Three Years!

I had known it was coming, but wasn't sure to dread or look forward to the third anniversary of Melinda's passing this last 22 September. I decided to embrace it, and when a friend told me she had business in Puerto Peñasco, the die was cast! Melinda and I had travelled many times to the little port an hour south of the SW Arizona border, so invited myself along and retraced some of our steps there! PP has the closest beaches to Tucson, and the port on the Sea of Cortez is best known for its prized shrimp. Most of our trips down across the border were to visit our friend Margie, who spends much of the winter there, but have also made other trips with friends, so drew from that trip too. Shown here are a trio of my favorite photos of her there.

At left is an early photo, taken the day before my birthday (December 15, 2006), just a few months after we started dating. It is a spectacular photo - some thought it was taken in front of a mural, but is actually a live sunset from the patio of a favorite restaurant "Casa del Capitan" atop a large hill next to a lighthouse overlooking the port. It is often windy out there but this evening it was calm and spectacular not only watching the sun set, but seeing the stars come out as the evening progressed - a memorable evening indeed!

Fast forward 5 years and a few months, and we were down again with her good friend Carolyn. Margie wasn't available this trip, so Melinda found a 2 bedroom condo rental for a long weekend that was less expensive than a hotel at the still-under-construction Esmeralda. We only saw one other room in the huge building that was occupied, even though it was near the peak of the influx of tourists (4 March, 2012). At right is a photo of her relaxing on our 7th floor balcony overlooking the Sea of Cortez towards the west.

Finally a year and a half later we returned for the Christmas holiday (23 December, 2013) at Margie's. She has a beautiful place there, including this outside eating location when the weather is good (most of the time!). Margie has it strung with Christmas lights and the view of the post-sunset sky and scattering of colored lights was too magical to pass up! This was taken 5 months into the start of her cancer treatments, but the Melinda smile is still bright!


This trip I insisted on dinner atop the lighthouse hill where the top photo was taken. It was a nice evening - storms to the east, but a nice sunset. Dinner was at Pane e Vino Ristotante, adjacent to Captain's, a pizza place below and upscale Italian above. There was an excellent view of the sunset and port below from the high perch I'm guessing a couple hundred feet above the Sea of Cortez. The sunset shots here are handheld with a 200mm lens. It seems to set so quickly over the water. Distant mountaintops from Baja can be seen to the nearly due west, since this was taken nearly on the Autumnal equinox... When you click and enlarge them, I love the "crepuscular rays" emanating upwards from cloud structure or mountains, even after the sun had set from my location...


The natural lights of twilight faded quickly and the lights of Puerto Peñasco came up at the same time. Back to the kit zoom lens, the wide shot here is a 3-frame HDR, a combination of 3 frames of different exposures to record more light levels. At lower left is "the Malacon", the commercial center of Puerto Peñasco, including restaurants, fish and shrimp mongers, dentists, pharmacies and tourist trinkets - most anything you want in an over-the-border destination! Across the bay are the high rises and condos of "Sandy Beach, and the body of water leads to the right to the port where hundreds of shrimping boats are docked before heading out. You can see why we have loved the view from there when weather conditions allow a meal out there!

So it was a nice trip - not particularly emotional for me, though shed a few tears when I re-read my blog entries of her last days 3 years before - the first I've reviewed them since putting down those thoughts... Melinda will always be a part of me, our decade together among my happiest. I know all of you who knew her also have a special place in your heart for her.

Following the Path!

This trip to "Ketelsen East" is winding down. Last night Melinda's niece and her boyfriend stopped by for a barbeque dinner. They evidently "collect" labyrinths, which I did not know was a thing! They search out, visit and walk these patterned paths. They had found one near me in St Charles, so went there to visit before our dinner.

They labyrinth at the St Charles Episcopal Church is of the Chartres Cathedral design, shown at right. It has a single path that meanders to the center and the same path is followed to exit. Those who walk it use it for spiritual centering, meditation or prayer. It is in a nice quiet location adjacent to the parking lot of the church, surrounded on 3 sides by nature. The 22-year old labyrinth has a nice dedication stone as shown at left.



