Aurora Out My Window

Posted on October 13, 2024 by Maria Langer

I see the aurora for the first time — well, sort of — right from the comfort of my own home.

If you pay attention at all to science-related news, you are probably aware that the sun is near the peak of its 11-year solar activity cycle, with lots of sunspots and coronal mass ejections. This has made aurora a lot more visible than usual, making it possibly for people to see it as far south as Arizona and Texas.

I don’t live that far south. I live in north central Washington state. Opportunities to view the aurora abound at my home — which has a perfectly unobstructed view to the north, right to the horizon — but I’ve spent much of the past two years away from home. Ironically, from June through August, I was traveling at latitudes farther north than where my home is, but I just didn’t see the aurora on any nights I might have. I could blame weather (clouds), ambient lighting (being near a city), or a lack of clear view to the north (from trees or mountains).

But when I got home, I became determined to see the aurora from my home.

The Science of the Aurora

I would be remiss if I did not mention the excellent Space Weather and Aurora Dashboard pages constantly updated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). It provides a wealth of information about the aurora, from forecasts and current conditions to basic and detailed information about what causes the aurora.

For example, NOAA’s Aurora Tutorial page starts its explanation of the aurora like this:

The aurora is formed from interactions between the solar wind streaming out from the sun and Earth’s protective magnetic field, or magnetosphere. The aurora is one manifestation of geomagnetic activity or geomagnetic storms. As the solar wind increases in speed and the interplanetary magnetic field embedded in the solar wind turns southward, the geomagnetic activity will increase and the aurora will become brighter, more active, and move further from the poles. Even moderate solar wind creates aurora so there is usually a weak aurora somewhere even when there isn’t a big geomagnetic storm.
There are two types of solar events that create big geomagnetic storms that are associated with bright and active aurora. The first is a Coronal Mass Ejection, or CME, which can be described as a billion tons of plasma ejected from the sun, traveling at a million miles per hour. When a CME arrives at Earth, it can produce some of the biggest geomagnetic storms and thus, some of the brightest and most active auroras that extend furthest toward the equator. The second solar event that can create moderate sized geomagnetic storms is called a coronal hole. Coronal holes are the source of high speed solar wind streams. When these high speed streams arrive at Earth, they can produce active auroras. But the geomagnetic storms and aurora associated with coronal holes is less active than those from the biggest and fastest CME’s.

Later on that page, it explains what causes the individual colors you might see. This is a great place to start if you want to learn more about how the aurora forms and when viewing is best.

Forecasts < Actual Conditions

My quest to see the aurora started with the forecasts on the Aurora Dashboard page. Each day, NOAA provides a forecast for tonight and tomorrow night. You can see an example in the top two images in the screen capture below. Like any weather forecast, this is a prediction of what might happen based on data and models. In this particular example, the forecast looked good for two nights in a row.

In the early morning hours of October 10, the forecast for that night was a lot more optimistic than reality.

I’ve lost a lot of sleep trying to see the aurora. In this example, the forecast told me it should be visible where I live. But this page also provides a very short term forecast for the next 35 minutes. The image on the left is for the northern hemisphere and it painted a truer picture of the situation. The chances of seeing the aurora where I lived was slim. And, of course, I didn’t see it on the night of October 9-10.

The short term forecast looked a lot better on the night of October 10-11.

But things were different on the night of October 10-11. I knew they were different when my social media feed on Mastodon began filling with aurora photos. I watched the Aurora Dashboard and was rewarded with a very promising short term forecast image. I set up a GoPro pointed mostly at the northern horizon and sky and turned on the night hyperlapse feature. Then I turned off all the lights in my home, including the solar string lights on my deck, and hung out on the deck to watch the sky.

Understand that my home might be 2 miles down a gravel road 10 miles from town, but it has a commanding view of the entire valley, including the brightly lighted cities of Wenatchee and East Wenatchee. This is not a good place for stargazing. No matter how much I tried to get my eyes adjusted to the dark, it simply wasn’t dark. But soon, after a while, I started seeing a reddish glow in the sky. I took a photo with my iPhone 13 Pro — yes, I know it’s time for an update; maybe after Christmas — and was shocked to see auroral streaks of pink lines in the photo.

This was the first photo I took from my deck. It was 7:13 PM, less than an hour after sunset.

For the next few hours, I moved from inside my nice warm (but dark) house to outside on my cool deck. I tried hard to see beyond the faint streaks in the sky, but every time I took a photo, the photo revealed far more than I was seeing. It was out there but my eyes just couldn’t take in enough auroral light to see it very well.

I took this photo a little while later. The predominant colors were a pink and an almost lime green.

Here’s another shot from a while later.

It was rewarding but also frustrating. This was probably the first time in my life when I could photograph something better than I could see it. But I wanted to see it! With my eyes!

The sky started to cloud up a little and my frustration got the better of me. After a while, I gave up.

The Video

This was apparently a mistake. I should have tried again around midnight. How do I know this? Well, remember that GoPro I set up? Here’s what it captured before its battery died:

The Next Aurora Viewing

I’m watching the forecast pages closely. The next time we have a strong forecast, I’ll be ready with multiple cameras — including my Nikon, on a tripod — to capture it. But next time, I’ll set up a lounge chair on the deck, snuggle in a sleeping bag, and watch until I can see it better with my own eyes.

On Saying Yes When You Want to Say No

Posted on July 18, 2020 by Maria Langer

Never turn down an opportunity to hang out with new friends.

Here’s a time-lapse on YouTube of moving the helicopter. I didn’t realize at first that I had blogged about it.

The other day, I was invited to a steak dinner at what I call the Huey Camp: the area where three Huey helicopters are parked for cherry season. I met one of the pilots, Stan, late last season when I brought him and the other pilot a pizza after chatting with him on the radio while we were all drying cherries. Later, he let me fly his helicopter and I returned the favor by helping him load the helicopter onto its trailer while it was attached to my truck.

