I’m told that I use the word awesome a lot. I’m usually content enough with the everyday experiences of hiking in the Driftless Area, biking its back roads, and enjoying outdoor music and plays. But I love those moments of awe when they happen. I’ve been reading some...
Eclipses are an amazing coincidence. The Moon needs to orbit between Sun and Earth. It can’t be too high or too low when it passes between. It needs to be the right distance so that it exactly covers the Sun. And we need to be on the right spot on Earth to stand...
Authors note: I wrote this story for Tapestry Magazine ten years ago, but it could have happened yesterday. Rivers have had their say again, and seldom have they spoken so loudly. Halfway through summer, people throughout the Midwest are still wrangling with the...
There’s a little bit of showmanship in sharing stargazing. It helps to be mindful that other people might not be quite as wowed as you are by the sight of a faint fuzzy thing in the eyepiece of a telescope (even if it is the combined light of hundreds of billions of...
The warm nights ahead are a great time to get to explore our dark skies. There are plenty of opportunities this summer in the Driftless Area to have a look through a telescope. If you have been meaning to explore our starry skies, this is your summer. Kickapoo Valley...
Editors Note: This column is republished from the December 2004 issue of Tapestry Magazine Whoever said the shortest distance between two points is a straight line never lived in the Driftless area. Steep-faced bluffs and winding river valleys simply do not permit...
