mini semi OR from 6 March

by Jamie Dillon

A week ago Monday, Liam and I were coming home from a Scout meeting south of town, taking Davis Rd, the backroad over the Salinas River. The little bridge there is just downriver from the main bridge on Highway 68, and it's apparently cheaper to bulldoze up the pavement when the river's ready to flood, then put it back, than it would be to build a second unneeded span. Plus it's really cool when the road is closed and you can stand in the middle of the riverbed, where the road's still above water, and watch the river go by.

The Salinas is the world's largest underground river. Like so many of what we call rivers in California, it's a little stream most of the year. But you can see evidence of a pretty wide riverbed from what's growing there. Where Davis Rd crosses the river, the lines of trees that mark the edges of the river are 200-300 feet apart. About once a year, that river fills its bed, bank to bank, and tears thru at well over 5 knots.

So last Monday night we had the fairly pleasant surprise that the road was closed. Parked, went thru the gate, and down to see the river. It'd just overflowed the road a bit and had already subsided. The stars over the river were beautiful, with plenty of open sky from the middle of the riverbed and the middle of the empty road. Did a starcount in Gemini, 8-9 stars, just about 5.5 LM, not bad for a couple of miles from town. I stood there and looked around especially at Canis Major and conspired over the bunch of clusters in there that I haven't seen yet, that are on DeepMap and are already located on that page in SkyAtlas, ready to go.

Have telescope, will travel.

Posted on sf-bay-tac Mar 14, 2006 15:47:06 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.2 Mar 14, 2006 19:25:02 PT