Luke Visit

From Minneapolis, Luke came on Thursday Sept. 25, 2014 for four days of totally new adventures.  Certainly as super SDS weekend! [What is SDS?]  What follows in the next few Posts is a condensed chronicle of how I experienced the weekend with Luke.

Whenever I have guests visit, wherever I am, I think my sensitivity to my surroundings are heightened and often make note of things, which by myself, I would not otherwise pay much attention to.  It was this in mind that I began to write this post, writing of many observations during the three plus hour drive.  It soon became apparent that this posting would be, well, very long. I thus decided each day of his visit would be post and there would be links for detailed versions of some activities.

Luke visit Day 1, Summary and Links:

Late morning Thursday we picked up Luke at the airport and headed North and a little west.  This would lead us to the desert cities of Palmdale & Lancaster onward to Mojave and views of the world largest wind farm.  A quick stop at the Jawbone Ranger station to see “Mr. Bob” the 116 year old resident tortoise and then passage through the unique Red Rock Canyon to the turn-off to Nine Mile Canyon Road where the temperature is a hot 96 degrees.  This road rises up from the desert floor about a mile in elevation over the nine miles, yielding a great views at each switch-back. At the top, it has cooled to a comfortable 77 degrees and the remainder of the 13 mile journey is through  forests of pinyon pines and open areas remaining from the July and August 2000 Manter Fire, which burned over 74,000 acres.  A detailed description with some photos of this day can be found at the link: [Trip to Cabin--Day 1].

After arriving we all busied ourselves with the miscellaneous chores to get the cabin ready for the stay: Putting the food away, turning on the water, checking the solar system, getting the grill ready, lighting the stove pilots.  We then hiked up the hill to our potable water tank and after short instruction on how to determine how full it is by tapping on the tank surface. With all this completed the cabin is a go for the long weekend.

We explained to Luke that here our schedule is determined as: 

 "We eat when hungry, go to bed when tired, get up when we wake up and in between we do what we want to do."

As the sun set the temperature drops significantly, so we changed to long pants and added layers.

The black sky was not to disappoint, as the jet black sky was peppered with those small shining lights and with the dusty milky way flowing across the center.

After the stars, we introduced Luke to the game of Qwirkle.  He quickly got the hang of it and it was a fun way to top off the first day.  Given the two hour change for Luke and the excitement of the day, we all retired early, but I do not know the time.

But an SDS Day to be sure! Tomorrow promises to be the same, except totally different.