As I tweeted when I shared this photo on Twitter, I think that helicopter looks pretty good behind my truck.

I ran into him again in Arizona over the winter and was glad to hear he was coming back to Washington for cherry season, camping in his motorhome at the same place. He and another one of the Huey pilots came for my annual pilots’ BBQ a few weeks ago. So when he invited me for a steak dinner with all the Huey pilots and some others in attendance, I said yes.

Thinking of Excuses

Of course, when that afternoon rolled around, I wasn’t feeling like going out. The heat really knocks me out sometimes and I’d spent the afternoon napping after doing too much work in my garden. It was hot outside in the sun and I didn’t think there would be much shade up at his camp. I thought about all the excuses I could use to back out.

It was dark out when I captured this image of a falconer with one of her birds last August.

But then I thought about the previous year’s steak dinner up there. (I apparently didn’t blog about it because a quick search came up empty.) In any case, it was one of those magic evenings when things are just a little bit weird and a little bit wonderful. One of those evenings you remember for a long time, mostly because they’re out of the ordinary. That one involved a frantic trip to a car parts shop with a woman I’d met just an hour before, arriving just before they closed to get a part she needed for her truck. Then repairs on the truck with steaks coming off the grill after 10 PM. It was after that that I learned the woman was a falconer and I got a really neat shot of her with one of her birds.

That night might be just as interesting, I told myself. Or more. You can’t experience new things when you stay home. Get the hell out.

At Huey Camp

So I showered and dressed and hopped in the truck for the 20 minute drive up to Huey Camp. I left my pups behind — I didn’t want to have to worry about them wandering off into the weeds where there might be snakes. The only reason I took the truck was because it was the only one of my three vehicles with a top — I keep the top down all the time on the Honda and the Jeep was in the process of getting a new roof — so it had the best air conditioning.

Huey camp is situated between two ponds that are linked by a waterway when the water levels are full. Two Hueys were parked on one side and the third was parked some distance away. Stan’s motorhome and dune buggy were parked between them, near one of the ponds. He’d positioned it so the side we’d sit on was in the shade of the big rig. The helicopter’s truck (with crane) and trailer were parked nearby, along with all kinds of orchard equipment. The spot is on a flat area on a hillside, surrounded by apple and cherry orchards, including one I’m contracted to dry. It had an excellent view of the sky, which came in handy later on.

Huey Camp from across one pond.

Two of the helicopters at Huey Camp.

We settled into chairs in the shade to chat while Stan prepped his portable BBQ grill. Stan, Brandon, and Dave were the Huey pilots. Brandon’s friend Emma, who is a new helicopter pilot, was also there. (I’d invited both of the pilots still working for me this season, but one had taken his paraglider to Spokane (!) again and the other was taking a motorcycle training course out at the airport.) Later, CJ (a JetRanger pilot) and Isaac (a falconer) joined us.

It turned out that we knew a lot of the same people and helicopters. Brandon had flown my helicopter when he was training at Quantum in Arizona, although he claims it was a different color. He’d also flown my friend Ed’s old S55 with the turbine conversion, which was now based up in Brewster on cherry work. One of the Hueys had actually been flown in Vietnam by a local guy who had come up to visit it all these years later.

Isaac had to do some work in two of the orchards and invited us to come watch. Some cherry growers use falconers to help chase birds away from their orchards. By repeatedly flying the falcons (or hawks, etc.) over the orchard blocks, birds like robins, which like to eat cherries, become convinced that a predator has moved in and they leave. That’s the idea, anyway.

Here’s Issac with one of his birds after the bird flew in the orchard. Hooding the bird is common and does not hurt the bird.

We all loaded into my truck and followed Isaac to his first worksite, which turned out to be very close. We watched him get a bird out and attach a GPS tracker to it (just in case the bird decided it wanted an extended break). Soon he’d removed the bird’s hood and it was flying over the cherry trees. Isaac had a long pole with a string and bait attached to it and swung the bait around. The goal was to get the bird to dive at the bait but not let him get it. He did this from a few locations alongside the orchard block before the bird “won” — it caught the bait. That cut that bird’s session a bit short, but Isaac had another bird with him and moved on to the next orchard. We went back to camp, mostly because Dave was hungry and I think Brandon and Emma were bored.

Stan started cooking right after that. He’d bought a rib roast and had carved it up into enormous bone-in steaks. I’d brought along my little grill and some uncooked marinated tri-tip that someone had left at my house at the BBQ and I’d frozen. I got that going and it was a good thing I did because Stan didn’t have enough room on his grill for all of the steaks so one ended up on mine. A while later, the sun was setting and we were eating steak — with horseradish, of course — potato salad, and salad off paper plates. Isaac was back by then and he joined us; I wound up giving him half the trip-tip for later in the week because there was enough regular steak for all of us.

Stargazing

After dinner, we moved over to a spot where we could see the sky to the northwest more clearly. Comet NEOWISE was a feature in the sky after sunset and I think we were all vying to be the first to spot it. One of the younger people saw it first — Brandon, I think — and over time we all saw it. The view from up there didn’t include the lights from the city, but it did include the glow from sunset.

We all started watching the sky, pointing out stars that flickered weirdly or seemed to change color. I saw a fast moving white light pass by and consulted the GoISSWatch app on my phone — sure enough, it was the space station. When I pointed it out, some of my companions were blown away. “You mean that’s the actual space station in orbit?” Dave asked. I told him it was and that there would be an even better pass just before 11 PM, right overhead.

That got us looking for satellites. Again, the younger folks with their sharper eyes spotted them quickly. Brandon got excited when he realized that he was seeing a bunch in a row. Believe it or not, I had an app for that, too: Find Starlink. Sure enough, we were seeing a Starlink satellite train that was passing overhead. I’d tried before to see one and failed miserably — now I know why: they really aren’t that bright at all.

