The Author Within Us All

 

We all dream. Sadly, most of our dreams are forgotten. I, myself, love my dreams. They are one of the reasons I look forward to going to bed. I never know what I’ll dream or even if I’ll remember them, but I always anticipate them. I woke up this morning, in the middle of a dream and scribbled some notes that turned into this short essay.

    Why is it that we dream? There are many thoughts on this and don’t worry, I’m not going to try and explain them. There are plenty of studies that have been done and many books written about the subject. Dreams are not only what we experience at night and during naps, they are also things that we look forward to or goals we hope to achieve.

    Maybe our sleeping dreams are our brains trying to review the events in our day and life. I tend to think that our dreams are a way of entertaining us as we sleep. As I said before, I never know what I’m going to dream. I have tried to influence my dreams (without much luck) and I try my best to remember them. I write down my more memorable dreams.

    Thankfully, nightmares or bad dreams have only been a very small part of my dream life. I experienced some in my childhood but, they are now gone. I still have an occasional uncomfortable dream but never anything that terrorizes me.

    Memory always plays an important part of my dreams. Many of the places I go are places I’ve been to before, either in my life or in my dreams. The places I’ve visited in my waking life are never the same in my dreams, though I always KNOW where the place is. It just never looks the same, but there is no doubt to me, where it is! There are many places that I’ve visited only in my dreams and they always look the same. I’ve met many people from my past in my dreams, most still alive and many who have left this life. I always enjoy these visits! I also participate in many of the activities I used to enjoy. I find it exhilarating to run through the woods, leaping over rocks and logs, and not get tired! Riding my bike up hills without exerting myself, how could I not wake up feeling good after that?

    I love to read. When I do that, I take my imagination to a different place. I experience the world through the eyes of the author and see it through “the eyes” of my imagination. I see the picture they are describing. I think that my dreams are the stories my subconscious mind is writing for me. Perhaps our dreams are the authors inside of our minds, writing the adventures we live each night when we go to sleep!

    I can’t wait to see what I’ll “write” tonight!

A Little Bit of History

 Doris Day…Can you believe it? It was Doris Day! She was looking out the window of the hotel along with a bunch of other patrons. They were watching a movie that was being filmed outside. I was there, beside the camera. Turning to look at the actors, I noticed that she was now standing beside me. There was no mistake, it was her!

    Together we went over to a red Karmann-Ghia convertible, with the top down of course, and drove away. It was right about then that I woke up. Just a few minutes before midnight, it was still Monday. I wanted to go back to that dream but it wasn’t to be. I tossed and turned.

    Finally the alarm went off, a soft gentle blues tune playing. I opened my eyes and discovered that I was holding a cup of coffee in my hand. I must’ve fallen asleep with it.  Feeling around, I realized nothing had spilt. There was still coffee in it, I could smell it. Probably pretty cold by now I thought.

    I swung my legs out of bed, without spilling anything and instinctively took a sip. It was hot and it tasted wonderful! Wow! I looked at the alarm and wondered why it was playing music, for that matter, the blues. Why hadn’t my phone alarm gone off? They were both set for the same time! It suddenly dawned on me and I exclaimed “Because, I’m dreaming!” and then started to laugh. That was when I woke up the second time, laughing no less!

    It was 4:00, the alarm was set for 4:30. No sense going back to bed. I’ll get up and jump into the shower and start the day. I was going to leave for Frank’s house at 5:30. I’d have time for breakfast and some coffee. We had some caches to find!

    Looking outside, I saw stars! Making the shower extremely quick, I grabbed my gear and drove to the near-by hilltop. The Moon was fairly high in the sky and off to the left was Mars and Jupiter. 

    Combined with the thin clouds and the brightness of the Moon, a group shot wasn’t possible. I took a few pictures and returned back home for a quick breakfast and made some coffee to sip on the way. I still made it to Frank’s house 10 minutes earlier than planned.

    We had 8 caches to find, 5 were in the Blairsville area. The first one, hidden in a tree alongside the road went well. It took us a few minutes, but we found it. The next one didn’t go quite as we had planned.