Given the complexity of the design, the paths are narrow and don't allow side-by-side walking or even passing each other without stepping off the path, but it was an interesting amble around the path. I've never meditated, nor am particularly spiritual, but can see the parallel to life as a spiritual journey, and also the parallels to the Tohono O'odham "Man in the Maze" journey through life (shown at left) in the American Southwest.



It was a pleasant enough excursion - nice temps in an early-evening outing, investigating something new. The entire labyrinth is shown in the panorama at left, with Kathy and Jonathan at far right.  In the right hand image, you can see the brickwork in its construction as well as the near exact copy of the Chartres Labyrinth above.





On our way out, we noticed the pine tree adjacent to the labyrinth - I've never seen pine cones oozing sap as prolifically as this one was. Seemed each cone had "icicles" of sap oozing out of it! Interesting...

We returned to the country estate of "Ketelsen East" and finished prepping for dinner and started the grill and cooking. The menu has become a staple of mine - a protein of choice, more and more pork chops, or more likely, pork loin on the grill. Accompanying that dish, are bacon-wrapped, cream-cheese filled jalapenos, and a mix of assorted vegetables, here green beans, finger potatoes, broccoli and cauliflower, with shredded cheese atop.  And to wrap it up, while not really lo-carb, are barbequed beans... My guests enjoyed BBQ sauce and a beer, though wasn't on my allowed list!

We finished late into the sunset and decided to risk biting insects in going out to the Fox River to enjoy the "big picture"! From the nearby boat dock (about 100 yards from my door) we took in the late sunset colors and a nice panorama of the water, last light of the day and the far shore.

Always nice to enjoy the evening with family, cooking outdoors and taking in an exploration of some sort while the weather is nice. I'm glad we could all get together in this little part of our lifetime journey...

Feathered Friends - Family Too!

Years ago, Melinda and I stopped by Mississippi Lock and Dam #13 north of Clinton on a cold January day. Most of the River was frozen over, but just below the lock, the flowing water kept ice from forming and the trees lining the far side were filled with bald eagles! Well, at least a couple dozen, where they had retreated to feed on fish and rest up for the next hunting pass over the open water. Hoping to see more, last weekend I returned to Lock & Dam 13 to see what I could see.


Well, there was nary an ice cube, nor any eagles fishing anywhere that could be seen. I had resigned myself to driving 2 hours for nothing, when another car of eagle-watchers came by to look and noted they had seen some 15 miles to the north near Sabula! Shortly after, my sister Linda and her husband Lauren came by to join me, so we loaded my camera gear in their car and headed north!

We'd been given explicit directions where to go, and sure enough, there were a group of bald eagles on the far side of the slough. Not very close, but you could tell what they were with the 500mm lens I'd brought along! Most appeared to be young birds that still had brown heads or hadn't completely transformed to white heads. At left the juvenile on ice was being bothered by the older eagle. At right, this youngster had just swooped down for a fish, but came up empty-clawed!


We were set up in a campground on the south side of the island where Sabula is located. Once parked, we noticed an eagle sitting in the tree next to us! Shown at left, I suspect its another juvenile bald eagle. He didn't pay much attention to us, but we got a pretty good look.

Besides the eagles, there were a few other species. I spotted a very-tardy in departing Great Blue Heron, but he rounded a bend and I lost sight before getting a snapshot. There were a couple flocks of Mallard-looking ducks, looking like they were expending so much energy in flying, wings beating furiously! I'm thinking they were more prey for the eagles if they lost their taste for fish! Got the image of a large group of them at right, in front of a couple tugboats in dry dock...



A couple of my siblings were meeting us for dinner at Manny's in Fulton, IL, and with the extended trip to Sabula, we departed late. Manny's is a pizza and wings place quite popular for the locals. Wasn't much in the way of lo-carbs that I'm partaking in lately - about the only choice was a Caesar salad with grilled chicken. It was great! At left, that's brother Brian at left, Sister Kathy in the middle and Linda at right. Brother Jim was occupied that night and Baby sister Sheri now lives in Alabama.  Our meetings always seem to revolve around eating, but at least we get together regularly! It was a fun daytrip!

South Carolina State Museum (SCSM)!

