Exploring the Night Sky: A Couple of Older Hand Drawn Maps

Exploring the Night Sky

A Couple of Older Hand Drawn Maps

3/6/2012

This evening, I was outside looking at the western sky.   Venus and Jupiter were shining brightly high in the sky.   Down close to the horizon was the planet Mercury.   Off in the east, the full moon and Mars were coming up.   There were a few of the brighter stars visible, but most of them were hidden by both the bright sky and the bright moon.

Seeing Mercury got me thinking about the times I’ve seen it before.   It is only visible to us for a short time before it sets.   When it is in the morning sky, the rising sun quickly removes it from our sight.   Its close proximity to the sun makes it an elusive view!

I went upstairs and dug out some of my old astronomy journals.   A couple decades ago, I was heavily into astronomy.   I would make nightly trips to the backyard and to Wagman Observatory to stargaze and explore the night skies.   I always kept a notebook handy to record my activities.

Now I would never call myself an accomplished artist...a these pictures prove that.   But still, they portray what I saw on those nights.   I'm glad I kept these notes, they will never cause any type of scientific fervor, but I enjoyed looking through them tonight, and that makes it all worthwhile!   They are a record of a moment in time. They brought me back some good memories! So, here are a couple maps of the sky, maps of both time and place.

Planetary Line Up, Mars, Jupiter, Moon, Mercury and Venus

(9.17.1990)

(Pictures will enlarge when clicked!)

Jupiter and Venus are presently approaching each other in the evening sky.   They will be closest on the night of the 12th.   March 6th and 7th will be the best nights to catch Mercury.   You have a short window to see it before it disappears below the horizon.   Jupiter and Venus will be easy to see in the western sky.   Below and to the right of the bright pair is where Mercury will be.   Use binoculars to locate it and after that, you should be able to see it with the bare eyes alone!

(diagram credit D.Tondreau)

Mars moving through M44, The Beehive Cluster

(10.12.1994 thru 10.21.1994)

The Beehive Cluster is a star cluster located in the constellation of Cancer.   This was a track I made on a copy of a map from The Uranametria 2000, (a great sky atlas!) as the red planet slowly passed in front the star cluster.   I have some 35mm slides that I took during this period somewhere.

Close up of the above chart

Jupiter with its moon Io’s shadow crossing the planets face.

(6.17.1995)

I was lent a magnificent 5.7” telescope, made by Astro-Physics by the Amateur Astronomers Association of Pittsburgh.   It was easily the best telescope I have ever used, let alone looked through!   It made my observing all that much more special!   The colors were nice, the stars were sharp, I was able to split very close doubles, it was everything I could have asked for.   I used it for about 2 years before returning it to the club.   I miss that scope to this day!

Jupiter with its moons Callisto and Io and the Red Spot

(7.2.1996)

Saturn

(12.3.1996)

Saturn is always spectacular to view.   It is always a good object to show to people at star parties.

Dreamscape

(3.28.2011)

Changing from the skies above to the space between my ears, this is a map I made after waking up from a very long and involved dream.   I wrote 3 pages of notes on this dream, remembering details such as streets, people, puddles on the ground etc.   I also made this map about where I went in my dream.   It is dreams like this that I look forward to every night.  They are like reading a good book!

I’ve said it before, I love my dreams!

NOW,

Go out and see if you can see Mercury!

Climbing on Bricks

Climbing on Bricks

3/2/2012

Sunrise at the cache site

(pictures will enlarge when clicked!)

Another Friday, another day off of work.   The weather looked great and I had plans to meet Frank and Bill for some geocaching.

We were going to tackle a cache that I had been looking at for years now.   There is one “hider” who consistently hides good caches.   It isn’t so much what he hides but WHERE he hides his caches.   He has taken me to old abandoned farm ruins, abandoned neighborhoods, and even historic spots.   I have done most of his caches around my home, this one was sitting there like a sore thumb.

Frank and I had done some caches near it a couple weeks ago and this was included on our list.   We hiked over to it after doing a bunch of other finds and by the time we got here, we decided to push it off until a later date.   That would be today!

