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)

            Hi again and here’s another place we’d definitely go back to!                 

                        Our Amazing Close Encounter with Devil’s Tower

            Ruthie and I had been eager to visit Devil’s Tower ever since seeing it in Steven Spielberg’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”. We passed through Hulett, Wyoming and suddenly there it was-a colossal rock formation looming over the horizon.   

            I yelled, “Wow! It’s just like in the movie!”      

            Already snapping photos, Ruthie said, “This is way better, dear!”

                                            If ever a travel sight rated a “Wow!” it’s this one!

            The park’s main lot was nearly filled with cars with more pulling in behind us. Trying to beat the crowd, we grabbed our day packs and hurried to the paved walkway that ran for over a mile around the tower. Like everyone else when starting off, we kept gaping up at this natural skyscraper. Our park leaflet said it was created from molten magma ages ago, the material cooling into enormous five-sided columns rock sweeping up 867 feet to the top. Plains Indians had revered the Tower since ancient times and, equally awed, President Teddy Roosevelt declared it our first national park in 1906. As we walked the piney essence of ponderosas all around filled the air.

            Ruthie inhaled deeply. “What a wonderful fragrance!”

            I said, “They say these ponderosas smell like vanilla. I’m going to take a whiff.” Going over to one, I pressed my nose to the bark. “It’s vanilla, all right! Try it!”

             A young couple with climbing gear stopped to ask Ruthie what I was doing. Rolling her eyes with that I can’t take him anywhere look, she laughed, “Don’t pay him any attention. He likes smelling trees.”

             Laughing back, the young woman said, “We’re picnicking on top of the tower. We’ll wave if we see you from up there. Bye!”

             We saw tiny figures climbing their ropes up the sheer rock faces and a few climbers were coming back down. We held our breaths as one, belayed with ropes anchored from above by two others, kicked off to rappel out and down in long freefall leaps. The park pamphlet rightfully claimed this place was a Mecca for mountaineers.

            Following a steady upgrade, we were a mile above sea level and the sweep of blue sky over the open land below was endless. We reached an overlook where park ranger, Doleen, was leading a tour group.

            A woman watching people scaling the tower remarked, “There sure are lots of climbers here.”

            Doleen nodded, “They’re from all over the world and of all ages. The oldest to reach the top was 83. The youngest, if you’re ready for this, was 6!”

            Much-much younger (68) than that older person, I muttered to Ruthie. “I bet we could do it.”

                                    You can barely see three climbers in the center. Hmm-on second thought…..

           

            She ignored me as, meantime, Doleen pointed toward one of the columns. “For those with binoculars, try spotting the old ladder up there!”

             Ruthie found it first. “I see it! Are those people actually using it?”

            Doleen shook her head. “I hope not. It’s a wooden stake ladder built by two local ranchers back in 1893. Their wives used it to be the first women to reach the summit.”

            My wife gets nervous on our eight foot extension. Still peering through the binoculars, she shook her head. “I shudder to think of them pulling themselves hundreds of feet straight up on that thing!”         

             We were halfway around the trail when a white tail doe came out of the trees right in front of us…and stopped. We Wisconsinites see lots of deer, but they shy off if they see us. This one just looked at us and began nibbling the grass. Used to seeing so many people here, she was so tame we almost had to shove her out of our way.

            The trail began angling down toward our starting point. Now near noon it had heated up to where we were sweaty. We couldn’t resist taking still another break to take it in, the Tower's soaring majesty. The Photo Queen wanted to show it off (plus, herself) to family and friends, so I finally got to use the camera. 

                                     The Queen-modeling a postcard at the best place imaginable!

            

            It felt good to walk downhill for a change. By the time we’d circled back to the visitor center there’d been so much to see that we’d been two hours on a trail we’d have normally covered in half the time. While munching our remaining trail snacks at the pavilion, an elderly woman seated nearby was being tended to by younger people.

            One asked, “Will you be okay, Grandma? We’ll be on the trail for awhile.”

