Slightly Off the Mark

 I kept a secret for the last year, but now it's time to let that secret escape.

In September of 2016, our beloved Ford Focus fell victim to a guy trying to turn into traffic with the setting sun in his eyes. We replaced it with what became equally beloved, a 2014 Ford Escape, which I call burgundy but which is technically ruby red.

I cannot conceive of why there have to be fifty shades of red. When I became a volunteer firefighter, we had several fire trucks that were red. We had one that was burgundy. That's it. The names of colors never made us hungry.

Anyway, this car had a backup camera and a computer screen, neither of which I saw any use for, both of which I now wouldn't do without. We drove that car all over everywhere. Well, four states, anyway, and about two dozen state parks, not to mention Chicago. Don't get me started on Chicago.

It always amused me, how many ruby red SUVs we noticed on the road after that. Probably just the bias of us having one, but it seemed like we saw them everywhere.

When it developed a very small radiator leak I wasn't too concerned, until nobody could find the leak. I mean nobody, including mechanics and the dealer. Then one of the spark plugs started acting up. Then everything started acting up.

We drove it a LOT, mind you.

But estimates for fixing the problem, assuming we could figure out what the problem was, brought us into the "nickle and diming us" phase of car ownership. We needed a new car. Emily started researching, and I looked around.

We found a car that was a heck of a deal, if we were willing to drive some distance to look at it. We did. We looked. We fell in love.

Much to our surprise, we drove back home in a different car than the one we'd left in. Having learned my lessons, I embraced the changes that came with a vehicle five years newer. It has so much extra safety equipment that the insurance cost actually went down.

It also has heated seats, and a heated steering wheel, two things I used to make fun of. No more. The screen showed us where we were and where we were going, and the computer could connect our phones (audio book, yay!), make us hot tea, warn us if we were approaching a politician with his hand out, and even play the radio.

And it had remote start.

Whoever invented the remote start needs to win the Nobel Prize For Awesome.

As we headed home, I suggested to Emily that we play a little game. "Let's not tell anyone we bought a car, and see how long before anyone notices."

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 I didn't intend to take a lot of quality photos during the 2024 solar eclipse, for one simple reason: Lots of people would get much better pictures, so why worry?

At the entrance to Summit Lake State Park, which is--I don't know--in Central Indiana somewhere, we saw a car that advertised an owner who was really serious about the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence. I'll bet that entire luggage rack held camera equipment.

We parked right beside a guy who told us he drove here from Colorado, after first planning to see the eclipse in Texas. His instincts were right on: He barely missed hurricane force winds in his home state, and avoided driving into rainstorms down south. Above is his telescope/camera, which took a time lapse of the eclipse and set him back about five thousand bucks.

The cost of my camera? Well, take off a zero, for starters.

Then there was the family that set up on the other side of us:

I don't know where they were from, but they were also very nice folk who, despite having kids, clearly didn't lack spending money.

I experimented, and managed to get this photo pre-totality, by putting eclipse glasses over the lens. This worked only when I forgot to turn off the flash, for which I have no explanation.

I told you all that to explain why I'm very proud of this last photo. No, it's nowhere good as the more experienced photographers with more expensive setups, but honestly, I didn't expect to get this at all:

It wasn't about getting photos, not for us. It was about experiencing it. After seeing the one in 2017, we knew that if we got lucky and the weather broke out way, we were in for an unforgettable experience. We were right. Totality worth it.

• Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
• Barnes & Noble:  https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"
• Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4898846.Mark_R_Hunter
• Blog: https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/
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Remember: The sky above is full of all sorts of amazing things, and only a few of them can hurt you.

 Seven years ago, I swore I would never, EVER drive in Chicago again.

Last Saturday, we drove to Chicago. Again.

It was for the same reason as last time, to see The Cure in concert. The Cure's music is ... well ... it's been called post-punk, gothic rock, new wave, and alternative. Robert Smith has fronted the band since the late 70s, so I assume it wasn't all that at the same time. Oddly, while I don't care for those types of music, I actually like The Cure. Not the way Emily does. Not "we have to go to Chicago to see them play". No, sir. But I love my wife, and proved yet again that I'm willing to put my life on the line for her.

The venue was different from last time, giving me the hope it wouldn't be as far into the city.

It wasn't as close. It was closer. We actually drove between the skyscrapers at one point. We experienced our version of "The Suicide Squad".

The place is called The United Center. As I understand it, some sports-ball team plays in it when concert season is over. The Bills, or the Bulls, or the Boobs, something like that.

