Fickle Spring

Despite the forecast, we were still a little surprised to wake up this morning and see that it had been snowing during the night, and was still snowing.  I always like the way fresh fallen snow makes the yard look.

This was wet, heavy snow, too.  That made it stick to all the trees.

The nice thing was that, even though it coated everything, it wasn't frozen on real hard. Cleaning the windshield wasn't that much work when I went out.

Spring is a fickle time of year.  It was just a couple of days ago that the weather was warm and calm enough that I was out on my first bike ride of the season. It wasn't perfect bike weather, that won't happen for a few more weeks or even a month.  But it was still pretty nice. You can get used to that pretty quick after a long, cold winter.

Before, when the weather was nice

The street I rode out on looked pretty nice other day.

This morning, cold and wet

Today it was wet and slushy, cold and wintry.

First ride of the season

A clear, paved portion of the trail.

The same trail today, buried under inches of snow.  Luckily, this will melt off fairly fast and I hope to be able to be back outside, enjoying the spring!

The Humanity Star

Back in February I learned that in January a satellite called "The Humanity Star" had been put in orbit.  That caught my interest.  It had been launched on January 21st from New Zealand by a company that did commercial space flight, they put satellites in orbit for whomever wanted them up there.  Along with a commercial payload, the company slipped in the Humanity Star and put it in orbit as well.

It was not big, only about three feet wide, with 76 triangular panels and weighed only 18 pounds.  The panels were coated with highly reflective material.  In orbit it was supposed to reflect the sun's light to appear just slightly brighter than most other stars, visible to the unaided eye.  It got mixed reactions. The company's intent was to give humanity something to look up together and see, something that could be seen from anywhere in the world, something to bring mankind together. It had no other purpose than to be seen.  However, some astronomers thought was was littering the sky, interfering with observations, study, and photography.  Some people were pretty vocal about it.  I suspect a great deal of humanity was completely unaware it was up there.

It was supposed to be in orbit for about nine months, orbiting the earth every 90 minutes and be most visible around dawn or dusk.  They made an app you could download that would tell you where it was and when it would next pass over your location so you could take a look.  I thought that was cool so I decided to take a look and downloaded the app.  The first time I tried to see it was the morning of March 1st at dawn.  I got up in time to be out in the yard to watch for it.  Since the app showed where it was I was watching as it approached, off to the east of my location.

Unfortunately, there were clouds off to the east, on the horizon.  I saw a glint, a twinkle or two, between the clouds but  I wasn't entirely sure I was actually seeing the Humanity Star.  I saw a nice sunrise, though.

Not a spectacular sunrise, but a nice one, nonethelesss.

A couple of days later I was out at dusk, trying again.  But with no better results.

Saw a nice full moon, though.

Over the next couple of weeks I would watch the app to see where it was, when it would pass by, and get out either in the morning at dawn or in the evening at dusk.

Sometimes it would go by to the west. Other times to the east.  In theory, that was to facilitate it being right on the horizon and better to be seen.  Always right at dawn or dusk. One evening we all went out southwest of town to see if we could see it.  We saw the Milky Way and some real nice stars but not the Humanity Star.  I tried to get some pictures of the stars but none of them worked.

One evening it went very nearly right over head and I was out there trying to see it.  But nothing.  Getting a chance to try to see it was difficult. It needed to be a time I could get out and look, when there was nothing else going on, and it needed to be clear weather, when there was no cloud cover. That's proved to be a tough combination.

I finally decided that part of the problem was light pollution, from my own community or from those nearby.  So I picked my spot carefully, out of town and away from where the light from neighboring towns would interfere.

It was still pretty cool out so I sat in my car, watching its approach on the app and watching for it in the sky.

Saw another nice sunset.  Then I thought I was seeing something that might have been it.  But after watching it a few minutes I realized it was not moving as fast as shown on the app.  It couldn't have been it.  I thought maybe it was some other satellite or a planet so I checked a different app I have.

It was a star called Alphard.  That surprised me because it was so bright.  The app marked its trajectory and all.  I like this other app I have.  But alas, no Humanity Star.

As I thought about it, it occurred to me that the app was getting me out too early or too late to see the satellite.  It was supposed to be only slightly brighter than the other stars in the sky yet the app had me out there looking before any stars were really visible.  I decided I was going to have to watch real close and study the times the app was telling me and try to figure out how to be out there when it was just a little darker.  I don't know, maybe it was as much light pollution as timing.  Unfortunately, before I could make my next attempt I saw a news article that said the Humanity Star was going to fall out of the sky much sooner than anticipated.  Because of its light weight it turned out that they miscalculated how long it was stay in orbit.  If fell from the sky on March 21st and there would no more opportunities to try and see it.  But it was an interesting experience nonetheless.  It was fun trying, even if I was never sure I actually saw it.