We spent the next hour or so just watching the sky and talking. It was relaxing and kind of interesting. Our ages ranged from early 20s (Emma) through possibly 70s (Stan and Dave?). We talked about things we knew and told stories about experiences. No one had their head buried in a phone. No one argued. There was a lot of laughter. Politics stayed pretty much out of our discussions.

At 10:56, right on schedule, one of my companions spotted the space station again. We watched it travel across the sky, right overhead. I thought about the people on board and how tiny they were but how many people on earth watched them go by whenever they could. When it was gone, I decided it was time to leave. It had been a pretty good night for stargazing: a comet, two ISS passes, a Starlink train, and did I mention seeing Jupiter and Saturn in the southeastern sky?

Finishing Up the Night

It was a quick drive home. I left my truck on the driveway apron instead of putting it in the garage, mostly because I knew I’d need to drive it again the next morning on a garbage run. I let my pups out and my cats came over from wherever they were hunting to say hello. It was nearly midnight when I climbed the stairs.

But I wasn’t done. Outside, Comet NEOWISE was hanging in the sky near the lights of Wenatchee. I set up my Nikon and took a few shots with various settings, pausing now and then to study it through my binoculars and wonder what it would look like through my telescope.

Comet NEOWISE with the Wenatchee night skyline.

I was asleep by 1 AM.

Postscript

I love living alone for the privacy and freedom that it gives me. I don’t get lonely because I stay busy. Sometimes, I’m so busy that I forget to get out and socialize when I should.

But one thing I’ve come to realize: any time I’m at a gathering with friends is time well spent, especially when the friends have unusual lifestyles that involve travel and unique jobs. The other day, I had dinner with five other helicopter pilots and a falconer. How can a gathering like that not be full of fun, interesting stories and experiences?

I have a friend I call “the man of a thousand excuses” because he’s far more likely to say NO when he’s invited to do something different than YES. I don’t think he has any idea of what he’s missing.

I have an idea of what I could be missing, so I try to say YES whenever I can.

My New Telescope

Posted on March 6, 2020 by Maria Langer

I finally replace my old telescope.

My old telescope looked a lot like this modern knockoff. Meade no longer makes them.

Years and years ago, not long after moving into my Arizona home with my future wasband, I bought an 8″ Dobsonian telescope. We’d seen Jupiter and Saturn through the big telescopes at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, AZ and were hooked. The Dobsonian was an affordable, easy to use, and relatively powerful scope, although with hindsight I came to realize it was not the right choice. It had no tracking capabilities, making it a challenge to watch an object for more than a few seconds and making any attempt at photography an utter failure.

The Old Telescope in Washington

I moved the telescope to my new home in Washington when I left Arizona during my crazy divorce. I optimistically set it up in my living room near the door to my big open deck right after the house (and deck) were finished. I think I used it once up there. Too much light pollution from nearby Wenatchee.

Another time, at the request of a friend, I brought it down to the driveway so we could watch a conjunction of Jupiter (or Saturn?) with the moon. The two objects didn’t clear the cliffs behind my house before my friends lost patience and left. I sent the telescope with them so they could experiment with it on their own.

A year or two passed. I realized quite realistically that I’d likely never use the telescope because of the combined problem of local light pollution, difficulty in moving the telescope elsewhere, and the original problem of lack of tracking. So I sold it on Craig’s list. The guy who bought it knew a lot more about it than I did and realized he was getting a good deal. I was just glad to get it out of the corner of my living room.

The New Telescope

Time went by. Light pollution in the Wenatchee area only got worse. I’m still trying to figure out why so many people need floodlights in their yards that shine upwards. (WTF?) Although my street is wonderfully dark with few homes, most of which don’t have floodlights, the ambient light is so bright that the only time my home ever gets dark is when it’s foggy out at night.

Here’s Jan’s new (to him) 16 inch telescope. He needed some modifications done to his little observatory to get it in there. He uses it for astrophotography and can operate it from a laptop inside his house. Check out his photos here.

But I travelled every winter and spent a lot of time in places with truly dark night skies. I started getting interested in astronomy again.

I also had a friend with an observatory in his backyard. He was extremely knowledgeable about telescopes and, after I accompanied him to look at a 16″ scope to replace his 12″ scope, I asked him to help me find a telescope I could travel with. The main qualification: it had to have computerized tracking.

Jan got right to work and found a nice scope for a good price in the Palm Springs area. Trouble is, I was home in Washington and not prepared to drive all the way down there to see and possibly fetch it. So he held off until I returned to Arizona this winter. I missed his first message with an option and it sold before I followed up. But I was on it for his second lead and wound up buying it.

It’s a 2003 Meade LX200 GPS in excellent condition, with tons of eyepieces and a set of filters. After checking it out with its owner, we packed it in its original box and foam, which makes it much safer to transport. It came with everything I needed to use it. And although I’ve since seen them listed for over $1,400 used, I only paid $700 for this one. A good deal.

Working Out the Bugs

Jan very graciously helped me set it back up the first time and showed me how to use it. We immediately ran into difficulties. For some reason, it wouldn’t align properly. I wouldn’t pick up GPS data from the GPS. It wouldn’t find stars and it wouldn’t track them.

I honestly didn’t think the seller had knowingly ripped me off. He had wanted me to come the night before so he could demonstrate it with something to see. I’m a decent judge of people and he did not act as if he was trying to pull a fast one. He even texted me after I left, thanking me and telling me that he hoped I enjoyed it.

Here’s my telescope set up in Jan’s backyard one morning. You can see his observatory beyond it.

We worked on the problems over several consecutive evenings. I was staying at Jan’s house so it was easy. At one point, Jan was convinced that I needed a new AutoStar controller — the device that connects to the telescope and tells it what to do. Replacing the batteries in it didn’t seem to help. Then I asked Jan to use his computer to update the firmware in the controller. He had a PC; I only have Macs. He did that on the third day and that evening we got everything working nearly perfectly. We suspected that the controller had gotten “confused” by sitting idle so long, possibly with bad batteries.