We got the nosebleed seats, but I didn't realize how literal that was. Our seats were in the very last row of a stadium that seats 23,500 people (sold out), and to get there we had to buy rock climbing equipment and hire a sherpa. It never occured to me that anyone would put in sections so steep that your toes are at the level of the next fan's head, which I'm sure has caused a fight or two. The place had to have been built in the 50s--no way would authorities allow such a fall risk these days. If I'd slipped on the top step, I'd have kept tumbling until I bowled over the drummer.

(I checked: It opened in 1994. They probably had some celebratory hang gliders launch from our position that day.)

And the band? Well, the band was great, but I wish I'd brought my telescope. They looked like little Polly Pockets, if you remember those. Kind of micro-dolls. There were two big TV monitors beside the stage, but we could barely see those either, especially once the questionable smoke started to rise from the audience.

As you can see from the above photo, we actually had a seat right in the center. Cool, right? The crowd is shining their cell phones to bring the band back for an encore. I don't know what encores are in other places, but this was more like the halftime show.

The Cure started a little late, and after that "encore" we walked out to the parking lot, got in the car, and ... sat there. Driving to the venue had been a lot like the asteroid field in "Star Wars V: Crazy Drivers Strike Back". So we decided to let things clear a little, and the more we thought about it, the more we let things clear.

We were, in fact, the last car through the exit gate. On purpose.

 Surely, by well after midnight, both the concert crowd and regular traffic would have regained some measure of sanity, right? RIGHT?

Chicago driver are insane.

Not "bad". In fact, many of them are quite good in a NASCAR kind of a way. Sure, they may arrive with their cars covered in dents and scratches and pedestrians, at a speed that nets them a good 9 mpg gas mileage, but they'll get there fast.

Base, drums, amplifiers ... much calmer.

I had to drive 15 mph over the speed limit just to keep from being rear-ended. Even then, every few minutes something would streak around us like an F-15 doing a flyover. Then it would veer across three lanes, pass someone else, and dive back across the same three lanes without ever touching the brakes.

In heavy traffic. Well, it probably didn't seem heavy to them.

I'd like to speak specifically to everyone in the Chicago area who drives a Dodge Challenger. We saw the rear-end of several, because despite my instincts, I had to keep my eyes open. You people, you're crazy. Nuts. Looney-tunes. The fact that any of you survive is proof of guardian angels.

Typical Chicago Driver Enjoying the Mayhem.

As for us, there were only a few times when I had to stand on the brakes and swerve into another lane. Emily may have screamed, I don't know. I did. The rest of the time my death grip stayed on the steering wheel, my head on a swivel, and my stomach in my mouth.

We got home around 4 a.m., and after we stopped shaking slept most of the day. Then we woke up with a concert hangover. That's a real thing.

Then, the next day, Monday, my muscles remembered they'd spent six hours so tense you could bounce a quarter off them. Not to mention the three hours in the stadium seats, which were actually comfortable for the first hour. (Yeah, my ears popped on the way up, but nobody dropped a car on me.) Ironically, after all that sitting over the weekend, on Monday I couldn't get off the couch.

I'm glad Emily got to see her favorite band, and I'll take her again--if they ever come to Albion.

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Remember whenever you don't buy a book, another driver is born in Chicago. Oh, the humanity!

 Emily and I were traveling through Marshal County, Indiana, when we stumbled across a sign:

We knew about the Trail of Death, having traveled across Indiana for two years researching our book, Hoosier Hysterical. Since Emily and I have Native American blood, we followed our curiosity and other signs ...

To the statue of Chief Menominee. 

Here Beowulf (who was not allowed to pee on the property) investigates a plaque at the memorial site. While other Native Americans signed treaties and moved themselves west of the Mississippi River, Menominee gathered into his village a group of people who simply refused to go. In 1838 he and five other leaders were arrested, and the final 859 Potawatomi were forced to move to Kansas, a two month trip. It was the largest single forced removal of Natives from Indiana. In a march of about 660 miles, forty-two of them died, many of a typhoid epidemic; twenty-eight were children.

A Catholic priest who made the trip with them died on the way back, of exhaustion. Menominee himself passed away less than three years later, and is buried in Kansas.

The first monument to a Native American under state or federal legislation is this one, erected in 1909 by the State of Indiana. It's near the headwaters of the Yellow River, and not far from the location of his village.

So.

