Sunday 13 August 2017

Saturday, August 12, 2017

Osceola, Nevada

Light Shows and Such

Meteor showers in the night’s sky were our motivation for the early rise, but it meant taking a relatively long drive to reach our destination—the spot where I left off after yesterday’s trek.  We are now on Pacific time, having reached the Nevada border yesterday. 

By 4:08 a.m., we had reached our spot under a sparkled world of stationary stars and meteors shooting about.  It is that special time of year when star/sky gazing is the best, and continentally speaking, we are in the optimum place to view everything.  Hayagriva, Marshall, Curtis and I did not put out lawn chairs to begin the gaze.  We were committed to multi-tasking—walking, chanting and looking up, being awed by the ‘flight of light’. Marshall lost track of his sightings.  It was amazing—humbling.

As the sun crept up behind us, dissipating a stubborn night, the local plant life was revealed to us.  There are shrubs by the name of winterfat ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krascheninnikovia ), salt brush (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atriplex ),   and Indian rice grass (https://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/plant-of-the-week/achnatherum_hymenoides.shtml ). There’s something called halogeton ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halogeton ), which is poisonous to livestock.

Curtis was bold in taking one of the herbs.

“I gave it to you to smell, not swallow.  Watch it, please!”

Historically, there’s interesting factors about the area.  The Fremont culture https://www.nps.gov/grba/learn/historyculture/fremont-indians.htm had established a village 700 years ago where archaeological findings reveal much of their past.

Osceola, was a mining town that shut down in 1940. A ghost town. http://www.ghosttowns.com/states/nv/osceola.html They extracted gold. I had to ponder what is real gold.  It’s sacred sound. It’s the great environment we’re in, despite the desert.  It’s each other.

May the Source be with you!
20 miles

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