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Crossing the Desert at Night
Aug. 13th, 2004 03:00 pmAs seen previously on this blog, I made plans to drive up to Cloudcroft to watch/photograph the cleaning of the 3.5 meter mirror. I was originally going to drive up on Wednesday morning, but I was really bored Tuesday and decided to drive up Tuesday night. Monday had been a little chaotic, having spent six hours at the hospital with my dad. That evening I spent at Dan’s copying data from my computer to burn onto a DVD. This particular directory is a good 3gig in size and contains the copies of the various CDs that I use to install my system, stuff such as Office, various Adobe programs, Visio, etc. I need the programs, but I really don’t need them sitting on my computer full-time, so Dan was good enough to burn them onto a DVD for me. But even better, he lent me a portable USB hard drive and a set of USB specialty cables, including a USB extension cord.
The portable hard drive was great. I was able to copy off the photo directories for future archiving, it’s a really cool device and I’ve been wanting one for a long time, just haven’t had the fundage. One of the neatest things about this, if you want to spend the additional $$$, is that Linksys makes an adapter that will let you hook the drive to a network hub/switch, thus, if you have a wireless network, you can now have wireless storage!
Wonderful what they can do now days.
I finally got everything together around 6pm and started heading out of town. First stop was picking up the DVD from Dan, it didn’t want to burn Monday night when I was heading out, but Dan was able to convince it to burn after I left. Then off to McDonald’s. I don’t normally eat there, I use it as an occasional roadside stop while cruising for an apple pie and a Dr. Pepper, plus they normally have pretty clean restrooms. But I had a free coupon from the Diamondbacks scoring 8+ runs in the game that I saw with Magic Rat the previous week. So, eat at McDonald’s, read a chapter or two in this really cool book about a real-life mercenary who did jobs for British Intelligence, the US Gov’t, Spain, and a lot of business out of South Africa. Interesting read, I’ll post a review at a later date. ANYWAY, the McDonald’s was on the same corner as a Fry’s Groceria, and I needed to stock my ice chest for the trip, so I toddled in.
And toddled out. The most important thing that I needed was two 4-packs of Starbucks Vanilla coffee thingies. They were on sale, and they were out. So I cruised across Camelback, stopped for fuel for the Rodeo, then at Albertson’s. No vanilla. But they had the sodas that I wanted on sale, so I snagged those, some Honey Wheat Thins, and a bag of ice. Prepped the ice chest, next stop Trader Joe’s. Two main purchases here, some liquid hand soap and some bars of an imported chocolate that is 70% cacao beans that runs $2.50 a bar! And here I thought Godiva was expensive. Russ really likes them and can’t get them anywhere except TJ’s, so I got her four.
One last chance for the Starbucks before hitting the road: there’s yet another Fry’s next to the Squaw Peak Freeway. This time they had them, but oddly, the two 4-packs totaled 7 bottles. They were able to rectify that at the register by sending a stock boy off. Also got some water and a couple Gatorades.
NOW I was ready to hit the road!
The best thing about long-distance driving at night, especially leaving Phoenix, is you don’t see the interminable damned desert. You know it’s there, but all you see is the road signs, the other traffic and the occasional truck stops and interstate service businesses. There was only a sliver of a moon, nice and dark night. With the exception of stopping once to change batteries in this little transmitter that sends the music from my MP3 jukebox straight into my Rodeo’s FM radio, I had an uninterrupted source of music and entertainment.
It’s almost a transformation: leave Phoenix at night in the dark, and 9 hours later, the sky you’re driving towards is lightening and you’re seeing lots of forest. It’s just amazingly pretty.
My attention flagged only once, and I tried an experiment that worked marvelously for restoring alertness: three pieces of Altoids Gum. I had previously bought a tin of it and really didn’t think much of it, I’m not much of a fan of Altoids. But at HexaCon, which I just remembered that I still haven’t written up yet, they were giving away sample packs that contained three pieces. At the convention I popped all three into my mouth and experienced the curiously strong sensation. It was a definite pick-me-up! It served equally well on the road. That, and three bottles of Starbucks kept me going pretty well.