Emily and I both have Cherokee ancestors: Hers were forced onto the Trail of Tears, ending up in her case in Missouri; mine apparently hid out in the Appalachians, escaping government removal. There are markers and monuments commemorating events along the routes, and I'd encourage people to follow them sometime.

If there's one thing our road trips have taught us, it's that you come across the most unexpected things along the way.

Hey, I spelled Massachusetts right the first try!

Okay, the second try.

This time on 50 Authors from 50 States, first we take a look at Maryland, with author Margaret L. Carter:

https://annettesnyder.blogspot.com/2020/05/marylands-history-reboot-margaret-l.html

Then author Carole Ann Moleti shows us around Massach ... um, Mass.

https://annettesnyder.blogspot.com/2020/05/massachusetts-break-with-carole-ann.html

I'm back!

Not that we went far: we had a two week vacation that was almost all spent at home, largely because of my annual super sinus infection and some family responsibilities. I did catch up on sleep--this is something all third shifters appreciate. We also caught up on some reading and watched a season of Game of Thrones, which is not what I'd call "relaxing" TV.

More important, once I was feeling up to it I got some writing done, and I'm up to 24,500 words on my work in progress. No, not that work in progress, which is awaiting Emily's editing skills. No, not that other work in progress, which I'm holding for cooler weather and involves me going through a LOT of photographs.

The other other work in progress. The one about the two spouses and their dog, and horses, and maybe ghosts, and definitely a murder mystery, and mushrooms. It was supposed to come after the other two, but I started the first scene as a whim, couldn't stop, and just hit chapter fourteen.

I'm having loads of fun writing this story. I don't know if it'll be any good, but working on it sure helps my stress levels.

Sadly, vacation's over and it's time to put some work into promotion and marketing. Oh, and return to my full time job. *sigh*

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And most places where fine books with my name on them are sold.

Emily's father had knee replacement surgery Monday and came through okay, although she tells me he's having pain issues. She's going to be down there taking care of him for a week or two.

I drove her down Sunday, and drove back Monday, because there was quite literally no one to replace me for my whole work rotation. (Which isn't to say I'm irreplaceable--that's a different thing entirely.) It was right at 1,000 miles starting out Sunday morning, and getting back Monday afternoon.

We had a passenger part of the way. Apparently Pokemon are only visible in a phone screen..

A thousand miles in thirty hours is hardly a record, by any standards. Still, I'm getting a little, um, older for that. We listened to Neil Gaiman's "Neverwhere" on the way down, and I listened to podcasts on the way back, which made it easier ... but man, am I stiff and sore, and tired.

Beowulf wasn't overly thrilled either, especially when he realized we were leaving without Emily. It took half the trip to get him to drink any water, and as we got close to home I bought him a cheeseburger just so he'd eat something. Poor fellow hasn't gone a day without seeing her since we got him, and I haven't been separated from her that long since we got married. The difference is that I can stay busy to keep my mind off of it, and he's just moping by the door.

Not much of interest on the drive, except that I got buzzed by a biplane doing some crop dusting. It's startling to suddenly see a shadow pass over that's bigger than the car.

We passed this guy on the way down ... twice, after a rest stop. The military sometimes hauls its haulers.

Prayers and good thoughts requested for my father-in-law -- and for Emily, who's tasked with making him get up and exercise his new knee, something I'm sure he won't want to do.

Have you heard of glamping? Apparently it means glam camping, which in turns means glamorous camping, which in turn means camping in luxury and style.

This continued shortening of words and terms is the topic of a whole other blog. I'll just say here that by the beginning of the next decade someone will have shortened "glamping" to "gl":

"Hy, cm gl w/us, s cl!"

(Translation: "I'm too lazy to type vowels".)

As I understand it, glamping is bringing modern luxury to the back-to-nature movement, and yes, it's just as ridiculous as it sounds. Unless you're doing it--then it's cool. Haul a tent in a backpack? I don't think so. No, you drive your SUV up to a yurt equipped with not only electricity, but a hot tub that will be filled on request by your butler.

Oh, a yurt is kind of a round, semi-permanent tent. And boy, am I shortening that explanation.

Or, rather than heading for a cabin or cottage, you could bring your glampiness with you. For this you'll need an RV of some kind, something about the size of, say, your actual home. Unless your home is a bit too small. You can camp in a trailer that would be too big for the typical mobile home park, or one with an engine that you drive around the same way a helmsman pilots an aircraft carrier. That way you have room for the hot tub, not to mention the big screen TV and the generator necessary to power both. And don't forget your satellite dish! You'll need your recliner, duh.