On my over to meet my friends, I stopped and visited the cache area.   It is a huge section of land, a couple miles in circumference.   Looking at satellite photos, I found a place where we could just drive right in to it.   Still, it would require a walk of about a quarter mile.   The area was once an industrial site, as I drove in I passed a few piles of trash and garbage laying around and a small abandoned building.   There were lots of black dirt roads, hills and piles of slag.   Right in the middle of it was a huge pile of bricks and stones.   The cache was hidden somewhere in that pile.

We all met at a prearranged spot, all of us arriving early.   We BS’d a bit and then decided to take one car to the search site.   Bill climbed into the back and Frank took the passenger seat, I myself…the drivers seat.   We were off.   With only a mile or two to drive, it wasn’t too bad for Bill, sitting on the wheelwell of the Jeep.   I had removed my backseat when I got the dog, making my car a 2 passenger vehicle.   I tried my best to avoid most of the potholes on our drive.   (Haha)

X Marks the spot

We pulled into the driveway of a local business and drove to the back of the building.   There, numerous trails led into the deserted site.   The pile of stone stood off towards the east.   A huge X was in the sky above the hide.   Looked pretty simple to me.

We parked and fired up our GPS’s and started the march towards the top of the pile.   When we were here 2 weeks ago, we saw what looked like a road cutting through the pile.   It was here we headed.

The temperature was below 32, there was ice on the puddles, but we quickly warmed up as we started to climb.

That's one BIG pile of bricks!

All sizes of rocks

Lots of different names

Looks like it has been here for awhile

Bill said that the area was once owned by a local steel mill, which would figure.    These bricks could be what were taken from their furnaces.    The pile was huge, I am guessing about 50-60 feet high (?) and about 2/10^th of a mile across.    It consisted of varying piles, scattered around, all different heights.   The bricks themselves, were a variety of actual bricks, stones, concrete and some chunks of what looked like slag.   They were broken and the edges rounded, nothing worth reusing!

Starting up the "road"

The road made things easier as far as walking, but still it was uneven and each step was different than the last.

Entering the valley

Nearing the top

As we got higher, we decided to get off the path we were on and go down into what looked like a small valley.   Here, the bricks and stones were a little more level, the walking a lot easier.   It also had a path heading up towards the top.   It wound between a lot of young saplings and thorn bushes.   It didn’t take us long at all to reach the top.

We were higher than anything around us.   We could see some buildings off in the distance that we could put names to, a housing plan stood off in the distance but everything around us was desolate and empty.   Dirt roads circled around, it looked as if kids made regular use of the grounds with their quads.

Bill

Well, we were here, now it shouldn’t take too long to find the cache.    It was only listed as a difficulty of 2 out of 5.    The terrain was a 3 out of 5.  It should be right here!    We started looking…..and looking….and looking.    We went back to Franks GPS and checked the cache page for a clue.    HA, simple, it was under a rock.    We were standing on top of a pile of rocks!    Good joke on us!   We searched some more, slowly expanding the radius of our search, turning over bricks by the hundreds.

It has to be here somewhere!

Frank, turning bricks

We went back to Frank’s GPS and checked the past logs.   Someone wrote that they found the cache about 60 feet away from ground zero.   So, we were out that far…it also said it was at the top.   We were there also.   As we continued looking, moving generally towards the highest portion of the piles, all of a sudden, two men appeared, climbing up the face of the pile.   I first thought, “Oh, 2 more cachers, we got some help!”   Then I saw they were both wearing florescent green safety vests with ID badges attached.   My next thought was “Oh-oh, we might be in trouble!”   We hadn’t passed any No Trespassing signs on our way in, but who knows who owns this property.

They explained that they were doing testing of “unmanned vehicles” at the site.   They also told us they had gotten a video e-mail with pictures of the Jeep as it drove on to the property.   (I wonder about that statement, we didn’t see any cameras on our way back out….)   I told them what we were doing there and they said they thought that was the case.   Looking at the cache page later, I saw the finder before us had met these two also!   They said we couldn’t be there while they were doing any testing.   We apologized and told them we could be gone in about 20 minutes, the time it would take us to get back to the car.   As we BS’d with them, they seemed to soften up a bit.   They told us we could stick around until we found what we were looking for.   If they knew where it was, they would’ve told us.   We thanked them and they disappeared.   They were good on these bricks, straight up one of the slopes and then right back down.