I packed up the telescope and stored it and its box of parts and tripod in Jan’s garage. I was going to Tucson for about a week and had no reason to take it with me since I wouldn’t have time to set it up and use it.

Going Solo

Jan kept telling me to read the manual and I kept trying. It was all a mystery to me so it became an excellent sleep aid while I was in Tucson.

But things changed when I returned from my trip. I fetched the telescope from Jan’s garage and stowed it in my utility trailer. I spent about a week in downtown Wickenburg, where I was showing and selling my jewelry at a big annual Art Show. Then I went off into the desert where I found an excellent campsite for the next 10 days.

One of the things I’d bought for the telescope (and had shipped to Jan’s house) was a lightweight telescope cover. The beauty of living in a desert environment is that there’s usually very little moisture in the air. That means little or no morning dew. And little rain. So I could set up the telescope near my camper, use it at night, cover it up, and not have to worry about it getting damaged during a typical 24-hour period. So I set it up, using the manual — which now had my attention — and got it all ready to use.

My telescope set up in the desert at my campsite southwest of Vulture Peak near Wickenburg, AZ.

I got it aligned by myself on the second try. The key, I realized, was to use the AutoAlign feature, which automatically figures out where it is, which way it’s pointed, and how it’s angled. All you do is fine-tune its view when it points to two different very bright stars. Once the alignment is done, you can use the AutoStar controller to point to any indexed object. I looked at Venus, the moon (which was a waning crescent at the time), Betelgeuse (which has been in the news a bit lately), the Pleiades, and the Great Nebula. In each instance, I had to adjust the view the controller suggested but, once that was done, the telescope tracked like a dream.

I also started experimenting with a WiFi device I’d bought for the telescope that let me control it with my iPhone using an app called Sky Safari. That made navigating a lot easier. It also gave me access to an “audio tour” of many night sky objects: a narrator’s voice tells you a little about the object you’re looking at enhancing the viewing experience.

I started playing with eyepieces that would change the magnification and field of view of the telescope. I had eight eyepieces, many of which looked as if they’d never been used. I discovered that stronger magnifications worked great on objects high in the sky but were too blurry for items near the horizon. Too much heat coming off the ground, making waves in the air.

I got to know a group of four people with a dog who hiked past my campsite every evening. One evening, they saw me messing with the telescope and I invited them to come back later to do some star gazing. They returned when it was fully dark and I showed them the same things I’d seen (except the moon, which was no longer in the night sky), along with some double stars and the Andromeda galaxy. This is something I never would have been able to do with the old Dobsonian because I’d have to keep re-finding the object every minute or so. They were suitably wowed.

Dawn was in the same direction as the glow from Phoenix, so I didn’t do much observing in that direction, but I did manage to catch sight of a waxing crescent moon, with Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn all lined up in the morning sky.

I learned that the moon, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn were in the early morning sky, just above the horizon at sunrise. I woke on a morning with an absolutely clear view to the southeast and managed to align the telescope before it got too light to see anything. I saw four moons around Jupiter and Saturn with its rings. Mars was a reddish blur.

During this time, I watched the weather carefully. When rain appeared in the forecast, I disassembled the telescope and put it away for the rest of my stay at that site.

Beyond the Basics

Here’s the nearly finished setup for my telescope accessories. After shooting this photo I found yet another eyepiece and added it with the others. There are two layers of foam; I have to lift the top layer to get to items beneath it.

Because I didn’t like the idea of having two separate boxes for carrying around the eyepieces and other accessories needed to run the telescope, I invested $50 at Harbor Freight on a waterproof case with foam insert. I spent about an hour laying out all the accessories and cutting the foam to fit it all in. This freed up the fancy padded Meade box that the eyepieces lived in and made a more secure storage area for the spotting scope and other more delicate items. Now I have just three things to tote around: the telescope in its original padded box, the tripod (which I may make a bag for), and this new box.

I’d like to get a similar case for the telescope itself. Jan has a canvas one that fits the foam for his similar 8″ telescope, but I prefer a hard case with wheels. Still, I’m not interested in spending $400+ to buy one and to have the added weight to tote around. We’ll see what I find without looking too hard.

I also bought an external battery at Harbor Freight. Designed to jump start a car, it also has 12 volt receptacles and USB ports. The telescope came with a DC power cable so it could be used without batteries; the previous owner said he used to plug it into his car when he was using it away from home. I bought a cable that converts that to something that could be plugged into a wall so I could use it with any common power source. Otherwise, it needs 8 C batteries, which I’d hate to burn through.

The Verdict

Although I wish the telescope was smaller and lighter — the tripod weighs about 30 pounds and the telescope weighs about 40 pounds — I can’t complain about the optics, operation, or view. It’s the telescope I wish I’d bought back in the late 1990s when I first moved to Arizona and got to enjoy dark skies. It fits fine in the back seat area of my truck or in my little cargo trailer. I can easily imagine taking it on camping trips or on nighttime outings with friends.

As my winter travels wind to an end, I expect to set it up in at least two more places: the desert at Borrego Springs, where I can share views with my good friend Janet before we part ways until next winter, and possibly Death Valley National Park, where I might detour just to check out the night skies. Next year, it’ll be part of my travel gear again.

Lights at Night

Posted on August 7, 2019 by Maria Langer

Beautiful, but at a cost.

As the days are getting shorter, I’m finally rising and going to bed when it’s dark out again. This morning, I took a few moments to contemplate the predawn lights of Wenatchee from my home. And it really is beautiful.

Lights at Night
The view from my deck looking out towards Wenatchee at 4:51 AM this morning.

When I was a kid, my family would occasionally take a drive up to the east side of the town we lived in, Cresskill, NJ. Back in the 1960s and into the 1970s and beyond, developers had begun building luxury homes on a hillside that climbed away from the town toward the Palisades. We used to call it “the rich people’s hill” because the homes were huge and it was obvious that only rich people lived there. I remember one of those drives being in the evening, after the sun had set and the lights of Cresskill had come on. I remember seeing all those lights, like diamonds in the darkness.

