                                                                     Topping a Fourteener   

             Tightly gripping the wheel, I inched our car around another hair-raising turn as Ruthie gasped from the passenger side, “Easy, dear, it’s straight down!       

            We were driving to the top of Mt. Evans, one of Colorado’s fifty-two mountains over 14,000 feet high. The state’s citizens proudly call them Fourteeners and during our visits to family in Boulder we had always wanted to get on top of one. Literally handing us an invite, Mt. Evans had a road that led almost to the summit.   

            Ranked as the highest paved road in the U.S., it had countless hairpin turns. Totally focused with staying on it, we didn’t see much of the colorful rock formations, the greenery, and the lovely sweep of the valley, all of this changing on our way up through three separate life zones.

            We got out at the summit parking lot, only to be hit by strong gusts of wind.

            Ruthie yelled, “Hold on to your hat! Mine nearly blew off!”

            A park ranger standing nearby nodded, “It gets chilly up here, too! Good thing you’re dressed right!” He told us he came up twice a day to take summit readings he reported to the base office.

            We were parked in front of a building with walls made of stone blocks. This was the University of Denver’s Mt. Evans Observatory. No one was using it today, but the ranger explained, “Astronomers do come up here. Fifty-percent of the time the night sky is clear. I think…it’s the nation’s highest observatory.”

            We shook our heads, saying they really earned their pay.      

            He laughed, “They sure do. Right now it’s fifty-something degrees up here-about average in the summer. But at night it can drop to single digits and winds have been clocked up to a hundred knots!” (One knot equals a nautical mile of 6,076 feet). 

            We were comfy enough in our winter jackets and the clear sky promised we wouldn’t get rained on. Better, we could hike the final two-hundred fifty feet of elevation over hiker-friendly switchbacks without half-killing ourselves. Even so, being from Wisconsin, we weren’t used to the thin air up here and simply crossing the lot to the trailhead had us huffing and puffing.

            We had not gone much higher than the lot when the grandeur of the Rockies had spread out even more beneath an endless blue colored deeper than we’d seen from below.

                       

            100 feet above our car-to the right of it is the nation’s highest working observatory

           

            It was hard to appreciate all this while fighting to breath, so we plunked down on a flat rock for the first of our “boulder breaks”.  The air up here, what there was of it, was pure and clean, and we welcomed its bracing coldness. Our peak and its sisters had been an inspiring sight when we’d seen them from far off. Sitting here among them and feeling we could reach out and touch them was simply awesome. Just as striking were the smaller things, like the lovely quartz crystals in our boulder and the pretty little patch of wildflowers at our feet.   

            A guy coming back down and maybe thinking we were too exhausted to go on (no way!) gave us a boost. “Think of it as being halfway up the highest mountain in the world and you’ll be fine!”

            Pretending we were climbing Mt. Everest actually did help. A dozen boulder breaks later, we stood on the brass pin the U.S. Geological Survey pounds into the highest rock on every summit in America. “Mt. Evans…Elevation 14,258 Feet”.

            We did high-fives…”Woo-hoo, we’re on top!”

            A young woman in a hollow just below us handed up a canister and grinned, “Congratulations! Now you can sign the log like the rest of us!”

            As I did, my photographer-spouse got busy with our trusty camera.

            Meantime, the wind down in the parking lot had been a gentle breeze compared to what we were getting up here. We had to lean into it to not be knocked over.

(Continued in Part II)