My intention today was to write about the second near miss / close call, but my surroundings prompt me to move that to another day. I sit in the view area next to the bridge over Starvation Reservoir. A monument to the Dominguez y Escalante Expedition of 1776 describes the impossible terrain they traveled under the guidance of a Ute Indian from Colorado. Indeed, this is a desolate landscape, yet beautiful in the way someone from the concrete madness of the city would see a place impossibly removed from their life as beautiful. I originally identified this as a promising spot to set up the telescope, being far enough out of town to escape the worst of the immediate light pollution and open enough to allow a full view of the sky.
The sun just sank below the horizon, and the storm that blew through earlier evaporated into distant spears of color. When the storm was raging, I told RJ, one of my customers, that the clouds had spoiled the stars for the evening, but it is surprisingly clear now. I will likely pick this back up later at the hotel.
It’s now a little over an hour later, and I have never seen a swarm of mosquitos like the one that attacked me tonight. Things were going so well at first. I was setting up the telescope and chatting with Erica on FaceTime when the last light faded, and I was eaten alive. I learned tonight that those nasty little things love ankles and arms. There are at least twenty bites I can count, and likely more. I stopped at a gas station to see if they had any cortisone, but no luck. I’ll suffer through the itching tonight and assess tomorrow. I have an early morning, so I’ll sign off.