I got into Las Cruces around 4:30 and decided to top off my tank for the final 60-70 miles to Cloudcroft. Big mistake. Regardless of what I may think of how ‘Cruces has grown, it’s still a burg. Part of the problem is that in my current unemployed state I’m using my Chevron gas card almost exclusively, so I headed to the north side of town where I knew there was a gas station. Not only was that Chevron closed, so was EVERY freakin’ gas station in the area! With the exception of some 24-hr Whataburgers, the town just shuts down at night.
I knew there were a couple 24-hour operations on the SW side of town, so I took off to find one. Eventually I succeeded in getting $10 into my tank, but man, it was a quest! I spent a good 40 minutes trying to find gas and then getting back on the freeway, and considering that I started with $40 in cash for the trip, I wasn’t too keen on dropping a quarter of it in gas. Next time, make sure to fill up in Demming, that’ll leave plenty of gas to get to Cloudcroft.
I did stop in Demming for a spot to eat. As I was passing through Lordsburg my stomach started reminding me that I really hadn’t had a lot of protein Tuesday, now Wednesday. So I stopped at a Denny’s for a quick bite, continuing Gayle River’s book (the mercenary), The Specialist. That’s why I kicked myself for not also fueling up my vehicle since I was already there.
Anyway, I made it to Alamogordo, the Last Friendly Town until beginning the ascent to Cloudcroft. Conveniently they have a Chevron literally next to where the ascent begins, so I fueled up there so that I’d have plenty for running around. I finally made it to Russet’s at about 6:45, whereas I’d been planning on arriving between 5 and 6am. Oh, well. Packing took longer than I thought, but what really killed me was not picking up my supplies before I started heading out of town. I’ll just have to plan a little better next time.
Wednesday was unremarkable, sleeping in until noonish, having lunch at Far Side Cafe, then heading up to the observatory, where we were until after midnight. I tried some night shots of the observatory with my Digital Rebel, but with almost zero moon and partial cloud cover, I didn’t get much of anything.
The big thing was me wanting to photograph washing the 3.5 meter mirror. This was originally planned for Thursday the 12th but was pushed to Friday the 13th for reasons not revealed to me. No big deal. We spent Thursday night at the observatory, I got some cool photos underneath the mirror. Friday we got up and were at the observatory by 9am, a major feat for Russ as she is not a morning person, for that matter, she isn’t much of a daytime person.
I had some initial equipment difficulties getting my computer and the camera to cooperate. The computer was to function as a interval timer controller, i.e. I would set the program to take one image every 30 seconds, and it would fire and copy the image straight to the computer, thus not using the limited space in the camera’s memory card. This is where having that DVD of my CD_Image directory was to come into play. Delete the directory, instant +3gig space available. And this was the first problem.
The remote capture program wouldn’t let me specify what drive it was copying to. It was insisting on putting the images onto D:, which had limited space. So I moved a big directory from D: to P: and that took care of that. Then the computer decided that it didn’t want to talk to the camera whatsoever. I tried resetting the camera, reseating the cable, I finally rebooted my laptop.
At that point everything started working OK. I had already set up my tripod for the shot that I wanted and got everything set to take one image every 30 seconds. This turns out to be pretty much the minimum time possible: it takes about 27 seconds to take the image, transfer it to the laptop, and save. 3 seconds later the shutter fires again.
So at least that was working. Unfortunately I was kinda late setting up and I missed them unsealing the mirror, i.e. taking off its plastic wrap and the mirror covers (these are wood covers, not the metal ones recently damaged in the telescope). I caught most of the washing of the mirror, it was an interesting thing to watch. Having seen it once, I can do a better job of shooting it again next year, which I hope to do. It also gave me more than enough experience to give me confidence in shooting the reassembly of the mirror going back into the telescope next week. They’re planning on being on-sky late next week re-aligning the mirror and getting it tuned up.