We went back to our search, and having no real luck, we gave it 5 more minutes.   If we didn’t find it by then, we would leave anyway.   I really didn’t want to do this, but it was starting to look rather dismal.   The clock slowly clicked through the 5 minutes and we decided to start down.

Bill, the newest cacher in the group decided to look in one of the places we hadn’t looked yet and low and behold, he found it.   It was about 60 feet away from ground zero, almost in plain sight.   We had been searching “inside the box”, looking where WE thought it would be.   Oh well, another lesson learnt.

Signing the log, finally!

We signed the log, rehid the cache and started back down the pile.   In no time we were back at the Jeep.   Going to place my camera back in its case, I realized I had left it back by the cache.   I had taken it off while we were searching.    So, off I went, back up the pile again to retrieve my pack.  I made it up and back in about 20 minutes.    That’s good exercise

The Jeep, from the cache site

We piled into the Jeep and returned to the other vehicles.   We did 3 more caches at a park that was about 10 miles away.   Surprisingly enough, the same person that had found the brick cache before us, was the same person who found these three caches before us!   It was as if we were following him around! Small world out there!

I was back home again by 1PM, just in time to feed and walk the dog.   It was another fun Friday, I went to a spot (a couple spots actually) that I had never been to before, I added a few more caches to my found list and I had a good time with some good friends.   As I was pulling into Shaler, the clouds were thickening and getting darker.   We had definitely picked the better part of the day to be out, climbing on bricks!

Hitting Low again

Hitting Low...Again

2/29/12

3:45 in the morning, I am hot, sweating in fact.   I feel as if my legs are moving…back and forth, back and forth, like a pendulum.   I squint as I try to focus on the face of my watch. “WOW, I should be up by now!”   I struggle to unwrap myself from the covers and get my feet on the floor.   The dog doesn’t help when he rubs up against me, letting me know he is ready to go outdoors for his morning pee.

I pick up my dream journal to write down the dream I had and all I can do is scribble a few lines.   My fingers and hands are not doing what I want them to do.   My legs, now hanging off the side of the bed are still swaying back and forth, but they aren’t moving when I look at them.   I go to stand up and fall back onto the bed. I am not dizzy, but I can't stand upright.    Holding onto the nightstand, I try again and get slowly to my feet.

Picking an unopened pack of glucose tablets off the stand, I break the wrapper and slide 4 into my mouth.    Holding onto furniture and the door frames, I hobble in towards the bathroom for my own early morning bathroom break.

My next obstacle is making it down the stairs without falling.   Holding onto the banister I slowly work my way down the stairs.   The dog must sense my apprehension, he doesn’t rush past me as he normally does, he patiently waits till I’m on the bottom floor and then rushes over to the door.

I check my sugar and it is at 61.   At the low end of the spectrum, I can only imagine what it was before I took the glucose tablets.

My wits are slowly returning, I get the dog outside and on his chain without any problems and then go inside and pour myself a bowl of cereal.   I try again to write a couple notes about what has been happening since I woke up and I can see that the sugar is starting to flow into my veins.   My handwriting is getting better, my sentences are making more sense, I don’t feel dizzy.

I let the dog in and recheck my sugar, now I am at 73, much better.   I feed the dog and write a few more lines.   I can almost feel the sugar flowing into my system, my handwriting is improving and my thoughts are making sense once again!

Thinking back, waking up on the couch last night, before going to bed, I took a reading and it was LOW.    I was at 39!   I went into the kitchen and took a couple swigs of Orange Juice.   Then, thinking that I was good, I went upstairs to bed.   Obviously (now) I wasn’t good, I needed more sugar.   Ahhh, hindsight is so easy!