Open Season!

Knowing that bicycle weather was fast approaching I began fretting about being able to get to my bike.  See, during the winter Schwartzbeere and his family came to stay with us, bringing a lot of their stuff with them.  Most of it went into the garage, which pretty much filled it up and left only a couple of narrow trails through it. Buried the bikes pretty well. This shot is a little dark but if you look close you can see the bikes in this picture, kind of. 

Hint: the white bike in front is not one of them.

See the black hand-truck?  The back tires are just to the right of it.  Yeah, buried in there pretty deep and thorough.

But Schwartzbeere was so good to me.  He dug it out and moved it up front to where I could get to it.  Not as much room as I've always had in the past but it was workable and I was grateful.  Now all I needed was for the weather to cooperate.

Today that happened!  I'm a wuss, I'll admit it.  I don't like to ride if its below 50 degrees or wind over about about 12 miles per hour.  Today it was great!  55 and about 8 mph so as soon as I got home from work I changed clothes and took off. 

First stop was a gas station so I could put some air in my tires.  When the season was ending last year my bike had developed a slow leak and I needed to put air in it every few weeks.  I figured with the whole winter having gone by it might be nearly flat but it wasn't.  I was able to ride to the station.  That was nice.

This early in the season I usually have to stay off the trails because they're still snow packed.  Nobody plows them; the people that ride in the winter use the fat tire bikes and just pack the snow down so they stay snow covered a while.  That, plus as the snow melts it leaves puddles and I don't like getting a stripe up my back so I stick to the streets for the first while.  The street I chose for today's ride didn't have a path or sidewalk along side it for the first 1.5 miles so I was out in the street anyway.  It felt nice to be out again, even though this first stretch was into the wind.  I could sure tell that it has been a while since I was on my bike.  But then, the first ride of the season is usually like that.  So I kept it short.

At about 2.5 miles I turned onto a path, a wide sidewalk, really.  But nicer than out in the street.  This will be much nicer when it greens up a bit more.

Then another mile down the road I turned again and began the return trip.  I like to ride in big circles, no backtracking, although that doesn't always work.  But I try to do that.  Maybe its the OCD in me.  Anyway, the next stretch was along a busy street.  Fortunately, there was still a good, wide sidewalk by the side of the road. This time the wind was pushing me along, or at least not fighting me.  It was much easier going. 

Then a couple of miles later I'm back into quite, neighborhood streets, much less traffic. This was the last leg of the trip.

All in all, this first ride of the season was not quite 6 miles.  Not too bad for a first ride, for me, anyway.  And my average speed was 9.6 mph.  Actually a little faster than my season average from last year.  I thought it was pretty good for the first ride of the season.  The downside is that the weather does not look very promising for as far out as the extended forecast goes. Might be a few days before I can get out again. Bummer.

Always a Gamble

Blaubeere was bringing her kids over and we had decided we wanted to go do something while they were here. Ahead of time we had looked at the weather and it looked like it was going to be a pretty decent weekend.  It was after the Spring Equinox, the official beginning of spring, after all.  It is supposed to be getting warmer.  And, considering how cold it gets around here in the middle of winter, anything above freezing is definitely warmer than its been. So we had our plans and were ready to go.  However, maybe it was a bad omen that as I went out to the car I looked at our driveway and there, in the ice was a leaf.  It attracted my attention because it had melted down into the ice a good inch.  Like it had attracted the heat and melted down into the ice.  It doesn't show very well in the picture, maybe I should have taken it from a side angle.  Anyway, I thought it was unusual so I took a picture and continued our preparations. 

The trip was a collection of "maybes".  We were going to an area where snowy owls had been spotted quite frequently during the last several weeks in the hopes of seeing one or more.  It was a ways away and we knew it was a gamble, there might not be any there when we got there.  And, unfortunately, there weren't that morning.  I had seen one while driving around a couple of weeks ago but on this morning we didn't see any. Bummer. But the area we were looking was near a prairie chicken reserve so we thought we'd stop and check it out.

The whole area we were looking was along the edge of the reserve but there was a little shelter that has some informational displays off in a part of the reserve so we stopped there to look around.

It was pretty interesting.  They even had a little gadget powered by a crank.  You crank the handle a minute and a narrative starts that tells you about prairie chickens and even has some of the sounds they make.  The kids had a good time with that.

So we read the displays and looked at the murals and pictures.

It was an interesting place.

After looking at the displays we wandered out into the prairie grass. This was a very flat area.  Prairie grass stretching for a great distance in every direction.

