Ancient Irish Astronomy Presentation

 

Today I worked on campus and took a rosary walk at lunchtime. I left a little early to get to the planetarium at a local high school for a Shamrock Club event. We watched a presentation on ancient sites in Ireland that line up astronomically with the solstice, the equinox, or the in-between times, like Samhain (which is pronounced saw-ain), right between the autumnal equinox and the winter solstice. It is a time that many cultures consider the veil between this life and the next to be at its thinnest, not just the Irish (from whom we get a lot of our Halloween traditions, like jack-o-lanterns and trick-or-treating), but the Mexicans with their Day of the Dead, and of course in Christianity it's All Saints/All Souls Days right at the beginning of November. Maybe it was the spooky subject matter, but I found my ride home a bit eerie, maybe because nobody else was on the road as I drove the dark route north along the lake. 

They were probably all watching the Brewers. When I got home, Travalon had the game on and the score was a couple of goose eggs, but in the fifth inning the Brewers were hitting like crazy, and not even home runs, just base hits, but they got ten runs. Then Travalon said he hoped the Rays would at least score one run, and in the bottom of the ninth he got his wish, so the final score was 10-1. It seems likely that the Brewers will win their first World Series title. They may even do it tomorrow if they sweep the series.

Travalon went to the zoo yesterday while I was at the Vespers service, and he took some photos: the new lion, the rhino, flamingos, a meerkat, a polar bear (allegedly pregnant), and a couple of capybaras, as well as some random fall foliage.

And here are some photos I took today on campus.

Here are some more photos Travalon took last week, of train graffiti in the yard in town.

From the Beltline, you can see beautiful fall foliage in the Arboretum, so Travalon found a parking lot across the Beltline to take photos.

And I'm not sure where he found these maples, but they are magnificent.

I still have lots of photos from his recent trips while a bachelor for a week, including more of La Crosse and a drive through Maple Bluff, so stay tuned.

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Reformation Vespers and Kayhu's Birthday Party

 

Today I skipped my drum lesson so that Travalon and I could hike in Verona. First we stopped at Icki Sticki and got coffee. Here are some photos from the trail.

We are kind of behind on getting all our miles from hiking, but with our bonus miles we have way more than 46. At least now we are up to about 30 from hiking. Here are some photos from our trip to Indian Lake yesterday.

This is new - a tunnel under the road to get to another part of the Ice Age Trail. We were too tired to try it yesterday but will have to check it out sometime.

We had some extra time after getting back from Verona, so we found that from the UW Foundation parking lot Travalon could get good photos of train graffiti on cars parked along Campus Drive.

We could see the lake from up there.

We poked along Old University and found other spots to photograph the train cars.

We saw this house that quotes the Beatles.

Then Travalon dropped me off at the Lutheran Cathedral of the Midwest, where they were having a Reformation Vespers with a Bach cantata and also a choral piece by Hammerschmidt. The music was so wonderful, it made me miss that choir. The local Bach musician and his wife sat right in front of me, and Pete the Sailor Man and lots of choir members (including my band member) talked to me at the reception afterwards. The choir room was open, so I poked my nose in there for a moment to reminisce. Their current choir director said I'm always welcome to join them again, even though he's never heard me sing.

Then Travalon picked me up, and we went to Rich's house for Kayhu's birthday party. There was one other person there, someone we had never met before, but he was fun to talk to. We had chicken parmesan and black magic cake with coconut ice cream, and then we gave this guy a ride home. Travalon had gone to the zoo (photos tomorrow), and he had gotten Kayhu a water bottle with a red panda on it. She did get a chance to talk to the bassist from the Klezmatics, and he doesn't share a birthday with her - his is two days earlier. I couldn't talk her into going to the vespers tonight, but at least we saw each other yesterday at Klez Fest.

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