Mercury Blast Off!

Mercury Redstone blasting off, November 29, 1961. The Redstone used Alcohol as its fuel and liquid oxygen as its oxidizer. At launch the vehicle weighed 60,000-pounds, stood 83.38 feet tall and produced 78,000-pounds of thrust. The Mercury Redstone engine burned for 142 seconds.

My model, the Mercury Redstone V, a direct descendant of the German V-2, designed by the German rocket engineering team led by Wernher von Braun and , from the Army's point of view, was to act as a long range artillery piece. The first Redstone flew successfully on August 20, 1953, from Cap Canaveral. In the years that followed the Redstone was developed into the tactical weapon that the army wanted, but it was never used as such. Instead, the Redstone found a better way to serve its country -- the duty of sending the first two Americans into space.

Boosting the first of the Project Mercury spacecraft into space on a sub-orbital trajectory would be the new role that the Redstone would play. Originally it was planned that all seven original astronauts would each fly atop the Redstone before each would fly an orbital mission. The first Mercury Redstone flight glitched at liftoff, only rising 2 inches - enough to pull two plugs out of the tail that were supposed to come out simultaneously. Instead they came out a micro-second apart and the abort system sensed the difference and shut the engine down - it also sensed its own shutdown and jettisoned the escape tower on the pad.

The next Mercury Redstone flight, MR-1A, was another test and was successful. Following that, MR-2 lofted "Ham" the chimp, but suffered an over-boost problem. MR-3 was scheduled to fly Alan Shepard on March 24, 1961, but when the von Braun team saw that there were ten data points of failure on the previous flight , they demanded another test. This delay in the schedule really ticked many in manned spaceflight operations who refused to give them a real Mercury capsule or let them use the MR-3 designation.

Still the von Braun team went ahead using a boilerplate capsule from the Little Joe 5B flight, an inert escape tower, and the designation MRBD for Mercury Redstone Booster Development. The flight proved out the ten corrections the team had made and effectively set the dominoes in motion that landed Americans on the moon. You see the delay it caused on Shepard's flight allowed the Russionas to place Yuri Gagain into space first. This turned a tepid US space program into a red hot space race and forced JFK to challenge the nation to go to the moon.

Politically, if Shepard had been first the attitude of the public and the politicians would have been "We won so the race is over" and landing on the moon may have remained just a dream to this day. In retrospect MRBD was, historically, the most important of the Mercurty Redstone flights for its delay.

On May 5, 1961, Shepard got his ride into space on MR-3. Only July 21, 1961, Gus Grissom flew aboard MR-4, but then the space race was so heated that the Mercury Redstone flights for the other five astronauts were cancelled as Project Mercury sped toward orbit and the use of the Atlas Booster.

Source: Flier included with Rocket Kit

My Mercury Redstone V Kit Specifications:

Skill Level 5: Extremely Challenging
Length: 13.75” (34.93 cm)
Diameter: .95" (24 mm)
Motor Mount Size: 18mm diameter
Fin Span: 2.00" (5.08 cm)
Weight (without motor): 1.25 oz (35.5 g)
Recovery Method: Plastic Parachute

Mercury V, Baby

Prior to America, I spend a good month building the Mercury V, a model rocket that broke me in my yuf. My 11-year old fingers, and patience, unable to construct the red escape tower, pictured : then, tears. This time I demonstrate , ahem, maturity, and allow, you know, glue to set or paint to dry before moving forward - basic stuff that drives me nuts.

And speaking of immediate rewards : I plan to jam a "D" engine into the thing's ass and watch it rip 1,500 ft into the air at 1,000+ feet per second. God damn I am excited by this.

Leaving Home

Russ Ellis's "Leaving Home - Scenes of Emigration, 2007-2011," on display at Smith Anderson North in San Anselmo, California (unfortunately Sonnet and I cannot attend the opening). Russ's abstract paintings and sculptures beautiful and haunting. I am struck by the inside front cover of the catalogue, pictured , taken of Russ by William Russell Ellis, Sr, in Fontana, California in 1945.

