Celebrating 1/2 Century of Personal Astronomy

50 years! Could it really be that long ago? My first contact with astronomy - a notice in the LA Times about a solar eclipse on July 20, 1963, which I watched and saw it unfold just as predicted. The 10 year old me was enthralled they could calculate these things with such accuracy. So rational, so beautiful. And nothing addresses the Big Questions like Astronomy. Today, to celebrate, I decided to visit a newly re-accessible place - a beautiful place I had not been to in 1/4 century. Five Finger Falls, which had been cut off by a landslide from the lower Nicene Marks State Park soon after the great Loma Prieta Earthquake of 1989. I'd last visited Five Finger Falls in 1988, with Cabrillo's Sandy Lydon's "History of Nicene Marks" class. This time, I would do a "brick" (a bike+run) in prep for my Donner Lake Triathlon next weekend. I would bike from downtown Santa Cruz, up to the epicenter where the trail begins, and do a 9 mile run up to the falls and back, and then bike home. See more pix here.