The highlight of nearly any trip to Columbia, South Carolina has got to be a stop at the State Museum. My first time there in 1990, it was a newly-opened facility, open 2 years (1988) in a converted century-old textile mill. It is an amazing place, covering all aspects of SC history, the sciences, and one of my main interests, a new observatory with a century-old telescope! One of my last trips there, they had a major part of the museum under construction building the observatory seen above the roofline at left.

Immediately seen as you enter the building is the tripod upon which the telescope sits up on the 4th floor. Shown at right, most likely don't know what it is, but note that the tripod that insulates the telescopes from building vibrations is even incorporated into the new emblem of the SCSM - note the embroidered patch and name tag on the inset!

Just past the ticket desk is a store that sells everything South Carolina! Being that it was just before Christmas for my visit, there was lots of cutsie gifts for those that have everything - like the kitchen towels that say Jingle y'all and the like (Left).

There is lots of symbolism in the SC flag and it appears on most everything from flip flops to glasses, including the silver bowl shown at right... Carolinians take their history seriously and there is quite the history section in their books for sale. They continue to relive the "War of Northern Aggression", and the second largest section is likely cooking books! I asked one of the young sales clerks what I couldn't live without (I just wanted to hear her delightful southern-belle accent), and she steered me towards the chocolate-covered caramel popcorn. But while her accent was adorable, was able to turn down the treats!

Just across from the store in the entryway
was the "Palmetto Gate", featuring the craft of Philip Simmons, a blacksmith-turned-artist in the Charleston area. Wrought iron work like this is very popular, adding to the allure of older neighborhoods in that city. This work was custom designed for the museum by Simmons. It shows incredible craftsmanship and details in the gate highlights - details shown at right...




There were a couple of commissioned artworks from local artists - using some unusual media! Shown at left is the detail of a portrait by Molly B. Right - in bottle caps on wood! Only when you back up and see the whole piece do you see it is the scientist Albert Einstein!  This was made for a 2014 exhibit "Building a Universe".







With a rotating set of exhibits, there is always something new to see. In fact, on one out-of-the-way hallway, there was a wall filled with posters of the various exhibits over the 30 years of the museum. I think it was in that same hallway that I found some new displays using old photos showing the transformation to century-old textile mill to state-of-art museum...





But the main reason I was there was that it was a Tuesday, and on Tuesdays (weather permitting) the observatory was open for public viewing! It isn't often one gets to observe through a century-old 12" telescope from the classic Alvan Clark and Sons manufacturers! And unlike Lowell Observatory and their classic 24", where I asked to focus a fuzzy image and told "NO", these guys not only told me to focus, and gave me the controller to "drive around" the moon! At left our telescope operator lines up on a gibbous moon as twilight approaches.

A little later as it got darker, we all gravitated to an outer deck where an additional Dobsonian could be set up, as well as spot city lights of Columbia a couple miles to the east. Also as part of the observatory expansion was increased display area for the Bob Ariail antique Telescope collection. I alternated with touring the collection of Clark and other manufacturers from the 1700s and 1800s, with walking out into the dome for fine views of the moon and tiny disk of Mars at 400X.

Finally I got my fill, and I had family to visit on my first night in Columbia, so headed out. Interestingly I saw that you could rent the museum and even the telescope for private events! I loved that they had a photo of a bride fondling the nearly century-old Clark telescope! It makes such a wonderful groom!

Finally out in the parking lot, I looked back at the observatory and could barely make out the shape of the telescope and observers inside the dome, so was worth trying to get a photo from outside. Shown at right the ghostly scope can be seen thru the windows out to the patio,

In short, if you get to Columbia, in fact, anywhere in the state, it is worth your while to head down to spend the better part of a day at the State Museum. It will likely always be a destination when I'm in town!

Road Trip!

No sooner did I arrive at "Ketelsen East" that things fell in place for me to hit the road again for road trip to the east coast! Last Spring I visited Betty, my mother-in-law in South Carolina, and another friend in Virginia. This time, I ordered some telescope parts from a manufacturer in North Carolina, and shipping was going to be $320 to Arizona! That would pay for a lot of gas, so repeated last Spring's trip with a side stop near Raleigh, NC. The call from Raleigh came right after landing in Illinois, so pretty much hit the road 2 days later!


