Another Moonshot
COVID-19 was wracking the country. They issued lockdown orders and told us to stay home. Don’t go outside! “Only two weeks, to stop the spread,” they said.
Their two weeks were up. Spring was in the air. I got rebellious.
There was a full moon coming up. Many, many years ago I had figured out how to calculate a viewing position to figure out where to be to see the full moon coming up behind an arbitrary mountain:
This was when I lived west of the Cascades, and the moon rose over those mountains. Now I was living east of the Cascades, and I decided to shoot the moon setting over the same mountain - Mt. Jefferson.
Enough time had elapsed that someone had produced a tool to make it easy for photogs to do this. It’s called The Photographers Ephemeris and it’s waaaay less work than what I used to go through.
The Photographer’s Ephemeris said that I needed to be near a certain rest area on US Highway 97 at sunrise to catch the upcoming full moon setting behind Mt. Jefferson. I left the RV park the day before and went up there in the motorhome to sleep at the rest area, planning to rise before dawn and get my shot.
It was as awesome as I thought it would be. I got my shot.
With nothing else to do for the rest of the day, I moseyed on south to the Peter Skene Ogden State Scenic Viewpoint, where a picturesque bridge with some dark history crosses the Crooked River, and photographed it.
I shan’t mention what happened here, but no one who lived in Oregon at that time will ever forget it. The criminal’s name was Jeannace Freeman, she is now deceased (thankfully), and you can look up the rest for yourself. I think about her grisly crime every time I cross this bridge, and am filled with sorrow.
So, I got my moon shot. Where to go now? I needed a place that was 1) free; and 2) had good cellular service so that I wouldn’t miss the call from the Census Bureau when it came in. Census had informed me that I had been hired, but when they called me to start, they would only call once and if I missed the call, I wouldn’t be working for them.
That put certain camping spots out of consideration. But since Oregon’s Governor had closed every campground in the state, that meant that any campground without a gate was free to use!
I went to the East Davis campground on Davis Lake, only a few miles from Crescent Lake. There are some beautiful views there.
And there is a ton of wildlife willing to cooperate with a photog, especially one that offers nuts.
The Golden Mantles are fairly friendly. The tree squirrels, not so much. They are very suspicious of humans and this one sat up in that tree for two days griping about me before it finally realized that the ground squirrels were getting all the free nuts I was laying out while this guy / girl was sitting up in that tree warning every creature in the area that there’s a human down there! After two days, s/he finally came down to partake of the free food.
It would be months before the Census Bureau finally called. I kicked around the area, taking pictures and waiting for that call to come in. To be continued.
Fantastic moonshot Ken! Breathtaking!
Beautiful!