    Hidden near Dean’s Diner, it is a cache that I have looked for numerous times. We searched high and low without any luck. Some caches just aren’t meant to be found, this one is one of them! We went inside and got some coffee and something to eat and then looked some more. Nope, it wasn’t there.

    We did a few in the town but by far, the best one was across the river in what used to be Cokeville.

    A small town used to sit here but now it is mostly weeds. A long time ago, there were coke ovens on the hill here. (I don’t believe they are still there, that will be another adventure!) The houses and businesses were removed when the Canamaugh Dam was built.

     A set of cement stairs leads up to a flat spot where a house used to sit. You can see where a driveway used to be between them and the tree. Small trees grow where the houses used to sit. By looking carefully, we could see other remnants that were left behind, most of them, nearly hidden from view.

Blairsville and the bridge in 1908

    Bits of a roadway lead to the foundation of the old bridge. Who knows what else lies underneath the weeds? The Pennsylvania Canal crossed through this section of land, there might be evidence of it somewhere!

After the St. Patrick’s Day Flood in 1936, a new bridge was built. A lot of the houses in the town were destroyed by the high waters.

    It took some scrambling around with a little hill climbing through brambles and jagger bushes, before Frank found the cache. It was hidden in the notch of a tree.  We had found this cache in 2011, it isn't in the same place now. It was the toughest cache of the day but it was also the most satisfying one!

    We did a couple more in the area and then turned back towards home. Out of 9 caches, we found 7. Not bad for a quick morning hunt.

    Back on rt.22, we were surprised to see that it was only a little past 10. We usually end up returning in the early afternoon. We were home in time for lunch and afternoon chores. It was a great morning; I always enjoy looking for caches with Frank but finding a little bit of history made it even better! 

    As for the caches we missed…Que sera, sera!

On the Road Again

     During the night, my dreams were all about geocaches. Traveling along unknown roads on a big motorcycle. Stopping at a bed and breakfast that was a tailor shop during the day, the dreams had nothing that brought them together except that I was on a trip, to find geocaches. It was almost as if I had this subject on my mind…

    When morning finally arrived, I loaded my car with the usual gear, a camera bag and my GPS. YES, I was going on a search to find geocaches. Frank and I had planned a trip, driving towards the east on rt. 22 going out to Blairsville and then dropping to the south before eventually returned home. We had 22 caches on our list.

    The planet Venus was shining in the east as I got into the car. I located Mars below and to the right with binoculars, but had no luck seeing it by eye, the sky was too bright.  This was a rather late start for one of our trips, we are often on the road an hour or so before sunrise. The sun came over the horizon on the drive to Frank’s house. It would have made a great picture except I was on a narrow road with cars behind me and nowhere to pull over.

    Being the second week of February, the days tend to be rather grey here in the Pittsburgh area. Bucking the average, this morning’s sky was blue and the sun was bright. Things looked promising.

    Our first find was alongside a pull off, hidden near a sign saying “No Hunting”. That was just the opposite of what we had planned. Hunting was exactly what we were going to do today! We got into a rhythm; we’d drive a short distance and then pull over to snag another find. Sometimes we had to circle back on the opposite side of the divided highway to locate one, then turn around again to continue our search. 

The further away from Pittsburgh we went, the nicer the scenery was!

    Coming into the town of New Alexandria, we had a couple caches which involved a bridge which no longer exists. We drove down a rutted and ice covered road, passing some “Road Closed” signs sitting on the berm. It was obvious that the area here had been recently flooded. Thick pieces of ice lay cracked in the swampy area beside the road. Broken ice had been pushed to the sides by plows. The salt had only partially cleared the road.

    Driving under a large concrete arched structure, we came to where the bridge once crossed the Loyalhanna Creek. The cache was easy to find but we stayed for awhile to take pictures. Later research showed that the bridge that once crossed here used to be rt.22 before the road was modernized and widened. 

In the 1830’s the bridge was a covered toll bridge.

Builders working on the RR bridge. The covered bridge can be seen behind it.

    The concrete structure was part of a railroad bridge that the Pennsylvania Railroad crossed. The line is now gone but parts of it remain. There are some foundations in the near-by woods from a station that was located here. (Those will be for another trip!)

