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Árbol del Sol
Thought for the Month The SunTree Traveler
Alamogordo for Mother’s Day The old SunTree summer tradition of war games using Hydro-artillery weapons was improved for this event with the introduction of new slosh-bombs. A wet time was had by all. As usual, the food was fantastic with some new dishes added to our traditional roast beef, potatoes, rum cake and green chile. I will remark on the quantity of food only to say that if you did not consider anything there other than just the Chinese food, you could still feed a third world nation for a couple of weeks. The next event in Alamogordo will be the post-French West Indies trip to Club Orient event. It probably will be as fun as the Mother's Day riot. All readers of this website probably already know that we had to cancel our Memorial Day weekend campout in the Gila National Forest due to fire danger. We have added a June camping trip to Faywood Hot Springs, though.
Alamogordo Event Summer Solstice at Faywood Hot Springs You may wonder why we would go to a hot springs during the hottest time of the year. If so, you have not experienced the delights of Summer evenings in the desert. As with most of our events, we will have potluck meals. Normally we only plan one official potluck meal on Saturday evening, but an unofficial tradition has arisen when we go to Faywood. It seems that all of the meals become co-op meals for all who wish to participate. Plan to bring the food for the Saturday night potluck and any other of the meals which you wish to be involved with.
For the first two weeks, Mercury has an especially good showing in evening twilight. Mars meets Saturn in just to the left of those happy-go-lucky Gemini twins in the early part of the month. The ringed planet is in front of the lovely "Beehive" star cluster from 1 to the 15 June; use binoculars. On 17 June Mars and Saturn will merge into a single “very bright” “star”. I am not sure what they are planning, but be careful. As a note of interest, Pluto is especially bright this month, but don't bother trying to see it unless you have a real humdinger of a telescope. Its lopsided oval orbit is now carrying the most distant planet even farther away at each opposition. The solstice ushers in summer on 21 at 6:26 AM (MDT). At that time, the sun decides that it is too hot in the northern hemisphere, so it turns around and starts heading back toward the southern hemisphere again. On the pre-dawn light of 22 June, that is Venus just below the crescent Moon. On 27 and 28 June, the Moon, Mercury, Saturn and Mars all come together in a friendly little kaffee klatch fairly low in the fading evening twilight. The two bright spots on the right are Castor and Pollux (Gemini twins) attempting to horn in on the conversation.
© 2004 SunTree Travel Club - Site updated Summer 2008 |
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What Happened in May?