The snow was pretty much gone but the grass hadn't yet greened up.  It was still recovering from having been under snow all winter.

But there were trails here and there through the grass so we went walking out into the grass.  Alas, we did not see any prairie chickens.  I suppose we didn't really expect to see any.  You can't really expect to arrive and have them conveniently waiting there, all on display and ready to look at. But it was still a good stop, even without seeing any prairie chickens.  Interesting to learn about them, their habitat, and their mating rituals, which generate all the noise they're famous for.

Our next stop was quite a ways away from the prairie chicken reserve.  We had picked it because it had a nesting tower where osprey frequently nest in the spring.  So, hoping to see some osprey, we made the trek.  Unfortunately, we did not see any osprey. I think it was still a bit early in the spring.  The entire lake at the park was still totally frozen over.  No open water at all.  That makes it hard to fish. Osprey migrate during the winter so they can still have open water to hunt during the winter.

It was a small park but even without any osprey being around it was still an interesting place.  They had a unique bench at the picnic shelter.

They also had a dock down by the lake, still totally locked in by ice.  But still worth a visit to check it out.

The ice made the dock a little funner to play at.  No chance of getting wet.

It was windier at the park than it had been at the reserve so we didn't stay a long time. Even though the temperature was above freezing, the wind added a windchill factor that put the effective temperature below freezing.  It got cold pretty quick.

But even though all the trees, grass, and other vegetation was still "winter dead",  you could tell it was a pretty little park.  We thought it might be worth a trip back when spring was a little more established in the area.

After freezing our buns off in the cold out-doors all morning we decided to hit a nearby ice cream place.  Ice cream is good no matter how cold it gets.

Apparently we weren't the only ones that felt that way.  We actually had to wait in line for several minutes to get our ice cream.

So all bundled up, we waited in line and got our ice cream.   Then we beat it home to play some games and continue the fun.

It was a good time.  Some times you go on these sight-seeing trips and its a gamble as to whether or not you're going to see anything.  I "collect" places around where we might reasonably have a chance of visiting some day or another but you never know if the places will live up to expectations or not.  When you go gallivanting like this to places you've never been you always have to be prepared for it to not turn out.  That was part way true this time, but it was still a good, fun time, albeit a bit cold.  We will definitely take a chance again and continue to go sight-seeing!

Sunday Thoughts

The prophet historian Mormon

One of the speakers at church today spoke of the Book of Mormon and that got me to thinking of my favorite parts of the book.

For the most part, the Book of Mormon was written by a man who, among other things, was an historian.  He had at his disposal extensive records that covered nearly a thousand years of the history of his own people, as well as an additional record that covered thousands of years of history of the people that inhabited the area before his own people arrived.  The work he did in compiling all that history into a single record was nothing short of amazing.  In doing that compilation, he was guided by inspiration as to what to include and often what not to include to give us what we know today as the Book of Mormon.  One of the things he did, acting under inspired direction, was to include some plates written by one of the first prophets of his people, Nephi.  This probably seemed odd to him as he had already included that same period of time in the compilation he had done.  Adding the actual record of Nephi was a duplication that Mormon must have wondered about.  If the Lord ever told Mormon what would happen 1400 years later and why both were included, Mormon never wrote about it.

As Mormon neared the end of putting together that great work he gave all the records, as well as the compilation he had made, to his son, Moroni, with the charge that he finish the record.  It was actually Moroni that summarized the history of the people who lived there before his own people into a very brief history we know as the Book of Ether, which is part of the Book of Mormon.  When Moroni was done with his father's compilation and the Book of Ether, he hid the plates on which it was written and thought he was done.  But some twenty years later he came back and added a little bit more.  All that together is what we have today as the Book of Mormon. It is not the entire record compiled by Mormon but it is all that we have been given at this point.  So, with the exception of the record of Nephi and the small portion that Moroni added at the very end, the Book of Mormon as we have it today is the work of Mormon, this historian prophet.

As I listened to the speaker and thought of my own favorite parts of the Book of Mormon, it occurred to me that my favorite parts are not from the compilation done by Mormon, but from the portions originated byby Nep, Mormon, and Moroni, not intended as part of the compilation, at least on Nephi and Mormon's part.  That's not to lessen anything at all of the compilation Mormon wrote, but it made me wonder if it may have been a little closer to their hearts as they wrote their deepest feelings in their own writings.

