Greetings from the phenomenal Continental Divide on the Fourth of July!

Fluids and carbohydrates work. We hiked to a 12,000 foot peak. Tired, elated and thankful for no altitude sickness, we enjoyed bluebonnets and Indian paintbrushes as pretty as Texas in spring.

The activity has been constant. All the fun has kept me from blogging. Let me give you a brief travelogue of the doings to date.

Day 1 was travel and the excitement of meetings, meldings and palaver over pizza on the patio viewing the vistas and watching the kids run and play. Day 2 was the mountain hike and climb between rain drops, wild thimbleberries, flourishing wild flowers, misty high meadows and the joy of meetings with old friends. Day 3 was horseback riding along the high trails across from Buffalo Mountain where the ancient peoples camped to scout the welcome arrival of the bison herds that caused celebration and comforted them with new robes through the long and snowy winter. Day 4 was first-ever-for-me fly fishing, where on an idyllic fork of the Platte River, I hooked a lunker of a brown trout for a 20 minute play and excitement before that monster fish rolled over, wished me goodbye and returned the fake orange fly to my tired and shaking hands. Day 5 is today and this morning was the 4th of July Parade down the fan-lined small-town Main Street with decorated bikes, homemade floats, flying candy and beads, costumed characters from our Nation’s beginnings, good food and friendly waves and jostles in a sea of smiling faces. And now is rest and quiet in a big house with tired relatives tailing to the times of hugs and sad partings when small groups break off, wave goodbyes, head back to their homes and the last locks the door and returns the key.

We give thanks for the very prized freedom to spend time together.

Grandpa Jim

Is the Milly Way a candy bar?

Yes and so much more.

In 1923, Frank C. Mars in Minneapolis, Minnesota invented the Milky Way candy bar. Wikipedia says that “It was the first commercially distributed filled chocolate bar.” In the U.S., this tasty treat is made of chocolate-malt nougat topped with caramel and covered with milk chocolate. Outside the U.S., the caramel is left off. Although opinions differ, the official position is that the name and taste were taken from the milkshake not the Earth’s galaxy.

What is the Earth’s galaxy?

Our home planet, the Earth, is part of a larger grouping of stars and planets. This larger grouping is called a galaxy, and it is separated by relatively unpopulated space from other galaxies in the universe. The universe contains all the galaxies and the spaces and miscellanies in, between, among and beyond the galaxiies. In all, it is quite a wonderfully complicated arrangement.

Our home galaxy is called the Milky Way. When we get away from the city lights, the Milky Way arches across the sky as a dim milky band glowing with the light of 200-400  billion stars and at least as many planets. The way or road of the milky band of our many neighboring stars is appropriately called the Milky Way, and it is somehwat the color in the dark night sky of a vanilla milkshake. All the individual stars we see are part of our galaxy, but the massed shimmering band of billions of stars glowing against the black of space is a special treat. It is the Milky Way, it is our galaxy and it is a sight I hope soon to see in the mountains of Colorado.

On the trail this morning, I looked up and saw trees, bushes, dirt, plants and flowers. In that single glance, I stopped and I saw in my mind as many points of matter and light as all the stars in the Milky Way. A mother stopped to adjust a child in a stroller. Watching as I walked by, I realized that in that child’s head are more points of light, energy and thought than all the stars and planets combined in the whole of our galaxy. A runner passed and startled me. I scanned the people moving on both sides of the trail. And, it hit me. We all do. In my head, I heard it again. We all do. We are each more complex, involved and diversified than the entirety of the Milky Way.

It is a great candy bar and a great galaxy, but we are so much more.

Have a bright day and enjoy the light.

Grandpa Jim

Ice cream is our favorite dessert.

“You scream, I scream, for ice cream” was a summer cry of the neighborhood kids as we listened for the bell and looked down the street for the ice cream man.

We love the frozen confection. So much so that the average American consumes 23.2 quarts a year.