That’s what my nighttime view here reminds me of sometimes.

I cannot begin to describe how wonderful it is to live in a place so removed from, yet within reach of, a small city like Wenatchee. I have all the conveniences that the little city offers — shopping, dining, theaters, nightlife, services, and even an airport with airline service to a real city (Seattle) and beyond. Yet I’m not down in it, crawling around in — or listening to — traffic. Even as I sit here now, typing out my thoughts as the sky brightens out my windows, the only sound is my wine fridge humming and my rooster crowing. Even when they’re spraying down in the orchards far below me, the sound seems more earthy, more natural, than the sounds of the city.

But the lights. Sigh.

I’ve begun to notice bright ones getting closer. When I returned from my winter travels in spring 2018, I noticed four new bright spotlights over some sort of maintenance yard down by the river. You can see them on the right side of this photo: three in one color and one in another. And last spring I noticed a new bright light across the river, likely shining down into someone’s yard. Why?

Here at my home, I have subdued lighting at night. There are solar accent lights along my driveway and the path to my tent and the posts tops on the uncovered side of my deck. There are motion-sensor lights that go on when someone — or something — walks near them. None of these lights shine up. And that’s it. I see no reason to pollute the sky with light at night.

And that’s what it is: light pollution. The only complaint I have about my home is the fact that it never gets truly dark here. (Well, it actually does, but only at night when it’s foggy.) And because I don’t have (or need) curtains on my windows, it never gets dark inside my home.

It was with a bit of sadness that I sold my old telescope last year. It was parked near the door to the deck for years and only used, with disappointing results, once or twice. Although I’m likely to pick up a more compact one with tracking that I can take on my winter travels — plenty of dark sky out in the desert! — I just have no use for one here.

It’s blue hour right now, light enough to see the empty sage land between my home and the orchards and lights beyond it. The city lights are starting to fade. It’ll be a hot sunny day today.

But at night, I’ll see those lights again, enjoying the view while lamenting my loss of dark night sky.

Snowbirding 2019: In Mesa and Gilbert

Posted on January 15, 2019 by Maria Langer

I take a break from camping and spend some time selling rocks and visiting friends.

Posts in this series:
• The Long Drive
• At the Backwaters Campsite
• In Mesa and Gilbert
• A Quick Stop in Wickenburg and Forepaugh
• Off Plomosa Road
• Camping at the Big RV Show
• A Trip to Organ Pipe with the WINs
• The Tucson Gem & Mineral Shows
• Wickenburg Gold Rush Days
• Constellation Park Interlude
• White Tank Mountain Park
• Bumming It in Phoenix and Apache Junction
• A Dose of Civilization
• Return to the Backwaters
•

With my Colorado River Backwater vacation over, it was time to get back to work. I was scheduled to participate as a vendor in the annual Flagg Gem and Mineral Show in Mesa, AZ from January 4 through 6, so that was my next stop.

Setting Up My Booth

I headed east on I-10, letting Google Maps direct me to the Mesa Community College campus where the event would be held. At about 3:45 PM, I was following a young guy on foot to the space in the covered parking area to where my booth would be.

There was not much I could set up. After all, I’d chosen space under the covered parking area so I wouldn’t have to set up my tent shelter. But although that saved me some work, it also made some extra work for me. Without the tent and its sides, I couldn’t just leave my merchandise out overnight. There was no point in setting up more than just the tables to mark my space. So that’s what I did: I pulled the three folding tables out of my truck’s back seat area and set them up in a row along the outside edge of my booth space.

I should mention here that my booth space was huge: 14 x 28, I think. I didn’t need that much space, but it was the smallest space they offered. This was a big contrast to the 5 x 8 space I’m allowed at Pybus Public Market in Wenatchee where I do most of my selling. Rather than the usual challenge of cramming my wares into a tiny space, I had the unusual challenge of spreading everything out so it looked as if it filled the space.

The “Rough” Cargo Trailer

Meanwhile, I’d been texting back and forth with the owner of a cargo trailer listed on Craig’s List in Chandler. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that he was only 4 miles away from the show. I headed over to see the trailer.

The owner, Dan, lived in a kind of cool neighborhood in Chandler. From the street, it looked like any other subdivision, but each home had a very deep back yard — so big, in fact, that I suspect many of his neighbors had horses. Dan had a goat — the biggest goat I’d ever seen. It was very friendly and kept coming up to us to be petted. He also had a pit bull mix dog who was equally friendly but not quite as annoying about it. And he had a big garage in the back yard (although not as big as mine; as if anyone’s is).

He’d bought the trailer three years ago from someone else on Craig’s List to use as a storage shed for his tools until his garage was finished. Now that his garage was done, he didn’t need it anymore and wanted to sell it.

The trailer was in reasonable condition. Sure, it had some dents — thus his description of it being “rough” — but it was solid. It was outfitted the way I wanted: side door, back barn doors (vs a ramp), and two axles. It even had a screen vent and lighting (which needed some work). I could stand up straight in it. The price was good, but I’ve learned never to offer the listed price for anything on Craig’s List. (Frankly, you’re an idiot if you ask your best price since everyone wants a deal.) I offered him 10% less and he took it. He agreed to hold onto it until I was ready to come get it. I told him that might be Monday and he was okay with that. I also took a close look at the plug for the connection to my truck since it seemed that it might not be long enough to reach the truck with the hitch extension I needed to use with the camper on top. I went back to the camper, raided my mobile bank, and paid him. He gave me the title.

I do admit I had buyer’s remorse several times until I picked it up. What if it was too big? Had I paid too much? Did I really want to tow a trailer for the rest of this trip? Did I really need a trailer? The usual. All that cleared up a few days later when I put it to use.

Friends in Gilbert

From there, I went to Gilbert, where I’d be staying with friends. Tiffani and Jan have a house in a subdivision there with a guest room that’s always available for me and Penny. They’re great people and lots of fun and I know they think I don’t drink enough and go to bed too early. (I’m just not a party animal.)