    We continued on our journey, eventually coming into Blairsville. Going south on 217, we did a short detour to visit the area around Torrance State Hospital. Ann Marie and I had found a nice, abandoned building here and I wanted to show it to Frank. When we arrived, it was gone, the land leveled with no signs that there had ever been a building here.

    Driving through the town of Derry we found another old building to explore, the Ralph Smith and Sons Building. Crossing a bridge, we saw the building below us. Turning around we navigated the back streets to get to it. It appears to be an old RR building; the structure is similar to many of the buildings often situated near railroads. The doors were locked with NO TRESPASSING signs posted on them. We spent awhile taking pictures, of course, staying outside! It was obvious that no one had been here recently, except kids. Most of the windows were broken and graffiti was sprayed on the insides.

  

    The time spent there was worthwhile. We got some nice pictures and some much-needed stretching. It felt good to walk around for a bit! Back on the road again, after a couple more caches, we turned right on rt.30 and headed back in the direction we had come from. 

The intrepid explorers @ their final cache!

    We did one last cache in the parking lot of a Speedway Service Station. It was our 22^nd cache of the day, a record for both of us! To celebrate we stopped inside and got a couple Slim Jims for the ride home.

    We had a great drive; we got lots of pictures and found every one of the caches we planned! This rarely happens. There was one hidden against a telephone pole but luckily, the snow had melted enough that we were able to locate it. If the snow was still there, it would’ve been a DNF. (Did Not Find) The weather was great, our hands were a bit cold at first but as we were heading home, the windows were opened to allow the fresh air into the car.

    Another great adventure, you never know what you might find, so keep on looking!

It’s what keeps us caching!

  

The Mid-November Lunar Eclipse

    While most of my neighbors were sound asleep, my alarm went off. It didn’t startle me, in fact I was  dreaming about waiting for it to wake me! I jumped up and went to the front door and took a look outside. Clouds, just as I had expected! This is Pittsburgh and the gods of the weather don’t really like us astronomers.

    It was 2AM on Friday morning. (11.19.21) The entire country would be able to see most of the eclipse which was happening right now! Everyone except those who live around me it seems. The darkest portion of the earth’s shadow would be hitting the edge of the moon’s disc at 2:18. A few clouds didn’t matter; I was going out to see what was visible.

    I got dressed, pulling on some heavy socks and my winter coat and went outside to see what my chances were of seeing anything. Luck was with me, there were breaks in the clouds. The moon could be seen, a bit fuzzy but still seeable. Every so often a clear patch would drift past and the brightness of the moon increased dramatically.

    My camera and tripod were inside the door so I pulled them out and set up in the front yard. I had some difficulty in focusing on the moon since it was most often covered in haze. The camera lens was set at manual focus because of the clouds. I played around with the exposures as the conditions changed. Both the clouds and the shadow which was now starting across the moons disc altered the brightness. A couple of neighbors had their porch lights on but this morning, it didn’t bother me. I was watching an eclipse, not searching for faint fuzzies in deep space!

    The clouds moved across in front of the moon rather quickly while the shadow of the earth crept  across the face of the moon much, much slower. At times, when the moon was covered there would be a reddish colored ring which surrounded it. 

    My hands were getting cold from re-adjusting the tripod every five or ten minutes. It is made of metal and retains the cold quite well! I went inside to get my gloves. This is a benefit of observing from the front yard, I can quickly get the things I forgot!

    A short while before 3 the moon entered a clear patch between the clouds. The patch spread out and soon I started noticing stars. There were stars that couldn’t normally be seen during a full moon. Orion and Gemini could be seen along with Auriga and the Pleiades. I sat on my porch chair and just enjoyed the view for awhile, forgetting about photography and the eclipse.

    The clearing lasted about a half hour or so and then the clouds started moving back in front of the moon. I took a walk around the neighborhood to warm up a bit. The temperature was down in the low 30’s. I enjoyed the walk in the quiet; it reminded me of going out for walks with Red, my dog. We did lots of early morning walks together, he smelling everything and me with my head pulled back, gazing at the stars.