Returning upstairs, I got showered and shaved and then took the dog for his morning walk.   It is lightly raining and it sounds and feels good. I’m coming back!   I still have that “hang-over” feeling.   The event is over but I’m still feeling a little bit fuzzy and I’ve got a bit of a headache but I’m guessing that these things will pass as the day progresses.

It has been a long time since I have been like this.  It is scary and it reminds me that I have to take this "Diabetes thing" seriously.  I really do, but every so often, I need a reminder.  Tough way to get reminded, next time I think I'll opt for a notebook! 

Looking back,here are some things I always have to keep in mind.

First:   I should have taken the low reading before I went to bed more seriously!   I should have taken another reading after a few minutes to see if I was going back up again!   Unfortunately, you aren’t thinking with all of your brain when your sugar levels are low.   This morning, I was debating on whether or not to take some glucose tablets before I tested my blood. I did take some and that was good.   It is better to err on the side of caution, I’d rather get a high reading by taking a couple tablets than risk passing out because I decided to wait!

Two:   Always keep those glucose tablets near-by.   When out hiking, keep a couple spare packs in a pocket or in my pack!   I keep a roll in the glove compartment of the car also!   A near-by cell phone is a good idea also!

Three:   Whenever I think about taking a blood test…..DO IT!   Once again, better to err on the side of caution!   So, I prick my finger for a good reading, big deal. BUT, if I do that and its low…problem averted!   It is often like my brain is kicking me in the butt, all of a sudden I start to think about a blood test.   Hmmmm, better do something, NOW!

Four:  Do a couple checks in the next hour to make sure your where you want to be.   You could be just getting a reading on the slope, as you go higher or lower.   The blood test is only good for that minute when you pricked your finger.   Better safe than sorry.

So, just another adventure in Diabetes Land....

First Hamfest of the Season

The First Hamfest of the Season!

2/26/12

As the year goes by, ham radio operators make numerous contacts and rarely ever get to see the person they are talking with.  Thank heavens for Hamfests!

A Hamfest is the equivalence to a radio flea market.  There is often computer gear and other assorted “stuff “ along with the radio equipment.  (This “stuff” can range from VHS tapes, old 33 1/3 record albums, toys, sling shots, DVD’s, musical tapes to comic books)   This Hamfest had a lot of radio gear!   Lots of old radio tubes, a few assorted HF transceivers, a bunch of older 2 meter radios, a couple CBs, lots of printed material, (a favorite of mine) some antennas and lots of connectors and tools.   There was also a couple tables where you could get a hat or shirt embroidered with your name and call sign, or get a mouse pad or a license plate made.   Best of all, in my opinion, was all the people that showed up!

It was a beautiful day.  The morning started out nice and clear with thousands of stars in the sky.  In a way, this was a bit of a punch in the gut.  The Amateur Astronomers Association of Pittsburgh had scheduled its annual Winterfest Starparty for the night before.   Being an astronomy club, clear skies are a prerequisite for a starparty!   It was cold, ( as expected) windy and VERY cloudy.   There were even some snow flurries to add to our woes.   The starparty was cancelled.    Naturally, the sky cleared up after midnight.    Mother Nature was having a good laugh at us I think.

Anyway, getting back to the morning…..the sky was nice and clear and the temperatures were comfortable for a February morning.  This was the type of weather that would draw a crowd!   No one minds driving long distances in nice weather.   There was sure to be a good crowd at this hamfest!

$5 to get in....not bad!

(pictures will enlarge when clicked!)

The Wireless Association of South Hills, WASH, was the organization behind this event.  They are also the club that holds the annual 2 Meter Simplex Contest in January.   (my blog about that)   Both are events I look forward to each year.

Entering the hamfest, I immediately met some people I knew.   I really don’t need any more radios or test equipment.   I have more than enough gear to hold me for years to come.  It is the people I haven’t seen in a year or more, shooting the breeze for awhile, catching up with each other, this is what makes a good hamfest in my book!

Ann Marie was with me and one of the first tables that grabbed our eyes was one filled with boxes of books and magazines.   I bought an old book called Amateur Radio, A Beginners Guide, printed in 1940.   The basics are the same, but there is a lot of things that have changed since then!   72 years brings QUITE a lot of changes in technology!   It looks like an interesting book.   AMB picked up a couple books for herself while we were here.

