Back from Camping!

It was a fun time but, as usual, far too brief. I'd have loved another two or three days lazing about the trailer and campgrounds.

The trip up --including collecting Sean, a guy who lives near us who was seeking a carpool seat for the weekend-- was pretty easy. That is, until we got to the home stretch: one of the winding, ridge-hugging roads only a few miles from the campgrounds was closed due to massive construction. Many of the rural roads have experienced mass slipping in recent years: it looks like either something happened which was so catastrophic that it closed the road, or some form of large-scale reconstruction was in progress.

We took a couple of other back roads to get to New Martinsville so that we could approach from the other end of the same road but found it was closed at that end as well. We ultimately drive further to Moundsville and took back roads from there. In all, the re-routing added nearly 2 hours to our overall commute.

Still, it was a great weekend. The theme of the event was "Christmas in July." I'm not a big fan of xmas at the best of times... celebrating it in July seemed over the top for me. Still, I was there to read, spend some time alone with my thoughts and generally be away from DC so my goals were largely achieved.

Friday's night sky was especially clear, giving me some good observation time with the telescope. This weekend's treat was a fantastic view of Jupiter and its four major moons all perfectly visible. Beautiful! While scanning the sky for other curiousities, a satellite crossed into the telescope's view. It's easy to spot them by eye, but the narrow view of the telescope makes it tricky. Still, I was able to keep it in view for nearly two minutes.

There was no astronomical sights Saturday evening: it rained. It didn't stop the partygoers on the cabana deck but it did push the disco indoors so it was a slightly quieter evening. Before the rain, struck I was able to get a number of photos of the xmas-themed site decorations. Click here for the photos.

The drive home was uneventful. Even the laundry and unpacking was fairly untraumatic although I have a tonne of e-mail to sort through.

Back from Camping!

It was a fun time but, as usual, far too brief. I'd have loved another two or three days lazing about the trailer and campgrounds.

The trip up --including collecting Sean, a guy who lives near us who was seeking a carpool seat for the weekend-- was pretty easy. That is, until we got to the home stretch: one of the winding, ridge-hugging roads only a few miles from the campgrounds was closed due to massive construction. Many of the rural roads have experienced mass slipping in recent years: it looks like either something happened which was so catastrophic that it closed the road, or some form of large-scale reconstruction was in progress.

We took a couple of other back roads to get to New Martinsville so that we could approach from the other end of the same road but found it was closed at that end as well. We ultimately drive further to Moundsville and took back roads from there. In all, the re-routing added nearly 2 hours to our overall commute.

Still, it was a great weekend. The theme of the event was "Christmas in July." I'm not a big fan of xmas at the best of times... celebrating it in July seemed over the top for me. Still, I was there to read, spend some time alone with my thoughts and generally be away from DC so my goals were largely achieved.

Friday's night sky was especially clear, giving me some good observation time with the telescope. This weekend's treat was a fantastic view of Jupiter and its four major moons all perfectly visible. Beautiful! While scanning the sky for other curiousities, a satellite crossed into the telescope's view. It's easy to spot them by eye, but the narrow view of the telescope makes it tricky. Still, I was able to keep it in view for nearly two minutes.

There was no astronomical sights Saturday evening: it rained. It didn't stop the partygoers on the cabana deck but it did push the disco indoors so it was a slightly quieter evening. Before the rain, struck I was able to get a number of photos of the xmas-themed site decorations. Click here for the photos.

The drive home was uneventful. Even the laundry and unpacking was fairly untraumatic although I have a tonne of e-mail to sort through.