Return to the Nest

Sorry about the silence. Odd thing: As a result of my (I think) growing absent-mindedness, it turned out that my flight was on Sunday night and not on Saturday night (as I thought when I did the previous post), so I suddenly had an unplanned 24 hours on my hands in Aspen.

ground dove nextI decided to spend the extra day lying low getting some work done – various things I thought would get undone on this trip suddenly had another chance to get done! Mostly administrative stuff. It is amazing how much one can get done when there’s a whole extra day suddenly appearing in your schedule, and so that’s what I worked on.

One thing I could have done was reminded you that the Phoenix was due to launch Saturday, and indeed it did! Be sure to check out a post about it on the Bad Astronomer with some links to really nice launch videos. The Phoenix mission plans rather wonderful things when the craft gets to Mars (including making the old reverse-thrust landing maneuver vogue again), as you can learn from their site.

phoenix spacecraftToday, Monday, saw me running errands. Boring things, really. Things you do after being away from the nest for three weeks. Anyway, I’m trying to get to used to all the extra oxygen, and the unbelievable dryness. There’s still been no rain. I will miss the daily downpours and thunderstorms of Aspen. This leads me to the garden report. Nothing to say except that there’s been a bit of loss – the relentless sun and dryness […] Click to continue reading this post