Nephi, who brought his people to the Promised Land

The writings of Nephi that I have come to think of as being so rich in spirit and feeling are at the end of his writings, II Nephi, chapters 30, 31, 21, and 33.  Most of the history that Nephi wrote is in I Nephi.  In II Nephi he gives a little more of the events that happened after his family arrived in the promised land and eventually separated into two groups.  Then he included the testimony of his younger brother, Jacob. After Jacob's testimony, Nephi included some of the writings of the prophet Isaiah, who had lived about 80 years before Nephi's time.  Lastly, Nephi included his own testimony. Perhaps he was observing the Law of Witnesses, and giving the testimony of of Christ from three witnesses.  Unlike Mormon, who was writing to people far in the future, Nephi was writing to his own people, his own family.  He cared about them deeply, and had strong hopes that many would listen and follow Christ. He had seen their future in prophetic vision but still held hopes that many as would listen and follow Christ.  He wrote the things of his heart to a people he knew and loved a great deal.

Mormon, after witnessing the demise of his people

While most of the writings of Mormon that we have are his history of his people, we have some of his letters and teachings that he wrote to his son, Moroni, or that Moroni otherwise had record of.  These, however, are included because Moroni added them after Mormon had turned over all the records to him. In the Book of Moroni, the last book of the Book of Mormon, Moroni includes a sermon given by his father, Mormon.  We have that now as Chapter Seven of the Book of Moroni. In it, Mormon teaches his people, for whom he has loved and sacrificed so much, about the love of Christ.  Mormon left them with some very powerful teachings about becoming like Christ, and how to become like Him. How, at the very beginning, to move toward Christ and the great gift of Eternal Life that He offers. All in admonishment, not lose hope despite all the wickedness and resultant adversity that surrounded them in all their lives.  Times very much like our own in many ways. Like Nephi, Mormon was not speaking to people in the distant future but to his own people. He wrote the things of his heart to a people he knew and loved a great deal.

Moroni, the final keeper of the record

Included in the material that Moroni included at the end of the Book of Mormon, some twenty years after he thought he was done, are a little of his own writings.  As Moroni put it, "Now, I Moroni, after having made an account of the people of Jared, I had supposed not to have written more, but I have not as yet perished ... Wherefore I write a few more things, contrary to that which I had supposed; for I had supposed not to have written any more" (Moroni 1:1 & 4).  What a marvelous thing that he did that! He concluded the additional things he wrote, which included his father's sermon, with "a few words by way of exhortation" (Moroni 10: 2).  He then went on to give a powerful promise that has been used by missionaries the world over since the restoration of the Gospel almost 200 years ago, that one can know the truth of anything by the power of the Holy Ghost.  He taught ways to recognize the work of the Lord, and how closely the Lord attends his work.  He concluded with a powerful exhortation to come unto Christ.  In this instances, Moroni was writing to people in the distant future, but people who were the descendants of his own people and a people he had seen in vision. People he therefore knew. The events of his life had shown him there was no hope for his own people in his own time.  But he still held great hope for his descendants in the future.  He had full faith in the promises of the Lord to restore and gather his people, the House of Israel. He wrote the things of his heart to a people he knew and loved a great deal.

The prophets of the Book of Mormon, in many instances, endured great hardship to do their part in preserving the Book of Mormon, that great tool of the restoration.  That was in addition to their work among their own people, in trying to keep them in the way of the Lord.  Their love and dedication to the Lord and those they served is evident in their writings.  Mormon said it well, "be filled with this love, which he hath bestowed upon all who are true followers of his Son, Jesus Christ, ... that when he shall appear we shall be like him" (Mormon 7:48).  They were like him, filled with the love Mormon taught us motivates God in this great work that the earth was made for.  They wanted the same for us.  This is evident in their writings and that is what makes these some of my favorite parts of the Book of Mormon.

An Anniversary Excursion

Life is busy enough that sometimes you have to celebrate special occasions on days other than the actual day.  We've done that occasionally for birthdays.  Anniversaries are another good example.  The day of our anniversary is actually Monday but there isn't enough time on a week day to do what we wanted so we took off yesterday, a Saturday, and had some fun for our anniversary. We decided to go see a couple of places on our sight-seeing list.

There's a park that has been on our list for a while because it has a swinging bridge we wanted to go see.  Swinging bridges are cool, they bounce when you walk on them.  We had stopped to see one a couple of years ago while on temple trip.  Unfortunately, it never occurred to us this time that the park might be closed for the winter.  Alas, it was.  But that just meant instead of being able drive to a parking lot nearby we had to walk a ways into the park.

So we did.  Being a nice, sunny day, the walk was kind of nice.  For the most part, the road was clear and open so it was also an easy walk.  At least, easier than the walk we made a little later in the day.  But we'll get to that in a minute. 

