Sunday, April 17, 2011 - Utah Rt 12, East of Escalante UT

Desert Catfish, Dead, with Toes, Escalante UT, April 17, 2011

Dang, I did it again

You may recall I lost most of my nesting Great Blue Heron pictures a while back to that certain fuzziness caused by forgetting to turn the auto stabilization off when I had the camera on the tripod, trying my darndest to get some nice clean shots from farther away than I would have preferred.

Well, this morning I went walkabout with the camera, took some neat shots... and forgot to turn the stabilization ON. The sun was low in the sky and the shutter speed was adequate with image stabilization. But not without!

Tomorrow morning, maybe I'll go walk the route again - or maybe not. Clouds are rolling in. I think there's a storm brewing. If so the light won't be worth a darn. Darn.

Night camp

Boondocked - Utah Route 12 East of Escalante UT

Adequate Verizon cell phone 1x service is available here - no broadband.
Locate on my Night Camps map
Check the weather here

Heliograph route between Fort Cummings NM and Tubac, AZ

1886 heliograph transmissions between Tubac near Nogales Arizona/Mexico, and Fort Cummings New Mexico: Joe Marques (Flagstaff) was doing some research in old Flagstaff newspapers and found something that might interest. In the Arizona Weekly Champion, Saturday August 7, 1886, page 2 column 1, it says: "A message was recently sent by the government heliograph (signalling by sunlight flashes) from Fort Cummings, N.M. to Tubac, Ariz., a distance of 400 miles, and an answer received in four hours." What a great [research] find! This was during the Geronimo Campaign of 1886, and the heliograph system at that time did indeed extend between the two stations. From Tubac, the most westerly terminus, the intermediate stations were Baldy Peak or possibly Josephine Peak just a little south of Baldy), Fort Huachuca, Antelope Spring, Emma Monk, White's Ranch, Bowie Peak (or Helen's Dome), Steins Peak, and Camp Henely (east of Fort Cummings). This means the message would have been relayed seven times, one way. It most likely was a test message, and relatively short, but I would love to know what it and the reply really said. The 1886 "airline" distance between Tubac and Fort Cummings; and of course on to Fort Cummings. I calculate the one-way distance between the two extremes as being 241 miles, with round trip of course being 482 miles.

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