Santa Catalina Mountains – hike to Romero Pools

An evening pause: A hike to Romero Pools in the Santa Catalina Mountains just outside Tucson, Arizona. The hiker in the video calls this one of the toughest hikes he’s ever done, but it is only 5.6 miles round trip, with only a thousand foot elevation gain. Compared to most of the other Santa Catalina hikes, which routinely require elevation gains of 3000 to 5000 feet, this one is easy.

Exploring an abandoned mine in Nevada

An evening pause: From the youtube webpage:

This inclined shaft is located outside of Searchlight, NV. The shaft itself is about 350 feet deep with two extensive drift levels along its length. We found a winze [a vertical shaft] in the lowest drift level that went down to what appeared to be an additional level.

I must emphasize that mines are very dangerous, and should be approached with great care and caution. Unlike a cave, which has had eons to slowly establish its stable structure, a mine is cut into the rock instantly (compared to geological time), and is thus very unstable and prone to collapse.

Loreena McKennitt – The Stolen Child

An evening pause: William Butler Yeats’ poem, The Stolen Child, set to song.

Away with us he’s going,
The solemn-eyed:
He’ll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breat,
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal-chest.

For he comes, the human child,
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
From a world more full of weeping
than he can understand.

New York Mets – September 24, 1969

An evening pause: In 1969 the lowly New York Mets, doormats in the National League from the moment the team was created in 1962, came out of nowhere to win the pennant and the World Championship of baseball. Forty-two years ago tonight I and my friend Lloyd attended the game in which the Mets clinched first place in the National League Eastern Division. Below is video showing highlights of the game plus the final out, with the crowd pouring onto the field. Though you can’t see me, I am in that crowd, jumping for joy at this most unlikely sports miracle. There was no rioting, only happy fans chanting “We’re number one!” in exuberant disbelief.

And I still have that small piece of turf from Shea Stadium, collected on that night, proof that the unexpected and improbable is always possible.

Connie Dover – I am going to the west

An evening pause: Words and music by Connie Dover. With this video, it is the words that matter.

In this fair land, I’ll stay no more
Here labor is in vain
I’ll seek the mountains far away
And leave the fertile plain

Where waves of grass in oceans roll
Into infinity
I stand ready on the shore
To cross the inland sea
I am going to the West

Chorus
You say you will not go with me
You turn your eyes away
You say you will not follow me
No matter what I say
I am going to the West
I am going to the West.

I will journey to the place
That was shaped by heaven’s hand
I will build for me a bower
Where angels’ footprints mark the land

Where castle rocks in towers high
Kneel to valleys wide and green
All my thoughts are turned to you
My waking hope, my sleeping dream
I am going to the West

And when sun gives way to moon
And silver starlight fills the sky
In the arms of these last hills
Is where I’m bound to lie

Wind my blanket, earth my bed
My canopy a tree
Willows by the river’s edge
Will whisper me to sleep
I am going to the West

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