My first camping experience? A blanket draped over the clothesline out back. The grass was kind of itchy, but soft enough for a ten year old.

A fire, a pan ... keep it simple.

I'm thinking that a balance between the two might be more reasonable.

I mean, if you're taking your whole house with you on vacation, why not stay home? No matter what you see on the commercials, you're not going to open your front door and stand there looking out over the Grand Canyon with a coffee cup in your hand. You're going to be in a campground with a bunch of other camping vehicles. You'll have to unhook that little SUV you're towing to get to the canyon anyway, so why not save gas and just drive the SUV?

Hey, you can watch the big game on the big screen from your hot tub at home. Well, I can't, but I could watch Doctor Who on my medium screen from my couch.

When my wife and I first went camping it was with a two man tent and a couple of sleeping bags, which is still pretty close to the other end of the spectrum from glamping. I've discovered two things since:

First, my back had become too old to sleep on bare ground.

Second, a two man tent is fine for two, but doesn't work for two plus an eighty-five pound dog. 

"You want me to sleep in THAT?"

But camping shouldn't include everything, including the kitchen sink. My wife was a long-time Girl Scout, and would be embarrassed to go camping with anything resembling a kitchen sink. On the other hand, I had no desire to go all survivalist, wandering into the wilderness with nothing but a survival knife and an extra pair of socks. (Although the socks are nice.)

Our compromise:

An eight man tent, assuming the eight men are average sized and kind of jammed in side by side, like a line of sardines. In our case that leaves room for a double sized inflatable mattress, a small folding table, and a folding chair (I need the chair to get around in the morning--see above about my old back.) ... with floor space left over for the dog. A little extra floor space, because every hour or so he likes to get up, do a quick patrol, then lay back down in a different spot. That's fine at home, but in a tent it's about a three foot patrol.

"Who's watching the back door? Where IS the back door?"

For two people who grew up poor, and whose idea of luxurious camping was having a floor on the tent, that's pretty luxurious. Especially since we added two extras:

One, a car-top carrier. It turns out a lot of our camping gear used to go in the back seat, which is now fully occupied by dog.

"No, I'm not sharing this with two folding chairs and a cooler."

Two, a fifty foot electric cord and a power strip. Yes, at my insistence we gave in on the luxury of electricity, at least when we can get a campsite with power. No, no hot tubs, but we power two phones, a camera, a Kindle (bedtime reading), and my laptop.

Yes, my laptop, leave me alone. I get some of my best writing done on a picnic table by the fire. That's the life.

 And that's the closest I get to glamping.

I took a few photos when we were in Missouri to see the total eclipse, and I thought I'd pass some on. Not of the eclipse itself--the video I posted a few days ago is about the best I could do with that.

We were at the Meramec State Park near Sullivan, Missouri. You can learn more about it here:

http://www.meramecpark.com/

I've been describing it as central Missouri, but it's only about 60 miles from St. Louis, so it's really more east central Missouri. It has rugged hiking trails, caves, zero cell phone reception (which is both a good and bad thing), and it edges the Meramec River, so there's the swimming and boating thing. A really nice place that we're hoping to visit again something, a couple of hours from Emily's parents' house.

More about the park later--I have lots of pictures. But I didn't have the best camera there:

There was a good crowd, and we were thankful to have headed there in the wee hours of the morning, even though the roads there and the park itself were both pretty out of the way.

The park had a big awning up with activities and information, and even a board where visitors could show they were there:

As cool as the partial eclipse was, the wait for totality seemed to take forever, especially with the temperature hovering at around a million degrees while we stood in the sun and stared upward. Did I complain? I did not, having been convinced for weeks that it would be cloudy that day, wherever we were. The good thing about being a pessimist is that you're never disappointed.

Some of us were more relaxed than others:

Considering how much my neck hurt the next day, he has a point. But considering how little he moved throughout the lead-up to totality, I wonder how sunburned he got--we kept ducking back under the trees--and whether his eyes were sore later. At least he brought enough cigarettes.

As the eclipse advanced, we began to see a curious effect that's common with partial eclipses. The vanishing sun continued to shine through the trees, which produced a pinhole effect that allowed us to see the eclipse on the ground below:

As it grew darker, a dog that belonged to people nearby dragged his blanket out, pulled it into a circle, and got ready for bed. He was very confused when nap time ended so quickly.

And then: totality.

Yeah, that's totality. It's just that my camera couldn't handle it. Here's Venus coming out, beside a jet contrail: