night-sky

Long Nights Moon

Published December 21, 2018

Pearl Street, Boulder

Presents wrapped, pets groomed, medals hung/bibs put away. holiday Ready.

LOVE LOVE Christmas week. Multiple dinners out & nothing more – week to kick back, just take it all in. Lights on Pearl Street, Christmas cards & Sis’ annual publication (everyone awaits/big family buzz…did I make the newsletter?) Have watched her kids GROW. Ballet, soccer. Braces, dog Daisy. Family vacations. Proms, College. LOVE LOVE the Greco Family newsletter…a treasured holiday tradition 🎄

Holiday’ng both coasts this gifting season, Saturday begins my first Christmas Trifecta – THREE states, THREE holiday dinners: New Hampshire, Connecticut & Colorado. But only once [Ash’s house] will I wear bro’s gifted Yeti costume. LOL> #luckyinlife

Happy Christmas friends.

Laugh, smile. Breathe, get quiet. Enjoy the solstice Cold Moon ❄️

: holiday GROOMED

: seasonal GIFTING

: wrapped ‘n ready

: medals hung/bibs put away

: 2018 Door of Fame

: Merry Christmas 🎅

: holiday LIGHTS

: Greco TRADITION

: season’s REASON

: SOLSTICE sunrise

Neighborhood Gifting

In Native American cultures which tracked the calendar by the moons, December’s full moon was known as the Full Cold Moon. It is fittingly associated when winter cold fastens its grip and the nights become long and dark.

In 2018, the Cold Moon falls shortly after Friday’s winter solstice and the peak of the Ursid Meteor Shower. This is a minor meteor shower, people should only expect to see a few shooting stars per hour. December’s full moon is also called the Long Nights Moon because it typically occurs near winter solstice, the shortest day of the year.

Posted in Life | Tagged holidays, night-sky | Leave a comment

Western Slope road trippin’

Published September 2, 2017

Louisville ⇨Valley View Hot Springs

Labor Day: unofficial start to Autumn. For us snow lovers…almost made it thru another summer 🙂

3 day holiday. Staying ‘local’ this year, road trippin’ Colorado’s Western Slope. Trip highlight: hiking in scenic Telluride – yep, another high-elevation ski town mountain-etched by massive canyons [the San Juans]. Aspen, Crested Butte & now Telluride – been an outstanding Colorado summer.

Friday 5pm. Work ends, holiday begins.

Packed, picked up the Pup, on the road by 6 – along with most of my Front Range neighbors. Argh. Camping holiday. Needed to check into my site by 10pm. Valley View folks were mighty nice to hang around ‘til 20-past. Otherwise would have started my adventure with a hefty night hike, parked on the wrong side of a chained cattle-gate. As it was, struggled to pitch-tent in the dark. Mighty remote.

Woke Saturday morning to quiet Colorado paradise. Dry arid landscape, mix of evergreen & cacti. Natural hot springs tucked between the Great Sand Dunes & Gunnison National Park. Hiked thru fields of sunflower, lapsing 30-45 minutes at each naturally heated pool. Meadow Pond, Waterfall Pond, Top Pond, Party Pond…whole lotta warm-water bubbling.

Pupster begged, no one around. I relented. Happy dog-paddling pup.

Valley View Hot Springs ⇨Telluride

Our most remote ponds are up a short, but steep trail. Most take about twenty minutes to trek the ¼ mile trail to the Top Ponds. Guests agree these peaceful, bubbling warm waters make it the trip well worthwhile. It’s a series of three (almost four) ponds flowing one into the next. The top-most pond fills about two feet deep and offers ample space to find a corner to one’s self. Its water cascades down to join more warm source water beneath a large tree providing shade throughout the day. Water temperatures vary dramatically as these ponds mix with more snow-melt and runoff than our other sources. In recent months, temperatures ranged from 98°F to 107°F.

Showered, on the road by 1pm. Quick detour in Villa Grove. Small 3-building town – but one of those buildings advertised pie. Never miss an opportunity for pie ❤

3 hours of winding byway. Poncha Springs, Gunnison, fuel/sanity break in Montrose. Ridgway, Placerville, Sawpit, Telluride. Campground, no room in the Inn. Soooo many people…Telluride Film Festival. Who knew?