    Back at home I took a few more shots. The eclipse still had a ways to go but the moon was dropping down into the trees on the hill to the west of my house. To continue watching the eclipse, I’d have to move out of my yard.

    In some ways, luck was with me. The clouds covered the moon and I lost sight of it completely. Thick clouds continued to drift overhead, so I went inside to the warmth of the house.

    At 4:02, I went outside to see if anything was visible. This was when the eclipse was covering 97% of the moon, it's maximum. I couldn’t see anything. There wasn’t even a glow in the trees where it would’ve been. The eclipse was over for me.

    Inside again, I wrote a few notes. Looking at the pictures could wait until the morning. Then I crawled back under my covers and fell quickly back into my dreams.

Coincidence or What?

 

                Every so often, the world throws you one of those weird events, pure happenstance but still enough to make you wonder about them.  Chances are they were nothing more than a bit of serendipity but then again, perhaps it could be our minds slipping out from beneath the blanket that covers them.

                More than once, in fact many times, I have been reading books with similar plot lines or subject matter. For example just a week or two ago I had picked up a couple books. One was from a sales cart and the other from a local library. The first dealt with a young man in the 1800’s who went into the Wild West searching for bones of dinosaurs. (Dragon Teeth by Michael Crichton) The second one was the modern day tale of a young FBI agent who requests help from an archeologist to solve a crime. ( The Scorpions Tail by Preston and Child) Needless to say, I got confused a couple times, especially since I was reading them both at the same time! I am constantly getting books with intermingling subject matter.

                This has happened to me countless times.

                How about getting the premonition that a policeman will be sitting alongside the road soon and just as you round the bend, there he is. Maybe it is just a common thought and I just don’t notice it since usually there isn’t any policemen sitting near-by. Whenever I see one, the thought digs itself deeper in my mind…

                Today I had called my friend Frank and had left a message on his phone. Then I started cutting the lawn. My hearing isn’t what it used to be and the mower is noisy but I thought I heard the phone ring. I shut off the mower and pulled out my phone. It was dead, no calls had come. I flipped it closed, (yeah, I know…flip phone. HA) and as I did that, the phone rang. It was Frank returning my call.

                Coincidence or premonition? I’d like to opt towards the premonition, mainly because it sounds cooler! Ann Marie and I have done this a couple times in the past. Two minds thinking the same way!

                Speaking of Ann Marie, looking forward to visiting with her nephews for the first time in ages, she was heading to Beaver Falls today. I was going in to work. I had stopped at City Books and visited for awhile and then was heading to Emsworth to watch trains and read my book before I did the final drive to work. Nearing the McKees Rocks Bridge I wondered how AMB would have gone to Beaver Falls, take the road I was on or the turnpike. The turnpike would probably be quicker I guessed.

                I zipped through the traffic light at the bridge and saw a blue Honda ahead of me. I thought, “That can’t be her, I just thought about her!” Getting closer I could finally see the license plate and damned if it wasn’t her.

                I pulled alongside and tooted the horn. We pulled into a parking lot, got out and laughed about seeing each other. What a coincidence, (?) she was running a little late, I was going towards work and we ran into each other. To make it more interesting, I had just thought of her a mile or two before I saw her.

                It brightened up both of our days. The question is, was it just mere happenstance or was it something deeper?

                Being human and having the desire to discover and further enlighten our lives, I’d like to think it is something more than just pure chance. I want it to be cerebral; I want it to be our minds connecting on a higher plane.

I have always thought that we are all born with certain abilities which as we grow up are lost because of the way we are taught.  During our childhoods we are taught that these “things” aren’t normal, they just don’t happen. The fables which accompany any ethnicity, “They are only stories. They didn’t really happen. You didn’t actually see that, you only imagined it. It is only a chance encounter…” We are told that our dreams mean nothing.

We need to think outside of what we are taught. Maybe we do have abilities that we aren’t aware of. You know, we only use a small portion of our brains capabilities.

Dream on, enjoy the things life gives us and believe in the impossible!

Now, don’t these things always happen in threes…