Borrego Springs in August

Borrego Springs is mostly deserted in August. The temperature is normally about 110 during the day, but if the nights are clear, it is a good time to photograph the stars. So I set my alarm for 11 o'clock and drive ten miles to a site that I had scouted earlier today, where the conditions should be good. When I get here, it is dark to the North, where I plan to shoot, but I turn around and realize that the view back towards Borrego Springs might just be the best. 

Wow, it looks like the mothership is getting ready to land.

 

When I do set up my gear looking to the North, I set a time exposure to track the stars as they circle the North Star. That means I am sitting with nothing to do but look at my watch for a half an hour, and I realize how absolutely silent it is. Not even any wind tonight - only an occasional yip from a nearby solitary coyote.

Now it is Thursday morning and the clouds are building over the mountains to the west. I spend time taking time lapse images of the cloud patterns but you never know what you are going to get. You just hope that you are pointing in a direction that is going to be interesting in an hour or so and this time I am fortunate – the clouds are churning and the shadow patterns race across the mountains and the desert floor. Towards lunch, it definitely looks like rain is on the way, and by the time I get to town, thunder and lightning are booming, preceding the rain. I stop at Borrego Outfitters and the shopkeepers are outside, looking at the sky and deciding whether to go home to prepare for the storm. They decide to stay, and I buy a few camping gadgets that I may or may not need some day, but a lightning strike nearby kills the power and they need to add up the sale in the dark by hand. With the power out I think that Kendall’s coffee shop might only have ice tea, but when I get there they are serving cold sandwiches too, and tuna salad sounds good. I see the cook in the back is having issues with the darkness, and I dash through the rain to my car and retrieve my camping headlamp, which is greatly appreciated. His friends joke with him, in Spanish, saying he looks like a miner.

 

After lunch I decide to try some more cloud photographs and head to a site with good views but what I see is a great column of smoke rising from across the valley – likely from a lightning strike into dead tamarisk trees that had been crop windbreaks before the desert conditions overtook them. I have plans to try a second night of star photography, but I see a great wall of dust moving in from the Salton Sea and I hurry back my room before the wind arrives, turning the sky pale brown. No chance of decent conditions for photography, so I have the night off. 

 

In the morning, I am rested and find a spot to see the sun rise and it is glorious, with the dust in the air adding a softness that offsets the glare of the desert sun.

Sierra Nevada

California’s Sierra Nevada range is home to stars. A lot of stars. I am camping with a group in the Lakes Basin area at the north end of the range. Here, the days are warm and typically a little cloudy but the nights are cool and clear. Hours after the sun sets, it is time to appreciate the night sky. Around the campfire, dinner is enjoyed with a ukulele sing-along, led by Nancy. Michael, who us officially our leader, is in reality the biggest child (bigger even than Iris - who is 9) and he entertains with a illuminated hula hoop. Moving away from the campfire, eyes adjust to the darkness and the light from the stars grows brighter and we lie on our backs to get the full effect. The Milky Way is strong this night, behind the silhouette of tall trees. A shooting star brings murmurings of appreciation from the group lying on the ground. Man-made satellites drift slowly through the star field and an occasional jet flys through too, on the way to some distant city.

 

 

Goodnight Irene / Goodnight Irene

On Hopi Lands

I'm up before sunrise and it's Easter Sunday in Holbrook, Arizona but I have no plans other than getting to Flagstaff later in the day.  I am at the Wigwam Inn (sleeping in a concrete teepee) on old Route 66 and Flagstaff is also on Route 66, but the old byway has been largely swallowed up by Interstate 40 and I want to explore back roads. My plan is to head north into Hopi reservation land and then to swing west to Tuba City before turning south to 'Flag'. 

Taking my time, I stop along the way for photos, and at one stop a black SUV pulls up to talk. The driver is a young man who notes that I am a photographer and asks if I had ever visited Blue Canyon, but I admit that I had never heard of it. He introduces himself as Alfred Lomahquahu, the Vice Chairman of the Hopi Tribal Council, and that it is a special place and he is glad to show me the way. I admit that I have brief thoughts of 'paid guide scam' and 'ax murderer' but dismiss them quickly because he is so kind and ernest. I follow him to an unmarked turnoff onto a dirt track through miles of ranch land to a spectacular canyon landscape. It is a chasam with soft white spires and fine red banding in the cliff faces. He says it takes on a blue tint at sunset and I suspect that generations of Hopi boys have been coming here with their girls to appreciate the setting sun.

I want to stay a while and as we say our goodbyes he mentions that he is headed to a Hopi Kachina dance ceremony at a nearby village and that I am welcome to visit (but no photographs).  Since the day has no agenda I do visit Moenkopi, just near Tuba City and watch the dancers - maybe over a hundred - along with about a thousand spectators. I look around and note that I am one of maybe three 'off reservation' visitors and, to myself, I thank Alfred for the second special introduction of the day. I catch an apple, an orange and a lemon as the dancers throw treats to the crowd.  As the day ends I still have Hopi chants rattling around my head.

Trinity

Kind of funny to have a national historical monument that is closed to the public 364 days a year, but that's where I'm headed on day number 365. I'm on the dirt track that's the back way in, based on directions from Linda who runs the ranch B&B where I am staying. The route cuts from the back of the ranch across scrub desert towards the paved road to the gate onto military land. It's a beautiful morning and I stop for a bit to climb a ridge for the panoramic view. A few grazing cattle reluctantly get out of my way as I pass. Bit of a backup now at the gate as MPs check identification and give instructions: 14 miles, stay on the road, no stopping, no photos until you get there. When I do get here, there is a modest crowd milling and taking pictures, although, in fact there is not much to see now. But on a July morning in 1945, the air temperature went from the pre-dawn chill to ten million degrees in an instant. When it cooled, the surrounding desert sand had fused into a sheet of green radioactive glass. Because it had never been produced naturally it was given its own name: Trinitite, for the first atomic bomb test at Trinity Site, New Mexico. What is here today is not much. A somber stone monument, security fences, and if you look hard enough, pieces of Trinitite, left after the government removed all they could in a effort to "clean up" the site in the 1950's. I handle some found today that after checking that it registers only a few clicks on a Geiger counter operated by a volunteer. Not much physically here, but what
does remain when you think on all this, is the legacy of what we did here. They say man lost his innocence in the Garden of Edan, and certainly lost a bit more when the first stone was raised in anger. What we did here was certainly a giant leap beyond that. It worries me that the people who did this, including the brilliant scientists - did this mostly just because we could. What will we decide to do next?

OK,  I realize that I am pontificating a bit and as I write this tonight I am finishing a cheeseburger and my second Carta Blanca  at the Owl Bar and Cafe in nearby San Antonio. Only place open on Saturday night, so it is without a doubt the best place in town.