The bridge we wanted to see is on one end of the park, as opposed to out in the middle.  Its not a real big park anyway.  Nonetheless, we got so see some really nice scenery while hiking to and through the park to the bridge.

The river that runs through the park (after all, if there's a bridge there must be a river, right?) was beginning to thaw but there was still plenty of snow around.  Kind of pretty.

There was just the earliest beginnings of green starting to stir around the park.  The green pine trees don't count - they stay green all winter.  But in the grass that had made it out from under the snow there were green shoots pushing up all over the place.

There is actually more than just the swinging bridge in the park. 

But it was the swinging bridge that we wanted to see.  This one was actually a bit longer than the one we visited a couple of years back.  It isn't a picturesque as the other, but its still a nice place.  We decided we might have to come back after the park greened up a bit.

And, of course, being a bouncy swinging bridge, we had to jump on it. The first jump wasn't very big and didn't do much.

The second jump, however, was a bit better.  But in either case, the jumping took place over the solid end of the bridge and didn't cause the bridge to swing very much.  After all, there was a sign right there that warned against making the bridge swing.  Actually, to get it to bounce all you had to do was walk on it.  Just walking across it made it bonce so much that I found myself hanging on to the rail.

We also spent a little time looking around the area right around the bridge, including a stone bridge not too far away. A nice place.

Then it was on the road, off to the next stop.  Along the way we passed a farm with their silo painted in an unusual manner.  We had to stop and take a picture; pretty interesting.

The next stop was lunch at a little cafe in a small, rural town.  We'd never been there before, it was one I had just found and thought we'd give it a try.  That's a hit or miss kind of thing.  Sometimes these small town cafes are really good, other times there just so so. 

This one was small, there was only us and a couple of other diners at a table across the room.

But it was a cozy little place.  And the food was pretty good, too.

Brombeere had creamy potato soup and a caeser chicken wrap that she said was pretty good.

I had something else.

When we go to these little out of the way places I look over the menu but if I see they have a Ruben sandwich that's usually about as far as I look.  I love those things.  So I got the sandwich, which came with a salad as well.

Not a bad lunch at all.

The next stop was out in the middle of nowhere.  The nowhere part was coincidence, the middle part was quite specific.

This is known as the 45x90 spot.  The midpoint of the northern half of the western hemisphere.  How would it be to own the spot of land where that point fell?  The county has made a small park at that point.  There's a small parking area just off the road where you can stop and look at the sign they've put up. 

But the actual 45x90 point is about 100-150 yards to the east, out in some farmer's field.  I'm not aware of the deal the county and the farmer have reached but there is the parking area, a marker out in the field, and a path across the top of the field from the parking area to the marker.  I hadn't expected anything to be there except the parking area.  But there is, even though it all looks like its pretty new.  The signage looked temporary and the wood was new and unweathered.  It takes a chunk out of the guy's field that he has to plow and harvest around.  But it must be a workable arrangement because there it is.

This little hike was actually harder than the hike into the park.  That is because the path was never cleared all winter.  Its a crushed granite path and had probably as much as 8 or 10 inches of snow on it in most places.  Others spots it had melted away down to the granite.  But most of the way it was snow covered.

That made it pretty wet on this day, too, because it was above freezing so the snow was melting.  But we made it.  This is looking back across the field to the parking area.  Looks like the field was planted in corn last year.

I think the county must have refurbished the whole "park" in the last year.  The marker used to be a small little marker set in cement in the ground.  Now its a big marker with a nice metal plate in the center.  It reminded me of our stop at the Four Corners monument where Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah come together.  But this wasn't as commercialized as that.  This was much nicer in that regard. I had kind of expected that we would be alone there but there were several other people leaving as we arrived.  A few more came and were out at the marker with us.  In fact, we took their picture on their camera and they took ours on ours.  That was nice.  There were also lots and lots of foot prints in the snow on the path, too.  One lady, who was coming back as we went out, stopped to rest on a nice bench about halfway to the marker.  She had a walking cast on her foot.

There was a sign at the marker showing where all the 45x90 spots are.  Two are out in the ocean, one is in China, and there other is here in our state.

We didn't get to do this at Four Corners.  The day we were there, during the summer months a few years ago, there was line to stand on that marker that was probably 45-60 minutes long.  We didn't wait.

After visiting the marker out in the field you can go into town and get a medallion and be an official member of the 45x90 club. So, of course, we did.

  

Then we topped the excursion off with a stop at our favorite ice cream place.  The perfect ending to a perfect day.  Its kind of nice to have reached this milestone and still have the perfect someone to spend such a day with, to have such an occasion to celebrate with.  She remains my favorite person.  I don't see that ever changing.