First up was a visit with Betty - at 94 you want to take every opportunity to visit, but I'm convinced that she is going to outlive us all! She is doing a daily exercise class! Not that she NEEDS to exercise, but seems more of a social thing for her and to get her out of the house as a friend picks her up. At left she is shown in front of her Christmas tree. I ended up staying 3 nights, visiting, doing a little shopping and generally hanging out!

On Tuesday, the afternoon I arrived, I happened to check to see what nights the State Museum was open for telescope viewing. Turns out it was Tuesday, and it was clear enough that they were going to be open! Centerpiece of the Bob Ariel antique telescope collection is the observatory built around the Clark 12 3/8" refractor telescope. Shown at right, it is a very nice facility - shown here is a young astronomer on the step ladder with dad behind him, observing the planet Mars. Look here in a few days for a post about the State Museum...


Eventually I pointed the car north and headed towards North Carolina. Interestingly, most of the central - to south sides of both the Carolinas are pretty flat, but rarely do you get a view out from the interstate system! They have trees growing along both sides and between the roads too! You can get a peek when in the northern areas where it is hillier or downright mountainous, but strange they have planted trees along hundreds of miles of roads, assumingly to minimize road noise for locals...




Thanks to my maps app on my iPhone, navigation was easy and I followed directions to the home of the head of Parallax Instruments, Joe Nastasi, outside of Raleigh. He had rolled an aluminum tube out of sheet, then welded it, and painted the interior black. While you can get commercial tubing to 12", I needed 16" tubing for this project! He then made the rings that hold the tube firmly to the telescope mounting. It was the high price of shipping the bulky tube that motivated the trip. I wished I'd had a chance to see his main shop, but wasn't possible that day. Shown here is Joe carrying the tube to my car at left and besides the rings at right. The tube is for a new project - a 14.25" mirror that also made up the trip from Tucson with me and is getting coated while I'm here to bring back. It will go on my AP 1200 mount and mostly anticipated to do astronomical imaging with a focal length of 1300mm and a speed of F/3.6.


After visiting Joe's place briefly, the goal was to find my way to friend Elaine's place in Virginia before dark! On the last weekday before Christmas, the roads got busier and more crowded as the weather turned worse as well. Heading up the mountains of northern North Carolina and Virginia the cold rain started, and literally it turned to snow just a few miles from Elaine's!

I seem to have known Elaine forever - she started coming to the Grand Canyon Star Party last century, and she was a friendly smile there for many years. Her beloved husband Tommy died a couple years ago, and she has been staying closer to home in recent years. In the Spring she was recovering from a broken leg in a wheelchair - she looks much more normal moving about afoot! One of our excursions took us to Tommy's gravesite where there was a pretty view of snow-or-frost covered trees to the north, shown at right.

Mostly we hung out at their beautiful home located in the foothills or rolling hills near local mountains. She organized a pasta dinner for me to meet some of the local amateur astronomers to eat and talk shop, and also gave the chance to sing carols around her Christmas tree! And of course, out there in the country we also watched for the local white tail deer population and see who came to the bird feeders. The photos at left and right show a panorama of late afternoon light at left, and a bit later, some nice colors as sunset came... Some of the highest mountains in the state are just a few miles to the south shown here. Also, below at left is a view of the mountains just north of Elaine's house showing the snow/frost covered trees from her front yard.


Finally Sunday arrived and it was time to transition back to "Ketelsen East" again. At 650 miles from Elaine's it is a long, but doable drive in one day. For some reason, the maps app took me on a northerly route and for the first time that I know of got to travel in West Virginia! Mostly interstate all the way, there were still surprising vistas of multi-lane highways going thru tunnels in mountains, and the wide valley of the Ohio River. Finally through north central Indiana I crossed a huge windmill farm (hundreds!) just before sunset. Even after stopping at the store for groceries, I was home before 9pm. It was nice to get out from behind the wheel! More soon, I promise!

The Reports of my Death...

To quote a famous American author, "The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated"! And yes, it is evidently true - about a month ago I was reported, by the paper no less, that I had died! Well, at least that someone named Dean A Ketelsen had died, and that part was true...