I backed into their driveway, in front of the door to the extra garage they didn’t use, not sure whether overnight street parking was allowed there. (It was, fortunately.) Then I went inside where I was greeted by Jan. Tiffani came a short while later with a pizza to put in the oven. A while later we were eating pizza and drinking wine and watching something on television with the volume turned way up.

I did my laundry in their enormous washer and dryer. I was wearing my last clean pair of underwear and only had one pair of socks left. My jeans were so dirty I think I could have grown potatoes in them. The washer was so big, I only needed to do two loads, although I suspect that if I didn’t care about whites vs. darks I could have gotten it all — including my camper’s sheets — into one load. When the first load was dry and I had clean clothes to put on, I took a long, hot shower. It wasn’t until then that I felt as if I was done camping for a while.

At the Flagg Gem and Mineral Show

I put out two boxes of rock from a Washington friend to sell. A slab of obsidian was the first thing I sold, but it was also the only slab I sold all weekend. Go figure.

The next day, I was out by 7 AM and on my way to the gem show. The show opened at 9 AM and I had until then to set up. After offloading most of my stuff, I backed the truck and camper into a spot against the fence. Then I went about putting the table cloths on the tables and setting up my easels for pendants and earrings, my display pieces for rings and bracelets, and the display boxes for cabochons. I also put out boxes of petrified wood and obsidian slabs I’d brought from Washington; if there was any place I could sell them, this would be it. Of course, I never took a picture of my booth.

The show was pretty big and well managed — which makes sense considering it’s been an annual event for more than 50 years. Lots of vendors selling everything: rough stone, slabs, cabs, specimens, display pieces, beads, and, of course, jewelry. The organizers of the event required every booth to have at least 75% of its merchandise related to stone or jewelry so there weren’t the usual vendors selling salsa or microfiber cloths or blenders that you see at so many shows these days.

The other vendors were very friendly. The couple behind me, who were from Idaho, sold mostly Asian-made stone items such as bowls and statues and display pieces. The wife was completely entranced with Penny, who I had tied up in my booth for much of the first day. The guy west of me owned a local prospecting shop and was promoting his business, as well as selling metal detectors, books, and all kinds of prospecting equipment. The woman east of me was Native American, selling mostly beaded jewelry. Across from me were some guys who owned a nearby coffee shop that featured jewelry and items from local artists; they were selling mostly turquoise cabochons at prices a bit beyond what I like to spend.

I spent most of the first day cataloging the stones I’d purchased the day before and putting them on display in the appropriate box. I have my cabochon boxes sorted by price: $10 and Under, $15 to $20, and $25 and over. (I wish everyone did this.) Although I originally began displaying my cabochons to give people an opportunity to pick one for a custom pendant, I soon began selling cabochons to people who just wanted the stones. That’s fine with me since I mark up all the stones I sell — and sell ones I’ve polished myself — so I make money on every sale. It’s actually better when I’m really busy, since special orders can get stacked, making them difficult to fill in the two hours I say I can fill them in. At this event I sold about two dozen cabochons and took special orders for three pendants. I also sold some pendants that were already made, along with some earrings, a bracelet, and a ring.

Friday was a bit slow, but things picked up on Saturday, which is when I started selling more jewelry than rocks. A man who had taken a deep interest in my recently completed rosary came back with his wife for a second look. I could tell that they really liked it, but the $140 price tag may have been too high. (It’s a lot lower than the $180 I’d originally wanted to price it at.) I sold out on all my K2 granite stones — I started the day with seven of them — and also sold a bunch of bumble bee jasper. And I sold a handful of cabochons that I’d made from Washington state obsidian and petrified wood, leaving me without samples of finished stones to help sell the slabs.

Here are two of the five pieces I made on Friday and Saturday: Tiger Tail Jasper in sterling silver and Kingman Turquoise in copper and sterling silver. The turquoise piece sold literally two minutes after I put it on the display board — the buyer was standing right there when I hung it — thus reinforcing my belief that I need to buy more turquoise stones.

The Vehicle Shuffle

In the meantime, I’d asked security if I could leave my camper parked overnight in the lot. They said I could, as long as I didn’t sleep in it. No problem. On Friday, I dropped the camper’s legs and moved the truck out, then lowered the camper nearly as low as it would go. I didn’t bother with the sawhorses since I wouldn’t be spending much time in it. So on Friday evening, when I returned to my friend’s place in Gilbert, the truck was camperless.

That made it a lot easier to pick up the trailer, which I did on Saturday after the show. I’d brought along the hitch extender from home — I suspected that I might buy a trailer while I was in Arizona — and put that in place to see how the trailer would tow at the end of it. I was ready to try to back out of the deal if it looked as if the trailer was too heavy for it. Dan was still home — he told me he had plans to go out that evening — and helped me, which made things a lot quicker. Satisfied that the trailer would be okay at the end of the hitch extender and that the wire might even reach, we disconnected it and reconnected without the hitch extender.

The trailer did have two immediate problems:

The trailer had no license plate, making it a perfect target for any cop who wanted an easy ticket to write.
My truck was so tall that the trailer’s front wheels were off the ground. I assumed that once the camper was back on the truck the rear end of the truck would come down enough to make that problem go away.

I didn’t consider either problem too serious to drive away, so I did, already feeling a little better about my purchase. I parked in the road in front of my friend’s house that evening. It looked pretty funny with those wheels off the ground.

Overnight, it rained hard. I’d wondered a bit whether the trailer leaked — there was a dent in the front driver’s side near the top — but it was bone dry inside in the morning. I took it with me to the gem show, where I arrived after 9 AM, and parked near where I’d left the camper.

Sunday at the Show

The show was off to a slow start that morning, with a lot of very wet booths and no shoppers. I was glad I’d packed up everything except my tables before leaving the night before. I debated whether I’d bother setting up for the last day. I told myself that if I saw blue sky to the west when I arrived, I would. I didn’t see any blue sky at all.

