Although past its peak the Persied Meteor Shower still makes a nightly appearance in the mid-August night. Knowing there would be a moonless night sky we made our plans for a few nights of camping.
The east grade road is the easiest approach for the RV although that route adds almost 20 miles to the trip.
The viewpoint offers a nice break overlooking Lake Henshaw and the surrounding valley and distant hills.
As with our previous trips we again reserved site #40 at Observatory Campground. The site is reasonably level, has its own telescope pad and long enough the kids could join us for a quick overnight.
After setting up camp we took some time to walk around the campground. Aj found a fun little log swing we all took a turn on.
Across the foot bridge are two walk in campsites.
a cut oak trunk looks to be a perfect axe throwing target. Kg took a picture of the rings, so we could get an idea of the age of this old oak.
There are several of these majestic oak trees in the campground, perhaps a few more will have to be removed as they are suffering with our continued drought.
We had a couple daily visitors that made for a little fun. One standing guard
while the other enjoyed lunch.
The kids had to leave early to return home. School is starting for the girls.
When I camped here last November it was 24F, this time Fran noticed it’s predicted to be 106F. HOT!
In the shade of our awning it easily passed 106, topping out just below 110F. The old Coleman roof air struggled at keeping us comfy below 88 inside.
Our final morning we wandered up the Observatory Trail a bit over a half mile to the overlook. This is the closest place with a cell signal, and we wanted to check in with the kids.
The observatory, visitor center and gift shop remain covid-closed, but I was able to visit last November - those pictures are HERE.
None of my night pictures turned out, just blackness. But we did enjoy some special views of Jupiter and Saturn. I saw a few meteors, but the Milky Way didn't develop as crisp as I hoped. There was some high haze in the air. California is having a nasty fire season with 560 separate fires active as I type this, a few of which contributed to the haze.
All of the BayfieldBunch has reported issues with the the new Blogger interface. ARG! For this post I composed the text in OLW, but I had to use Blogger's 'insert image' -> 'upload from computer' options to place the images directly into the blog. I then cut'n'pasted the HTML source code back into OLW to size the images to fit within the margins of the blog and then reposted. Awkward, slow and must be online the entire compose/edit session. Pretty Lame!
I certainly miss Open Live Writer, when the entire post could be composed offline and then uploaded with images! Ah those were the days ...
Continue to Stay Safe!
The squirrel in the second picture looks like he's bowling. :)
ReplyDeleteThat campground looks lovely, but I'd be hard pressed to head out in 110 degrees. I hope all of California gets a big break soon. Y'all need it.
LOL - the squirrel does look like he's about to toss his acorn.
DeleteAltho much of SoCal has been spared the NoCal fires and smoke are massive. This will likely be CA's worst fire season
It's great to get away, but 110? California needs a break about now, I wonder when (if) things will begin to cool off. I haven't tried the "new blogger" yet, I'm afraid.....
ReplyDeleteThe campground is at 5200 ft., I scoffed when Fran mentioned that the prediction was it could get to 106F.
DeleteI'm not sure what Google is thinking as they continue to 'improve' their Blogger interface.
Pray for rain!
Wow, my hat goes off to you to brave the extreme temperatures. Except for the beach, hiking this time of year is off limits for Declan & Me
ReplyDeleteNot much hiking just a couple loops around the campground and the mostly shaded 1 mile R/T on the Overlook Trail. Reservations were made a month earlier to take advantage of the night sky. A few hands of Cribbage during the day :)
DeleteI assume there weren't any other campers this time of year.
ReplyDeleteThere were a couple others there braving the heat, bust most sites - even with the reserved signs on them - sat empty.
DeleteOnly one other telescope there - Curtis had his new 12" Mead!, all the bells and whistles too.
I tu is good to get away but way too hot. We enjoyed the meteor shower especially when the moon didn't rise.
ReplyDeleteI did not anticipate the high temps, even with Fran's warning!, but it was a decent time to see a few meteors and enjoy the moonless sky.
DeleteLooks like a nice camp. Sorry you didn't get any good shots. Sure glad OLW works for me to WordPRess.
ReplyDeleteSo glad your WordPress interface is working! You have such a great blog. The night shots were my not setting the new Lumix camera correctly. ARG - still learning
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