One of my standard tasks on my way to Iowa is to stop in Fulton along the Mississippi River and visit my Aunt Velma, now in the nursing home. She is among the few survivors of my Dad's generation, and as I get older myself, I like to hang on to those times as long as possible! I've blogged about her before - just 18 months ago here, and back when we held a reunion on her farm here. Evidently she was the first to discover in the Clinton Herald that I, or rather, Mr. Ketelsen had passed. Convinced it was me, even though the birthdate was wrong and what the heck would I be doing dying in Ohio, she was evidently inconsolable, even after being told that if true, my sisters would have alerted the family... They finally had to look up the full obituary and saw the details of Mr. Ketelsen's life as well as his photo before she finally believed it wasn't me that did the passing...

Finally word got to my sisters and eventually on to me. While I'm sorry for Mr. Ketelsen, I'm sort of glad it wasn't me! I guess my passing would explain my lack of posts the last few months, but can't claim that distinction!

Out And About!

While at "Ketelsen East", I always enjoying staying at home out in the woods, but friends and family are only a couple hours away, so usually hit the road pretty often. My family is mostly just west of the Mississippi River, so an even 2 hours away, and we usually reserve Sundays for the drive to visit brothers and sisters, usually while eating at a local restaurant. With such a short drive time, I usually sleep in my own bed, so usually leave our dinners by 8pm to get home at a decent hour.

Case in point was early in this last trip when my brother Jim hosted us for a pool party on a Sunday. The "excuse" as if we needed one to get together, were for the July birthdays - our step-mom Diane, sister Kathy and great niece Alivia. At left they get to share a cake, made by my niece Marsha who works in a bakery.

A secondary excuse was that Jenn (my niece) and husband Chet were visiting from Connecticut! I remember their wedding in Des Moines 15 years ago (Happy Anniversary!). While a few years old, I believe it was the first time I'd met their son Sawyer, shown at left playing in the pool with his dad.

And if we needed any more reason to congregate, two of my college buddies happened to be along! Shown at left, Michael Dorn at right had visited Melinda and I a few years ago and happened to be out that weekend visiting me again. He met my family on a trip to the ancestral farm 40 years ago and wanted to join us again. The fellow in the white shirt is Luke Kuhl, who was my college roommate for 2.5 years at Iowa. He got more than a little ribbing for his name, since we went to school right after the movie "Cool Hand Luke" was popular! I hadn't seen Luke in close to 6-8 years, so was great to catch up - the 3 of us lived in the "Penthouse" 5th floor at Hillcrest Dormitory back in Fall of '72! Always fun to observe how nobody ever changes!

A few days later and I was doing a road trip. It had been a few years since Melinda and I had visited my friend Beth and Phillip in Minneapolis. It was definitely time to do another visit. Beth is one of my dearest friends again, going back to college days 40 years ago. She and Phillip survived a horrific car crash 15 years ago that left her confined to a wheelchair. But thanks to technology and her service dog Mika, it doesn't slow her down much. We made a trip to the Arboretum, one of her favorite places, as well as a restaurant overlooking the Chaska Curling Center where the USA curling team practices and competes! We also took advantage of Phillip's bar-b-que expertise - that is him at left in their garden of a back yard...

At right is a shot of Beth and Mika. I've never seen a service dog at work, and it is pretty amazing what she can do from opening doors, calling elevators, picking up items Beth needs. She is very well behaved and obviously they have worked together for a long time. It was hard to say goodbye, but eventually it was time. Phillip took our photo together, and like my selfie "rule of thumb" - it will come out fine as long as you have someone gorgeous next to you!








On the return trip to "Ketelsen East" I had intended to stop in Cedar Rapids, Iowa to see some of the crew from my old RAGBRAI bike team. That Friday they were going to load the bus for the trip to western Iowa to ride back across the state over the next week. Unfortunately, there was bad weather on the way, so didn't stay till evening to visit, but did pause nearby to see my nephew Jeff, wife Sandy and their beautiful daughters. Claire, shown at left, had just lost a front tooth and is showing the note from the tooth fairy. Because of her bravery in pulling it out, the tooth fairy left her money with glitter on it! Her younger sister Natalie was off to the sitter most of the day, but I got to see her just before leaving for the storm, as shown at right. Again - selfie, someone gorgeous - successful shot!

I stayed just ahead of the storm for the 3 hour trip back towards Chicago. Away from home for a few days, but with lots of memories of friends and family...