"Russ tells the story about how his daughter, Zoe, at the time about eight years old - reflected to her brother David (during a traumatic few hours of jointly sensed abandonment) that "when daddy gets home, we're going to have to talk in straight lines." Now here we are, some three decades on, and Russell the Artist has demonstrably abandoned the "straight-line" of linear communication in favor of something so different that the medium bursts to generate The Artist, Formerly Known as Russ. In this new incarnation - some would say re-incarnation - linearity is low on the totem pole of aesthetics, priorities, sensates. And the results, with no apologia, to straight-line narration, are sesate-tional. You seem to know what you make of it, and then you don't."

--Introduction to "Leaving Home - Scenes of Emigration, 2007-2011"

Rusty Comes Home

Madeleine and I drive into Surrey and the kennel where Rusty has been these past five weeks. Madeleine can barely contain herself as the handler retrieves the pooch. We hear Rusty first - yap! yap! yap! - and then mother and child reunion is only a moment away.

"now is a ship

that Captain Am

sails out of sleep

steering for dream"

--E. E. Cummings

"No I would not give you false hope
On this strange and mournful day
But the mother and child reunion
Is only a motion away, oh, little darling of mine"

--Paul Simon

Housework

Radio 4 reports on "safe places to keep valuables" and notes, when traveling, the hotel front-desk may be the least safe place for a simple reason : the traveler might forget one's items. Funny, then, that I check the family passports (American+British) at our hotel and, impatient to hit the road for Utah, engine revving, Sonnet remembers - passports ! No doubt my error otherwise discovered at DIA on the other side of the Rockies. An inconvenient, expensive, family-taxing instance narrowly averted; a marriage saved. Thank you, Sonnet.

Note from Ms. D, Madeleine's Yr 4 teacher re Madeleine's spelling : "Madeleine has made such great progress, she is showing a lot of maturity, taking responsibility for her spellings. Well done Madeleine!"

Eitan: "It would be so easy to rob the neighbors."

Me:

Eitan: "All I would have to do is climb over the garage and jump into their backyard. They never lock the doors."

Me: "That's a nice idea."

Madeleine: "Would you do it, Eitan?"

Eitan: "Well, I wouldn't get caught."

Madeleine: "They have gadgets and all kinds of stuff ."

Sonnet: "May we change this conversation, please?"

Denver Airport

Awaiting the over-night long-haul flight. These are words , Dear Reader, I do not like to put together referencing me.

Since most everywhere interesting, even an airport, here is Denver :

By land size, at 53 square miles, DIA is the largest international airport in the United States, and the third largest international airport in the world after King Fahd International Airport and Montréal-Mirabel International Airport. Runway 16R/34L is the longest public use runway in the US. Denver clocks in as the ninth-busiest airport in the world with 12,873,681 passengers. It is the fifth-busiest airport in the world by aircraft movements with 606,006 movements in 2009 (source: Wiki).

Summer Groove

It has been one great , long, month as we pack the SUV for one last trip : DIA. Been here before, I feel. Our flight departs 8PM so we go to Whitney's pool club to burn off energy (kids) and sunbathe (Sonnet) before the long-haul home. Me, I swim some laps and contemplate my office and the future : summer almost over and another year nearly gone by somehow.

Me: "Looking forward to going home?"

Eitan: "I am looking forward to seeing my friends and Elm Grove [new football team]. I can't wait for Elm Grove. Also the Premiere League and seeing Manchester United on the TV.. and baking a cake. And swimming, and school I guess.

Me: "Cool, it's nice to have those things before you. And you, Madeleine?"

Madeleine: "I've got one word to say , Dad."

Me:

Madeleine: "Gecko."