Slabs are usually on display in water because when they’re wet they give you a good indication of what they might look like when polished. This vendor’s display clearly identified the rocks and where they were from. I took photos of the displays so I could document the stones later on.

I decided to do a little shopping. I walked up and down the rows of the rock seller booths, looking for inexpensive cabochons and slabs. I found plenty and spent much of the $120 I’d brought with me that morning. (I’d somewhat wisely left much of what I’d taken in the day before back at the house.) I wound up buying two nice turquoise stones from a mine in New Mexico — that stood me back $43. (Ouch!) I also bought some very inexpensive slabs. And a nice pair of perfectly matched mookiate jasper cabochons for earrings.

Along the way, I stopped at a rock club booth where a bunch of older guys were chatting together. I asked if anyone could help me identify some slabs I had. They said to bring them over. So when I was done shopping and had dropped off my purchases in the truck, I returned with a box full of slabs. By that time, most of the guys were gone, but one person suggested I talk to “Richard” and another brought me to Richard’s booth and introduced me.

What followed was about 45 minutes of me pulling out slabs and Richard telling me all about them, including how they were formed and where they were most likely from. I pulled off pieces of masking tape, wrote the info he provided on them, and stuck them on the rocks. I stumped him once or twice and to make up for it, he’d reach into one of his boxes of slabs on display for sale and hand me another slab, telling me that it was like another one I had. It took me a moment to realize that he wanted me to keep these rocks, too. Soon he was giving me more rocks than he was identifying. It took a little effort to keep him focused, but we finally got through them all.

I told him I wanted to buy him lunch and he said no. So I asked what I could do for him.

“Buy some rocks,” he said.

“But you already gave me a dozen of them,” I replied. “My box is full.” I handed him a $20 bill, which was all I had left.

“Do you want change?” He asked.

“No, I’m good,” I told him.

He gave me another six or so slabs, telling me what each one was. Then he pulled out a gorgeous piece of imperial jasper marked $10. “Do you like this one?” He asked.

“Yes,” I told him. “It’s gorgeous. But I don’t have any money left.”

“Just take it.”

He handed it to me and I put it in my box with the others. Then I thanked him and made a quick departure before he could give me any more.

Leaving the Show

I dropped off my rocks in the truck. By this time, it was after 1 PM. The sun was breaking through the clouds and there were shoppers around. About a quarter of the vendors hadn’t set up that morning. I debated only briefly about setting up. It would take at least 30 minutes to dry off the tables and get them set up again and the event ended at 4 PM. It wasn’t worth it.

So I packed up the tables and stuck them into the trailer with anything else that was large. I had no way to tie anything down, so I left my jewelry and cabochon cases in the truck, not wanting the cases to get damaged if they shifted around.

I disconnected the trailer and put the hitch extension back on with the hitch on the end. I raised the camper, backed under it, and lowered it onto the truck. I fastened the tie-down straps. Then I backed up to the trailer with the assistance of a man who saw me backing up and came over to help. I hooked up the trailer and plugged it in. The cord just reached. Success!

Here’s my truck, camper, and new old trailer in the parking lot right after hooking them up. It would be a few days before I got the kayak and tent frame off the camper roof.

Well, partial success. The front wheels of the trailer didn’t make firm contact with the ground, so I’d need to get a drop hitch. And since my truck knows when there’s a trailer plugged in, I learned quickly that every time I made a right turn, the plug would come undone. That means I needed a longer cable or extension.

I stopped at Walmart and Napa and picked up various supplies to drop the hitch and rewire the plug to the trailer. I’d do it all in the morning, I figured. I was in no really hurry to leave.

Purple Nail Polish, MVD, and Visiting another Friend

I always choose boring colors for my nails. This time, I picked something crazy. Lavendar?

On Monday, which was Tiffani’s extra day off from work — she’s off Sunday, too — she scheduled pedicures for herself, Jan, and me. So after I treated her for breakfast, we met Jan at her regular nail place and settled in for a good foot pampering.

Then it was errands. She needed to run up to Scottsdale to pick up medicine for one of her cats. I needed to go to motor vehicle to get a temporary permit to legally tow the trailer up to Washington. She very graciously volunteered to drive me there so I wouldn’t have to take my truck with camper and trailer attached to motor vehicle where parking might be scarce.

By then, I was on hold with USPS. A package I was expecting from India had been recorded as arrived in Phoenix but not scanned in. It had been in limbo for about two weeks and I needed to follow up. We were near the head of the line at MVD over an hour after starting the call when someone finally answered. He was unable to provide any additional information and told me to call DHL, which is the company that supposedly handed off the missing package. Good thing I hadn’t sat around waiting for them to answer. Instead, I managed to wait on hold for one bureaucracy while waiting on line for another, thus wasting time while wasting time. (Oddly enough, ten minutes after he told me he couldn’t help me, my phone pinged with a notification that the package had been scanned in and would be delivered by the end of the week. Coincidence? You tell me.)

When we were done with motor vehicle, we headed north. Tiffani had to pick up Jan at Falcon Field Airport, where their company is based. She knew I had another friend I planned to meet up with who lived up there and suggested I visit him instead of going all the way up to Scottsdale with her. So I worked my phone and arranged to meet him for lunch. Tiffany and Jan dropped me off.

My friend, Mike, is a retired FAA guy. He owned a piece of property across the street from one of the orchards I fly at every summer. In 2010, when he was just starting to build a house there, I rented space on his lot to park my big fifth wheel while I was on contract with the orchard. I would up spending the next three summers there — every summer until I bought my own land in the area.

He’d built the home as a place for he and his wife to retire to. But when he was done, she told him she didn’t want to move there. I really felt awful for him; I’d gone through a similar situation with my wasband when he broke similar promises he’d made to me. He wound up selling the home and if I hadn’t been financing a helicopter overhaul at the time, I probably would have bought it. It would have been an excellent AirBnB property and I already manage the house next door.

