Aught Six

Spring 2006 in my home town of Carlsbad, New Mexico has been brutal. Most days have been over 100 degrees with many in the mid and high 100s. I decided I would get out of town for a week to some place cooler. After considering a few of the nearby high elevation locations, I decided on Flagstaff, Arizona for a cool weather place that had plenty of interesting things to do nearby. I had driven through Flagstaff a few times, but had never spent time there.

Flagstaff has a nice university, Northern Arizona University, which gives the normal benefits of a university in a small town. The help at the service places tends to be intelligent and interesting and you have cultural events and the funky downtown with coffee places, massages and piercing available.

I found the FBO to be very helpful, although with high fuel prices. They cater a bit to the corporate jets. The airport has airline service and convenient car rentals. The elevation is about 7,000 feet. They do have a self-service pump that is cheaper, and there is also a very nice FBO at the next town west, Williams, with cheaper fuel, but no car rental at the time of my visit. Williams is the departure point for the Grand Canyon Railway, a steam train that has round trip service to Grand Canyon.

I went to see a movie one afternoon and was absolutely stunned. This was in a mall, which is normally not propitious for a good experience, but before the movie, an employee strode to the front of the theatre and gave a speech. He discussed the film we were to see. He talked about the director and what other works he had done. After that he talked about the other films he was trying to get in the future and what was good and bad about them. Incredible! If I lived around Flagstaff I would sure patronize this place. It has been a long time since I have seen a movie theatre that seemed interested in anything but selling overpriced junk food. I think the respect this guy showed for the art, rubbed off. Not a cell phone rang during the whole presentation.

One thing I know Flagstaff for is being home to the Lowell Observatory. The telescope above is the one the Lowell used to observe Mars, especially. Those of my age remember the Martian "canals." Well all that came from here. This famous and excellent refractor is now available for nightly observing by the public. Unfortunately, I was not able to catch the right clear night. The Ford pickup tires you see are the dome rotation bearings, sorry about the missing hubcap. The dome is constructed of local pine wood.,

Large visual telescopes have finders. The Alvin Clark had four. I was amused to see the lowest power finder is a Telrad. Something many amateurs have on their small telescopes. This famous, heavy, historic telescope uses a plastic, zero power finder that costs about $39.95 at your local telescope store. The Telrad is the angular black thing with sort of a triangle at the bottom, between the small blue finder and the green thing. The tour guide demonstrated the smooth motions of this many ton contraption, by having a young girl move it around by hand.

This is another observatory on the Lowell grounds. This one holds the astronomical camera that Clyde Tombough discovered Pluto with, in 1930. Tombaugh ended up as a professor at New Mexico State University, but at the time of the discovery he was fresh from being an amateur astronomer and Kansas farm boy. The guides at Lowell did not address the question as to whether Pluto should still be considered a planet or not. My opinion, nope!

Flagstaff has an excellent system of hiking trails, a nearby small ski area and a pretty good library, although without padded reading chairs. I found the traffic to be heavy for a smallish town. This is a major route, and the old Route 66 travels right through town.

Flagstaff has a LOT of train traffic. It causes some problems getting around and sometimes some problems for sleeping. I knew about this and got a motel some distance from the tracks, but it was not far enough. If train whistles bother you, pay attention to where you stay.

Unfortunately, when I got home it was just as hot as when I left for the cool pines of Flagstaff.