            Perky and alert, she smiled engagingly at us and shooed them off. “I’m fine! I’ll just have fun talking to these folks.”

            Introducing herself as Lee Ann, she told us she’d lived in these parts all her life. “My family knows I’ve always loved coming to Devil’s Tower. They brought me here today to celebrate my 80^th birthday.” Since it had played such an enjoyable part in her life, we asked her to relate her favorite stories about it.

            “I was still a little girl and right here when one of the most exciting ones happened! You see, this daredevil parachuted from the wing of a plane and landed on top of the Tower. But then he couldn’t climb down! The rescue teams took forever to lower the poor guy down. It made national news.”

            This and her other true life tales provided a delightful wrap-up to a most enjoyable hiking adventure. As we drove away, I said, “Sweetie, we could come back sometime and climb this thing! With practice and a good guide, how hard could it be?”

            Studying our road map, she didn’t bother to look up. “Only in your dreams, dear-quit looking back at it and keep your eyes on the road, OK?”    

            Switching to “This and That”, here’s a piece the Wisconsin Rapids Tribune published a year ago-about where I’m at with our winter frolics around here.                             

                                                            Febrrr-uary

             Peering out our window, Ruthie grinned, “It snowed again-how great!”

            No winter lover, I muttered, “Yeah, for polar bears and penguins!”

            She ran to call her pals Sharon and Gail to go cross-country skiing. I wasn’t invited, she knowing full well what I was seeing, or imagining anyway-that the frozen landscape was a sunny beach with the surf rolling in. She’d heard me whine often enough-“If I were Governor, I’d veto February!”-(…but I’d keep Valentine’s Day). Whereas, the Snow Queen even decorated our road post with a penguin.

          

                                                      The Queen and her posted pal

            I’d hoped this winter would be short, but no our road was still a skating rink. Last week I’d slid into a drift when pulling in from Hwy 13 and by the time our snow plow lady, two of her helpers, and Ruthie helped pull me out, my downhill slide with Wisconsin winters went even faster.

            This week she charged upstairs yelling, “Dear, there’s water dripping from the den ceiling!”

            “No way, sweetie-it’s a jillion-below outside!”

            Turned out there was an ice dam along the gutter. Interior heat under the shingles had melted the snow, causing droplets to leak through our ceiling. I hammered the ice but it was like concrete. An hour later I was back from the hardware store with a hundred feet of heating cables. After slipping and sliding around on our snowy roof, we had them spread out and lapped over the gutter. The leaking stopped, although the melting formed huge icicles reaching to the ground. My Snow Queen gushed, “They look so lovely!”

            I was the one who found water merrily spreading out on the floor from under our basement sink. The condensation overflow tube from our furnace feeds into it and drains out through the foundation wall. It was sub zero and the outlet pipe had frozen solid. Trying to thaw it out there with a heat gun didn’t work and also turned me into a Popsicle. Soon back from the hardware place, I removed my gloves and fumbled with freezing fingers to wrap the heating coil around the pipe…and it worked. Except, by then I was one of those ice statues those weird people in Minnesota admire so much. (Ruthie does, too).        

            Next, the spring for our garage door-opener broke. Royce, our gem of a repair guy, told us, “When it’s very, very cold the garage door can freeze to the floor, the steel spring gets brittle, and when you punch your opener, …Bang!..., the spring breaks.”
            The last straw was yesterday when I was handed yet another cold weather bulletin by my Snow Queen and this time even she sounded fed-up. “Our downstairs shower drain is frozen!” We’d forgotten to pour plumbing anti-freeze into the drain after showering. We fed in boiling water, drew it out when cooled, and poured in more, over and over until the drain freed. I went to the hardware store and bought extra gallons of anti-freeze.

            This last episode finally convinced both of us that even though we’d be missed around here (especially by our hardware store) it’s time to visit our friends in Tucson. So, as we abandon this winter wonderland to you hardier folks, we want to leave some words of encouragement, and especially to my fellow February-haters. Cheer up! Valentine’s Day is just around the corner!