Dud of a meteor shower/ Memorial Day weekend

23-26 May 2014

A rare crossing of earth with the path of a comet from 200 years ago was supposed to produce anything from a few meteors to a "meteor storm" on the night of 23-24 May. Our friends, Peter and Naomi Gray, invited us to watch from their Eastern Washington yard and spend the rest of the night. Since they threw in a dinner and a breakfast prepared with fresh eggs from their "lap chickens" we couldn't refuse.

The drive to Ellensburg on Memorial Weekend Friday was unsurprisingly slow from the top of Snoqualmie Pass almost to Easton. As is usually the case with these kind of slowdowns, we saw no reason for it - no accident, no construction, no gapers block, even. [Maybe it had something to do with the rain - I know that I was wondering if we were going to be able to see the sky at all, much less any meteors.] Anyway that put us at Peter and Naomi's around 1800, a half-hour late, but we weren't on any rigid schedule. There was still time to cuddle their strangely-friendly hens, meet the new chicks and have dinner and visit. Sometime before 2300 we went out behind the house and studio to an open area that was reasonably sheltered from light and stretched a tarp out to lie on. The strong winds we had had earlier had died off and the temperature had dropped to where layers of fleece felt comfortable. Unfortunately the Camelopardalid Meteor Shower was more like a trickle and we saw only two bright ones with long steaks. There were, however, a surprising number of satellites. Mars and Jupiter were also in evidence. We stayed out until after midnight which should have been the time of maximum meteors then gave it up and went in to crash on the living room futon.

Peter and Naomi made a big pan of scrambled eggs and veggies and C.J. had brought blueberry streusel muffins for breakfast. Naomi had an 0900 class on oil painting to teach and we couldn't talk Peter into skipping the chores he had planned for the day, so we were on our own for a hike. The Desert Hikes book once again had many local choices and we picked one west of Thorp, Shell Rock. The road/trail was now gated so we didn't have the option of driving the first 3/4 mile to the top of the ridge [but it was a steep, rocky road anyway with one rough, washed-out area]. At the saddle (top, at the 3/4-mile mark) we took a detour to the south to climb a bump and look down at the Manastash canyon and the Lazy F camp and retreat center (with a field big enough to land a paraglider).

C.J. found many flowers to photograph along the trail

Then we continued NW along the road through scattered ponderosa pines and lots of flowers crossing a gate onto state land. Every so often we'd head west across rocky but flower-strewn fields to the cliff edge and look down into the Manastash drainage, but the wind was so strong that it would not have been comfortable to eat lunch there. We settled on descending a slope to the east into the trees where there were ponderosa pine needles to cushion the rocks for our seat pads. Not far beyond we came to a junction; one way indicated "authorized vehicles only" by order of the Dept of fish and Wildlife. Later we found that we had gone about 2.75 miles to that point (more with the detour to the first overlook). To make a loop trip, we headed south cross-country, eventually descending into a canyon and walking along a dry stream bed until we hit another road/trail which took us to the original saddle at 3/4 miles from Manastash Road where we had left our vehicle. The GPS and mapping app on my phone were a big help in doing the XC navigation and indicated a distance of 2.77 miles back to the car from our turnaround point. C.J. says, "And as we came back to the car, a group of young folks were just coming to the trailhead. They must've seen George's Purple Heart license plate, because one of them said, "Thank you for your service, sir." I thought that was pretty cool!"

The drive home through Thorp and along Hwy 10 following the Yakima River to Cle Elum was more scenic than retracing our route on I-90, but didn't take much longer. We were home around 1700 and ready for a shower.

Sunday I was back to replacing the deck boards near the sliding glass door, a job I had started on Thursday. Too bad the new treated 2x4s are so wet that I can't stain them until we have some dry weather and they dry out a bit. I did manage to get the front yard mowed before it started raining again.

Monday is Memorial Day and appropos of that I should note that Washington State provides veterans who have at least a 30% disability an ID card which gets the holder free admission, camping and boat launch at all State parks. We first saw a hint that such a thing was available when we camped at Beebe Bridge Campground near Chelan. The fee sign included a category for disabled veterans with ID card. When I checked with the Chelan PUD, which runs that campground,  they said that I had to apply to the state. C.J. and I are looking forward to putting the state parks on our list of places to visit now that camping there will not be so expensive.