AMB at the book table

Card checker

There was a man at the hamfest checking QSL cards for awards.   Hams get a sense of pride looking at framed awards hanging on the walls of our “shacks”.   I have a couple,  The DX Century was the latest I got…back in 2006 or so.    I got it for contacting stations in over 100 different countries.    I could get a WAS, (Worked All States) but I am too lazy to get the cards checked.   The cards are exchanged between stations to confirm a contact.    Some of them can be quite nice, showing pictures of the operators home or his “shack” or the near-by scenery.    One of my favorite QSL cards came from the Space Station!   Yes, they have a Ham radio on that also!

Antenna field in the paking lot

Like Father, Like son

What is a Hamfest without some Ham?

There was lots of older equipment for sale here, along with some newer items.    Most sellers seemed willing to barter a bit, which also adds to the fun.   Even if you talked him down a half dollar, you walk away feeling good, and hopefully, so does the seller!

Lots of old equipment for sale

Young and old Hams were there

We walked around two or three times, talked with numerous people, met a few new friends, put faces on some of the Hams I know from local nets and made a few more purchases.   Then after the third or fourth raffle was pulled, we headed back outdoors.

Passing along the enthusiasm

Maybe its time for a new license plate holder

My purchases

I ended up spending a little more than I had planned to, but I’m not complaining.   I got 3 new (to me) books a DVD and a license plate with my call sign on it. Two of the books were still in their wrappers and were about $44 each new, I got the pair for a fraction of their original cost.

We returned to my house where AMB made French Toast for brunch and then we took Red out to North Park to let him run for awhile.   The field was wet and muddy and he came back covered with mud, but we knew he was happy to be out running with the other dogs.

After we got most of the mud off him, we went home by way of Mars.  Since we didn’t get to see it at the star party the night before, we figured we would visit the town instead.

There was a geocache here that we had attempted to find a couple times.   Since it was such a nice sunny day, we decided to give it another try.   After a few minutes, EUREKA!   There it was, hidden in the grass with a bottle cap covering it.   While we were signing the log, the owner, Larry, came over and introduced himself.   He said he had been watching and was going to help us out if we couldn’t find it.   Luckily, we didn’t need his help.   We had a nice talk with him, comparing some of the caches we’ve done.   Before we left he gave us a (big) clue as to where another cache we couldn’t find was hidden.   We drove to its location and once again, found the cache, this time in less than a minute!   Both of these caches were found without the use of a GPS, BUT, it was also the third time I had been to them.   Just goes to show I guess….Third Times a Charm!

The elusive cache

The owner, Larry, holding his cache

Third time looking through this rubble

Success, hidden in a carved out spot in a block of concrete

After finding these two caches, we started back towards home and the chores that awaited us there.   But first, we stopped at a store in Mars to get a couple bottles of Wheat Nuts.   This is the only store I know of that sells these.   It is a tasty snack that is low carb, too bad it isn’t low calorie also!   With a handful of Wheat Nuts, we headed home.   Another fun day at play!

Hiking in the Woods, In the Dark!

Hiking in the Woods, in the Dark

2/18/12

(neat date, it reads the same forwards and backwards!)

 Page from a dictionary I found in an old building...the day before....hmmmm

(Pictures will enlarge when clicked)

When ever I find a cache I’d like to do, I put it on a “watch list” and when ever someone finds it or puts a note on it, I get a notification.   Recently a cache in Fayette County was “fixed” by its owner and I received a notification that he had remarked the trail to it.   It was a night cache called The Full Moon Fever Night Cache.

It had to be done at night, the coordinates take you to the start of the trail and from there, you follow reflective markers that are on the trees.   Ann Marie and I have done a couple of them and have always had a good time doing them.

Only a week had gone by when AMB and I got together and headed down towards the gamelands situated near Jacobs Creek.   We left my house a little after 3 in the morning.   The dog stayed home today, much to his displeasure.

