Yesterday was the fiftieth anniversary of the first American manned space flight. This morning I went for a run. I jogged across the field at Bluemont park in the flat early morning light. The brown winter grass was covered with frost. No one else was around; the only sound was my feet crunching the ground. It felt very much like taking a jog on another planet. If a local park can feel this otherworldly, what must the real experience of being in space be like?
This entry is part of my write-up of a September 2024 trip to The Apostle Islands. The story begins here . Thursday 9/5 Thursday morning we drove the roughly 20 minutes to our launch point at Little Sand Bay in The Apostle Islands National Lakeshore. Upon our arrival we were met by Ranger Angel (it makes sense that the Apostles have a guardian Angel, right?), who directed us as to where to launch, checked our permits, gave us useful information about the weather, and told us how to describe our location ifwe needed to call 911 (!). She also gave us a once-over and declared that we appeared to be "shipshape". It is not her responsibility to evaluate people's ability to paddle in the open waters of Lake Superior, but by her own admission if she detects that people don't have the appropriate skills or preparation, she'll gently steer them to safer courses of action. Loading the kayaks at Little Sand Bay Many people are familiar with Gordon Lightfoot's song The...
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