Mike was now in the process of getting divorced and had bought a home in Mesa. It was a nice place on a corner lot in a subdivision. He looked great when I saw him — healthier and happier than I think I’ve ever seen him. It’s funny how beneficial a major life change can be.

He showed me around his place, which still needed a lot of furniture. Then we left Penny behind and took his car out to lunch. We wound up at a place Tiffani had suggested that he knew well. I had an excellent eggplant parmesan sandwich, which is something I haven’t had since my New York days. We talked about what he was doing to keep busy and what he’d learned about dating. He pretty much confirmed what I already suspected; too many needy women wanted full-time relationships but the ones that most interested him were the ones who wanted to maintain their own separate home and space. I think the smart folks have it figured out — at our age, we just don’t want the changes and compromises that come with a live-in partner.

Afterwards, we fetched Penny and headed back to the airport where I was going to meet up with Jan and Tiffani. Mike dropped me off and I promised I’d come again, perhaps before the end of this trip.

Woody was at the airport when I got there. He’s the other partner in Jan and Tiffani’s helicopter flight school business. Like Jan, he’s a recently retired airline pilot. But he also flies helicopters. He was one of the cherry drying pilots I worked with last summer. It was good to see him and to finally meet his new dog.

When Jan and Tiffani showed up, we didn’t hang around long. Jan had to go down to the San Tan Valley to see a telescope he was interested in buying. He has a 12-inch telescope in a backyard observatory and was interested in upgrading to a 16-inch. So he, Tiffani, Penny, and I headed down to see it.

Here’s the telescope Jan is considering. It needs to be mounted on this angle (33°) so it can properly track objects in the night sky. Jan is concerned that it might not fit in his observatory.

The guy who greeted us was a spry older man — 85, we later found out — who had not one but six telescopes. Four field telescopes were in his garage and the other two larger ones were mounted in a shack in his backyard. The shack didn’t look like much and, for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how he opened the flat roof to look out. But then when Jan asked him to open up to get more light in, he unfastened a few latches and then slid the entire roof back onto a frame just outside the building. It was a neat setup. Chatting with him, we learned that he was a helicopter pilot, had gone flying with a friend in one of Jan and Tiffani’s helicopters years ago, and used to live in Wenatchee! Small world.

I sure wish I could remember what this cocktail was. It was extremely tasty, even with the bacon.

Afterwards, we went back to Jan and Tiffani’s house to drop off Penny. Woody showed up with his two dogs. We climbed back into two cars and headed out to dinner. It was early, so dinner consisted of happy hour drinks and bar munchies. It was my last night in Gilbert and I enjoyed spending it out with friends.

Heading Out

I woke up early this morning, stripped the guest bed, and threw the linens in the washer with all my dirty clothes. Then I took my last luxury shower until the next time I was someone’s guest, making sure to wash my hair thoroughly. When the linens and my clothes had gone through the dryer, I remade the bed, arranged the nine (!) pillows on it, and started bringing things out to the camper. The inside of the camper was a complete mess that I’d deal with when I stopped for the night.

It was nearly 10 AM when I said goodbye to Jan and Tiffani. Realizing that a professional could do a better job at rewiring the trailer than I could, I’d made a 10:30 appointment at a local U-Haul dealer so their “hitch pro” could do it. With the clock ticking, I pulled away from their house while they prepared to go to work.

Appointment Stacking

If there’s one thing I’ve learned living 10 miles from the closest supermarket and other in-town conveniences, it’s what I call “appointment stacking.” That when you schedule all the things you need to do within a certain window on a certain day. If done just right, you can get appointments and errands crammed into the minimal amount of time, thus making the absolute best use of your time without a lot of additional trips.

That’s what I did on Tuesday. I stacked the U-Haul appointment, DOR errand, Napa and Walmart return errands, lunch, eye appointment, grocery shopping, and long drive from Gilbert to Peoria into one 8-hour period.

At the U-Haul place, the pro did what I asked: he cut the existing hitch wire extension and replaced it with the longer wire I provided. He was able to reuse the plug. While he worked, I fiddled around with the hitch. I realized that the adjustable drop hitch I’d bought at Walmart dropped the hitch too much. Fortunately, U-Haul had other options. I chose one and asked them to put the 2-5/8 inch ball I’d bought on it. When they were all done, the trailer sat pretty level with all four wheels on the ground and the wiring cable was plenty long. Total cost: $65. So worth it. Later, I’d return the extra parts I’d bought at Napa and Walmart.

The next stop was the Arizona Department of Revenue office where I needed to renew my business permit for Flying M Air to sell drone photos in Quartzsite. That went surprisingly fast and only cost $12.

Then I had time to kill before an eye appointment. I took care of the returns and headed north through the Phoenix area. My appointment was in the Deer Valley area in North Phoenix. So was P.F. Chang’s and I was hungry.

My eye appointment was at 5 PM. Sunset was just after 5:30 PM. I was at least 50 miles from where I wanted to spend the night and I knew I wouldn’t make it before it got a lot darker than I like to drive in. So while I ate I started thinking about alternative places to spend the night, using satellite view in Google Maps to get ideas.

One of the best parts of RVing with a self-contained rig is that you can camp for free in a lot of different places. I know this particular area well; I used to land my helicopter at Wild Horse West for burgers once in a while.

Eye exam and some grocery shopping done, I climbed into my truck at about 6 PM and headed out. I ended up about 15 miles away, parked for the night in a deserted off-road vehicle camping area that was technically in Peoria. I didn’t think anyone would bother me and I was right. I spent the next hour organizing my camper for the next part of my journey and settled down with Penny to read a book. I was asleep by 9 PM.

An Eclectic Mind

Web site and blog for Maria Langer, writer, video producer, jewelry artist, boat captain, and helicopter pilot. Blogging since 2004.

Tag Archives: astronomy