My plan, when I get back to Phoenix, is to use some software that my brother has to turn the photos into a short film strip (an AVI) wherein the mirror is washed in a matter of seconds. I hope it will be interesting, but probably only to geeks of similar bents to mine.
The portable hard drive was great. I was able to copy off the photo directories for future archiving, it’s a really cool device and I’ve been wanting one for a long time, just haven’t had the fundage. One of the neatest things about this, if you want to spend the additional $$$, is that Linksys makes an adapter that will let you hook the drive to a network hub/switch, thus, if you have a wireless network, you can now have wireless storage!
Wonderful what they can do now days.
I finally got everything together around 6pm and started heading out of town. First stop was picking up the DVD from Dan, it didn’t want to burn Monday night when I was heading out, but Dan was able to convince it to burn after I left. Then off to McDonald’s. I don’t normally eat there, I use it as an occasional roadside stop while cruising for an apple pie and a Dr. Pepper, plus they normally have pretty clean restrooms. But I had a free coupon from the Diamondbacks scoring 8+ runs in the game that I saw with Magic Rat the previous week. So, eat at McDonald’s, read a chapter or two in this really cool book about a real-life mercenary who did jobs for British Intelligence, the US Gov’t, Spain, and a lot of business out of South Africa. Interesting read, I’ll post a review at a later date. ANYWAY, the McDonald’s was on the same corner as a Fry’s Groceria, and I needed to stock my ice chest for the trip, so I toddled in.
And toddled out. The most important thing that I needed was two 4-packs of Starbucks Vanilla coffee thingies. They were on sale, and they were out. So I cruised across Camelback, stopped for fuel for the Rodeo, then at Albertson’s. No vanilla. But they had the sodas that I wanted on sale, so I snagged those, some Honey Wheat Thins, and a bag of ice. Prepped the ice chest, next stop Trader Joe’s. Two main purchases here, some liquid hand soap and some bars of an imported chocolate that is 70% cacao beans that runs $2.50 a bar! And here I thought Godiva was expensive. Russ really likes them and can’t get them anywhere except TJ’s, so I got her four.
One last chance for the Starbucks before hitting the road: there’s yet another Fry’s next to the Squaw Peak Freeway. This time they had them, but oddly, the two 4-packs totaled 7 bottles. They were able to rectify that at the register by sending a stock boy off. Also got some water and a couple Gatorades.
NOW I was ready to hit the road!
The best thing about long-distance driving at night, especially leaving Phoenix, is you don’t see the interminable damned desert. You know it’s there, but all you see is the road signs, the other traffic and the occasional truck stops and interstate service businesses. There was only a sliver of a moon, nice and dark night. With the exception of stopping once to change batteries in this little transmitter that sends the music from my MP3 jukebox straight into my Rodeo’s FM radio, I had an uninterrupted source of music and entertainment.
It’s almost a transformation: leave Phoenix at night in the dark, and 9 hours later, the sky you’re driving towards is lightening and you’re seeing lots of forest. It’s just amazingly pretty.
My attention flagged only once, and I tried an experiment that worked marvelously for restoring alertness: three pieces of Altoids Gum. I had previously bought a tin of it and really didn’t think much of it, I’m not much of a fan of Altoids. But at HexaCon, which I just remembered that I still haven’t written up yet, they were giving away sample packs that contained three pieces. At the convention I popped all three into my mouth and experienced the curiously strong sensation. It was a definite pick-me-up! It served equally well on the road. That, and three bottles of Starbucks kept me going pretty well.