After a little over an hour of travel, we were in the area.   All we had to do was find our way to a small back road, cutting through the gamelands.   With only one minor wrong turn, we managed to find our parking spot.   Where would I be without my Pennsylvania DeLorme Gazetteer?

Getting out of the Jeep was like stepping into another world.   Looking up at the sky, there were stars everywhere!   It was only a couple days before the New Moon, so it hadn’t risen yet and there was only one or two small clouds marring the view!   The temperature was around 30 degrees, cold enough to freeze the water on top of the puddles, but not cold enough to chill us.   Off in the distance, a lonesome train whistle blew.

We grabbed the GPS, our flashlights, my daypack and the camera and headed into the woods.   We were about .2 of a mile away from our first trail.   A wide dirt road led into a valley and we followed it down.   Walking into the gamelands actually took us away from the start of the trail, but eventually the roads brought us back to where we were going.   We walked down without using our flashlights, our eyes adapted quickly!   Soon we came to an oil tank and the end of the road.   Using our lights, we quickly found the first reflector.

Following this trail took us about 10 minutes or so.   We would go from reflector to reflector, stopping to search out the next point in our journey.   Luckily, the owner of the cache kept us on a trail!   We came to a spot where we couldn’t find another reflector so, we started searching around.   After a brief time, we found a small container with the coordinates to our next trail.   We continued along the same trail, keeping an eye on the GPS.   When the arrow started pointing off to the side, we backtracked a bit and started bushwhacking.   Down…further into the valley.

Finally, after a lot of sweeping our lights around, we found our first reflector.   These reflectors were a different color than the first set.   This set wasn’t as long as the last one, but it wasn’t on a trail and it took us along the edge of a steep hillside.   We could hear the stream below us, but we couldn’t see it.   We could see the occasional rocks sticking out of the steep hill, but not how far it was to the bottom.   Since the trail was very close to the edge, we used trees to keep hold, just in case we slipped.   Coming to a spot where we couldn’t see any more reflectors, we started looking around….and there I finally found it, underneath us, under a cliff that we were standing on top of.

Carefully working my way around the edge and down to the cache really wasn’t that tough, in fact, during the day, it would’ve been easy!   The dark added to the difficulty.    We were the first ones there since the cache was updated.   Ann Marie said we were right under the Big Dipper, we’ll remember that should we ever come back!   ;-)    I signed us up and replaced the container and worked my way back to Ann Marie and we started back towards the Jeep.

Success!  I got it!

Things don’t always look the same when you are going back a trail.   We had the coordinates of the first find, a waypoint where we left the trail and the parking spot, but we didn’t need them.   We managed to find our trail and then backtrack to where we found the first hide.   At that point, I started us down the wrong trail, but we quickly corrected ourselves before we got too far off course.   Once we were back on the dirt road, we dowsed our lights and walked in the darkness.   It is amazing how much you can see when your eyes are adapted!   As we walked along, we noticed what looked like a house light up the hill from us.   We hadn’t noticed it on our way in.

Continuing on, we realized that the light was the moon, rising over the horizon!   Soon we were back at the Jeep, with only a little over an hour passing since we left.   Not bad!

Since we were in this area, we had another spot we wanted to visit.  The site of the Alliance Furnace.   It was less than a mile away from us when we found the cache, but unfortunately, Jacobs Creek and a few steep cliffs separated us from it.   We ended up taking a rather long detour to get to it.   (A detour that included a breakfast and bathroom break)   We backtracked, made a long loop and came in at the furnace from the opposite side of the stream.

Bridge crossing the Yougiogheny River

(Also the site of another geocache trip soon to come!)

The sun is almost up...

We re-entered the gamelands, passing through an open gate with a sign advising us to proceed at our own risk.   The road was dirt but since we had no rain recently, it was dry and provided no real dangers.   It took us into the Jacob Creek valley and as we dropped down, we came to a set of RR tracks.   Here we had to turn either left or right.   Taking the downhill turn, we paralleled the tracks for a bit before the road angled under the tracks.