Opted to drive toward Bridal Veil Falls – tomorrow morning’s hike launch. Mile-half of dirt & boulders (4WD trek). Secured an overnight pull-off, clouds grayed, evening skies opened. RAIN. Car-camped high above Telluride. Nite 2 elevation: 10,000ft+.

: mix of evergreen & cacti

: natural hot springs tucked between Colorado’s Great Sand Dunes & Gunnison Nat’l Park

: Happy Pup ❤

: Hot Springs Canyon

: I spy PIE

: blackberry – YUM!

: cowboy DEER roping?

: Ridgway ⇨Sawpit ⇨Telluride

: Film Festival, who knew?

: San Miguel County Courthouse

: Festival foot traffic: Ethan Hawke sighting (not pictured)

: Bridal Veil Falls Trailhead

: tomorrow we HIKE

Posted in Western Slope | Tagged backpacking, hiking, night-sky | Leave a comment

Great American Eclipse

Published August 21, 2017

Wind River Indian Reservation, WY

Coolest of nights on Casper Mountain – awesome sleeping weather [sadly, missed sunrise]. Quiet excitement/anticipation/buzz around camp – ECLIPSE day!

Listened to a group of NASA scientists speak last night at the Lodge. Crowd was a weird mix of ‘super smart’ & ‘super quirky’. My tent neighbor spoke of geothermal pulse dangers generated by nuclear weapons exploding high in the atmosphere – but able to knock out all transformers in the Midwest, which would result in hundreds of thousands of people dying from lack of electricity. Hmm… Somehow our forefathers survived without air conditioning, right? Guy passed out Homeland Security business cards with a personal gmail address. Double, hmm… Let’s imagine he was completely legit & this was Homeland Security’s new way of reaching out/disseminating National Security threats to the General Public [in a Casper WY campground] – what could I personally do about preventing a nuclear explosion 400 miles above Earth’s atmosphere? Like I said: missed this morning’s sunrise, slept like a baby. Guess ignorance is bliss 🙂

Walked/fed the Pup, broke down my tent, Jeep all packed. Horizon gazed. Sunshiny day.

Short hike over to ‘the viewing area’ – large swath of meadow high on Casper Mountain. Roadside concession stand sold hot dogs & soft drinks. A&W root beer for a buck. Heck of a deal.

10:25am: Planted my chair, sat & watched ‘1^st contact’ thru a pair of ISO-approved solar shades purchased online thru Walmart. Double-checked my paper glasses were not ‘fake’. Still, fingers-crossed this wasn’t a mass plot by China to leave half our country blind.

Hour-20 ‘til TOTALITY. Ro? Chased grasshoppers, caught a morning nap in the high grass. Happy dog.

Group of CU (U of Colorado) students showed, hijacked my solitude. In hindsight, they made the experience light/super FUN. Typical university kids, excitement/laughter/lotta noise. Two were talking plasma & NASA measuring the Sun’s corona, while another plotted to conceive an ‘eclipse’ child during the 2 minute-29 second event. Super smart, super young – LOL>

FELT a noticeable temperature change. Wind gusted. Everything happened at once.

TOTALITY.

Skies darkened, white light glowed around our extinguished Sun.

Glasses no longer necessary [next 2 minutes] – ‘diamond ring’ visible to the naked eye. Surrounded by sunset & stars, soaked up the cityscape lights of Casper below (street-lamps triggered by the mid-day eclipse). WOW, WOW, WOW!

Just the slightest of slivers & our 2 minutes of darkness, history/a memory. Day again. Bright light – piercing white light – escaped the Sun’s upper right corner. Not daybreak but insta-day, NOON. Still chilly (58 degrees), but surrounded once again by Sun.

Like nothing I’ve EVER experienced.

Great American Exodus

Departed at 12:30pm, arrived home at 12:45am. Hundreds of thousands of cars on ONE highway.

Tag, Arkansas family – you’re up next. TOTALITY!

The next total solar eclipse in the Americas comes on April 8, 2024. Totality first touches Mexico, enters the United States at Texas, cuts a diagonal to Maine, and visits the maritime provinces of Canada.

Although it has been a long 38 years since the last U.S. total solar eclipse before 2017, it is a relatively short 7 years to the succeeding total solar eclipse in North America. Perhaps we should call this the Great North American Eclipse.