I got into Las Cruces around 4:30 and decided to top off my tank for the final 60-70 miles to Cloudcroft. Big mistake. Regardless of what I may think of how ‘Cruces has grown, it’s still a burg. Part of the problem is that in my current unemployed state I’m using my Chevron gas card almost exclusively, so I headed to the north side of town where I knew there was a gas station. Not only was that Chevron closed, so was EVERY freakin’ gas station in the area! With the exception of some 24-hr Whataburgers, the town just shuts down at night.
I knew there were a couple 24-hour operations on the SW side of town, so I took off to find one. Eventually I succeeded in getting $10 into my tank, but man, it was a quest! I spent a good 40 minutes trying to find gas and then getting back on the freeway, and considering that I started with $40 in cash for the trip, I wasn’t too keen on dropping a quarter of it in gas. Next time, make sure to fill up in Demming, that’ll leave plenty of gas to get to Cloudcroft.
I did stop in Demming for a spot to eat. As I was passing through Lordsburg my stomach started reminding me that I really hadn’t had a lot of protein Tuesday, now Wednesday. So I stopped at a Denny’s for a quick bite, continuing Gayle River’s book (the mercenary), The Specialist. That’s why I kicked myself for not also fueling up my vehicle since I was already there.
Anyway, I made it to Alamogordo, the Last Friendly Town until beginning the ascent to Cloudcroft. Conveniently they have a Chevron literally next to where the ascent begins, so I fueled up there so that I’d have plenty for running around. I finally made it to Russet’s at about 6:45, whereas I’d been planning on arriving between 5 and 6am. Oh, well. Packing took longer than I thought, but what really killed me was not picking up my supplies before I started heading out of town. I’ll just have to plan a little better next time.
Wednesday was unremarkable, sleeping in until noonish, having lunch at Far Side Cafe, then heading up to the observatory, where we were until after midnight. I tried some night shots of the observatory with my Digital Rebel, but with almost zero moon and partial cloud cover, I didn’t get much of anything.
The big thing was me wanting to photograph washing the 3.5 meter mirror. This was originally planned for Thursday the 12th but was pushed to Friday the 13th for reasons not revealed to me. No big deal. We spent Thursday night at the observatory, I got some cool photos underneath the mirror. Friday we got up and were at the observatory by 9am, a major feat for Russ as she is not a morning person, for that matter, she isn’t much of a daytime person.
I had some initial equipment difficulties getting my computer and the camera to cooperate. The computer was to function as a interval timer controller, i.e. I would set the program to take one image every 30 seconds, and it would fire and copy the image straight to the computer, thus not using the limited space in the camera’s memory card. This is where having that DVD of my CD_Image directory was to come into play. Delete the directory, instant +3gig space available. And this was the first problem.
The remote capture program wouldn’t let me specify what drive it was copying to. It was insisting on putting the images onto D:, which had limited space. So I moved a big directory from D: to P: and that took care of that. Then the computer decided that it didn’t want to talk to the camera whatsoever. I tried resetting the camera, reseating the cable, I finally rebooted my laptop.
At that point everything started working OK. I had already set up my tripod for the shot that I wanted and got everything set to take one image every 30 seconds. This turns out to be pretty much the minimum time possible: it takes about 27 seconds to take the image, transfer it to the laptop, and save. 3 seconds later the shutter fires again.
So at least that was working. Unfortunately I was kinda late setting up and I missed them unsealing the mirror, i.e. taking off its plastic wrap and the mirror covers (these are wood covers, not the metal ones recently damaged in the telescope). I caught most of the washing of the mirror, it was an interesting thing to watch. Having seen it once, I can do a better job of shooting it again next year, which I hope to do. It also gave me more than enough experience to give me confidence in shooting the reassembly of the mirror going back into the telescope next week. They’re planning on being on-sky late next week re-aligning the mirror and getting it tuned up.
My plan, when I get back to Phoenix, is to use some software that my brother has to turn the photos into a short film strip (an AVI) wherein the mirror is washed in a matter of seconds. I hope it will be interesting, but probably only to geeks of similar bents to mine.