Frost on the bridge

This spot was spectacular!   The bridge we were going under took the RR tracks across a wide valley only to disappear into a tunnel at the far end.   The sunshine was hitting the top of the hill when we first arrived.   By the time we left, the sunshine had slowly worked its way down the hillside to hit the tunnel.   From the top of the bridge, I could see straight through the tunnel.   I was to learn later, after looking at some maps, that the hillside was known as Tunnel Hill, I guess I know why now.

Heading up towards the top

The sunshine has finally hit the tunnel

As I was taking some photos, we heard the sounds of an approaching train, unfortunately it was the sound of one on the mainline tracks along the Youghiogheny River on the other side of Tunnel Hill.   This happened a couple times while we were here, but no trains graced us by crossing the bridge.   DARN!

After taking some shots of the bridge and tunnel, we continued on towards the furnace.   It was just a short distance down the road.   Looking like a mound of dirt in the distance, we could make out the basic shape of it as we got closer.   It lies beside Jacobs Creek in Fayette County.   The opposite side of the stream, where we had been just an hour or so ago is in Westmoreland County.   It is one of the first furnaces built west of the Alleghenies.   Built around 1789 it was used until 1802 when it was shut down.   During the 13 years it was in operation, it made pots and pans and also cannon shot that was used in General Anthony Wayne’s campaign against the Native Americans in the area.   Rumors have it that it is also haunted!

(Looking at our photos later, we noticed what looked like a ghost in one we had taken during our hunt for the cache.   We were on the opposite side of the creek, but do ghosts bother much about water?)

First picture is as we first saw it at home, the 2nd picture is with a couple added lines to make the image stand out a bit more.

I read a couple different versions of the haunted story, one was that the owner had committed suicide by jumping into the furnace after tossing his dogs in.   The other story was that a local settler, after a night of gambling took his dogs down to the furnace where he tossed them in.   On dark nights, it is said you can hear their howling near the furnace.   Interesting, we didn’t hear anything except the sounds of the stream, but then again, it was early morning when we were there.

The furnace is in pretty sad shape, only a few of the outside stones are visible.   The top of the chimney is exposed, showing the fire glazed rocks.   A huge tree has grown from the top of the furnace, its roots effectively destroying the structure below.   An opening to the furnace which at one time faced the creek is now long covered by the falling structure.   A water trough is visible paralleling the stream, it was probably used to bring water to the furnace, probably to turn a water wheel to power bellows to increase the heat of the fire. (?)

Furnace remains with the walls on the hillside to the left

Me, standing on top of the furnace

Remnants of the chimney

Glazed stones, evidence of the heat in the furnace

On the hillside behind the furnace are 2 large walls.   The lower of the two was probably a wall to keep the hillside up, a dirt road is on top of it.   At one time this was probably where a charging bridge might have been attached to the furnace.   The 2nd wall, about 20 feet away from the top of the first wall, looks as if it might have been a wall to some sort of structure.   It is a really thick wall, between a foot or two wide.   The higher wall is much tighter than the lower wall.   It looks as if it was made to enclose something.   At one end, a portion goes into the hillside, making a room like area inside.   The wall is covered with moss adding to its old look.   One on-line site states that this was a charcoal house.   From a distance, the walls look like Machupicchu.  

 It is amazing to think that here are some structures built over 300 years ago.   I find it amazing to imagine what this area was like when there were houses and shops scattered around, roads covered with wagons and supplies.   Now, it is a quiet valley, the near-by stream providing the only noise.

The walls on the hillside

After taking some pictures and hiking up the hillside to visit the walls, we returned to the Jeep and returned to homes in the busy, noisy, light polluted North Hills.  In the small community of Layton, we waited for the next train before continuing on.

Approaching train in Layton

Speeding past us

Our routes

Blue was in the dark, Red in the daylight

We had successfully navigated our way around a strange batch of woods, watched the Moon rise, going from where it looked huge at the horizon to a small thin sliver as it rose higher and higher.   We came across a picturesque railroad bridge and tunnel, and found an extremely old iron furnace and some ruins near-by. We also saw a train go by!   All in all, once again, our “expedition” was a success!