Back to the USS...Back to the USS...Back to USS Army Academy

Technically its not going back to the US(S) Army Academy in West Point, NY, since I have never been there before. Nonetheless, I am indeed going to that exact place this weekend for a debate tournament. My hope is that I will actually have some time over this weekend or whatever to write something which doesn't detail random debate travel. Moreover, I simply need to not be traveling some weekend, I like being home.

Anyway, we are rolling ass early in the morning tomorrow. Same routine as to Vermont, driving to Rochester and then taking a bus from there. This time there are rounds on Friday, so we have to be there early, but the drive isn't as bad. I guess we can sleep all day tomorrow on the bus, thats the nice thing about not driving to debate tournament. Arguably it is the only nice thing about not driving to a debate tournament, but still its hella fucking nice.

On one non-debate tournament note, Katie and I were chilling at home watching Survivior (fucked up episode by the way, they brought the ex-survivors back as a third tribe which competed against Drake and Morgan) when they roll a Channel 4 Accu-Weather Forecast Message at the bottom of the screen. I am consciously trying not to pay attention to it, as I often do when these types of messages go during my favorite shows. All of a sudden, Katie is like "wow, that is cool." So I actually pay some attention to the whole message thing and instead of a flood warning there is an advisory about the Northern Lights.

I have never seen the Aurora Borealis, maybe that is shocking for someone from Minnesota but whatev, so we roll out to find somewhere absent light pollution to enjoy them. We drive around for a while and then I recall that at Outwater Park, right on Lake Ontario, is where they shoot of fireworks. So we get there and there is a line of other cars, validating my opinion that this was the place to go. So we hang out for a little while, standing in this scenic overlook area with 10 or so other people. A couple of them are talking about how they saw the Northern Lights earlier, like 2 hours before. Others are saying that they ended up there for the same reason Katie and I did. I had come to the conclusion that we weren't really going to see them, but it was a very pretty late fall evening, not too chilly, but sweater weather, very definitely. So we stared at the stars and enjoyed the night for a couple minutes, one of those very few situations where you wish you had brought a thermos full of hot cinnamony apple cider to share with the impomptu "gang" but you take what you get. We decided then that we were not going to be able to see them and walked back to the car. Well, it so happened that the direction of that walk pointed directly to a place in the sky which Katie was able to identify as a very small, but definitely existing, speck of Northern Lights. It didn't stand out too much from the rest of the night sky, but was a perceptible patch of lighter purple which would sparkle and fade in and out. There were some points, sparkling dots, but most of it was just a pale luminescence. It was pretty sweet. Apparently sometimes there are sweeping lines and swirls of different colors against each other. I can't imagine how incredible that would be.

Anyway, from what I have heard there is a chance they will still be around tomorrow night, rock on solar flares.

Peace,

MB-K