Let’s visit the origins of this popular summer past-time.

Ice cream was invented about 4,000 years ago in China. On the streets of Peking, iced treats sold from pushcarts. Marco Polo grabbed an icy and introduced the dessert to fourteenth-century Italy. From there, the chilly delight traveled to France for King Henry II’s wedding in 1533. Because ice was hard to store and expensive to keep, ice cream was at this time a costly delectable reserved for royalty. Then, in 1560, it was discovered that if you added a bit of salt to the bath of snow and ice, the ice cream became solidly frozen and more transportable. Ice cream for the masses was on the way.

By 1870, the Italian ice cream vendor or “hokey pokey” man was plying his trade on the streets of London. Hokey pokey was a child’s hearing of the vendor’s cry in Italian, “Ecco in poco” — “Here’s a little.” From there, the hokey pokey man and the street sales of ice cream traveled to the New World, which was hungrily awaiting a taste.

To this point, ice cream was sold in saucers and dishes. Until 1904, at the St. Louis World’s Fair, when an ice cream vendor ran out of dishes. His neighbor vendor reached over a rolled waffle. The purveyor of bowls of ice cream looked hard at that rolled waffle, hesitated a second, scooped a scoop and placed the frozen concoction atop the edible cone. The ice cream cone was born to the joy of the thirteen million fair goers.

Within a decade, one third of all ice cream was consumed in cones. And, it gets even better. In 1920, in Youngstown, Ohio, the “Good Humor Sucker” was invented, the first chocolate-covered vanilla ice cream bar on a stick. With that the hokey pokey man became the Good Humor man and ice cream took off to new realms of presentation and consumption.

A double WOW and a half to ice cream, our favorite sport on a warm summer evening. Think happy thoughts, smack your lips and head to your local good humor stand. It is a tradition with a rich history that we must continue.

Roll your eyes and enjoy that ice cream,

Grandpa Jim

PS: “Mary and the Mud Pie Wedding Reception” is under Mary Stories. Give it a read if you haven’t and another if you have, and don’t miss the song.

PPS: The next Uncle Joe Story is only 7 days away!!!!!!!

Today is the Summer Solstice!

At 6:08 PM today, June 20, 2012, in Dallas, Texas, Central Standard Time (CST), the sun will stop heading north, will appear to stop and will start heading south. This is our longest day, with the most sunlight, so enjoy your time in the sun.

I have placed a strip of masking tape as a marker on the dining room window sill where I will stand at sunset over the next days to observe the sunset’s reflection on the edge of the kitchen island to see if I can verify for myself that the sun is in fact moving south and the summer solstice is in fact a true and real event. I call this science in the kitchen.

If you do something similar, do not look directly at the sun. Never look directly at the sun without serious eye protection. You can damage your eyes. Use a point of reflection to make your indirect solar observations.

What is the difference in sunlight from the longest day to the shortest day? Good question. Today in Dallas, we will have 14 hours, 18 minutes and 48 seconds of sun. On December 21, 2012, the winter solstice, we will have 9 hours, 59 minutes and 28 seconds of sun. The difference in daylight is 4 hours, 17 minutes and 56 seconds.

Of course, if you travel north, today is longer as you go. This has to do with the tilt of the Earth and being closer to the sun in the summer when you are tilted closer to the sun.  It is all a bit mystifying to me, but back to our trip north to Anchorage, Alaska. Today, Anchorage will have 22 hours of daylight. On December 21st, Anchorage will only have 5 hours and 28 minutes of sunlight. That’s a difference of 16 hours and 32 minutes of sun time between the solstices. And, If you don’t stop and keep on to Barrow, Alaska, the northernmost city in the U.S., the sun does not set for 84 days straddling the summer solstice. Now, a 84-day-long day may be a bit long for even the most avid fun-in-the-sun fans.

Have a sunny day and check out how long your day will be today,

Grandpa Jim