Forest Rd

We head to Denver - Beecher and Whitney, pictured - where we enjoy a Sonnet family reunion : Robin, Bill, Bill, Martine, Frank, Maire and Turk and their tots. This has not been a year without cancer and loss but we are together and happy to be so. Bill's cancer has caused cracks in his upper vertebrae which require cement fillings : The good news : His mind sharp as ever and his doctor allows him to ride. Bill a photographer and we compare notes on practices and places to shoot; his backyard not so bad. Beecher makes a huge spread followed by strawberry shortcake and ice cream; the kids chase each other around the backyard despite the heat.

On Stage

Madeleine and I at a local park inside Moab.

Madeleine gets a hair-cut (feathered, like Sean Cassidy, I tell her) and (continues to be) mistaken for a boy. Waiters, cashiers, strangers overheard calling her "pal," "bud," and "dude" . , which gets a raised eyebrow from Eitan : to laugh or be respectful to an adult? Conundrum. As for Madeleine , she enjoys the recognition: Tom boy. I have been calling her "Milo" this trip, a name, we both agree, boyish. Unclear whether this will stick in London. She ditches her one-piece swimsuit for trunks and a black "Quick Silver" top; she buys black Nike trainers. Yep, that's my girl, and I could not be more proud of her. I drive her nuts with practice times-tables and various commands, teasings, and orders but she still wants my attention which, I note to Sonnet, may not be the case in a few years.

Me: "Do you think I look fat?"

Madeleine: "No, Dad, you don't look fat."

Me: "Thanks, Madeleine, that's very nice of you."

Madeleine: "If you shave off all your hair than you would look even more fit."

@ the pool.

Eitan: "Can I go on your shoulders Dad?"

Me: "No."

Madeleine: "Can you give me an underwater ride?"

Me: "No, not now. Just let me swim."

Eitan: "Let's play chicken. Or shoulder ride!"

Me: "If you don't get off me, I am going to take off my swimming suit."

Madeleine: "Quick, Eitan, let go of Dad."

I drop my swimming trunks.

Eitan, Madeleine: "Aaaaaahh!"

Balanced Rock

4AM, hello!, and I am up for Arches National Park. Eitan, who beforehand agrees-interest in joining me , immobile and snoring , so I leave him be. It is pitch black upon exiting Moab, Sunday morning, and not a car on the 191. Since 70 degrees I am in shorts and a tee-shirt and have the air conditioning "on" as I pass the deserted park-entrance (Arches open to the public 24/7, 365 days a year ) and curve up a windy rd on to the mesa. Adding some drama , my SUV informs me with a loud "beep" : no gas. I figure the fumes can get me to where I wish to be, and back , but my calculation based on nothing other than a hope , and a prayer, with a slight anxiety expressed in my mid-section.

And so here I behold Balanced Rock . The height of this magnificent ancient geo formation about 128 feet, with the balancing rock rising 55 feet above the base. The big rock on top is the size of three school buses and weighs 3,577 tons. Until recently, Balanced Rock had a companion - a similar, but smaller balanced rock named "Chip Off The Old Block", which fell during the winter of 1975/1976. It is a spiritual place and I remain in darkness , awaiting sunrise. To pass the time I do some deep breathing and yoga exercises. Magic, man. Plus I make it to a gas station.

Dead Horse Lookout, Utah

View of the Colorado River and Canyonlands National Park from Dead Horse Point.

The plateau, where I stand now, surrounded by 2,000 ft cliffs with a narrow neck of land maybe 30 yards wide connecting the mesa to the main plateau. It was easy for cowboys to fence off the neck and round up wild horses. Legend has it that one group of horses left fenced and eventually died of thirst in view of the Colorado River - hence the name. This where final scene of Thelma & Louise filmed.

There is a fabulously designed Ranger Station which offers the American flag, a look out deck, and, of course, all the stuff Madeleine has come to expect from a well stocked gift shop. We spend about an hour here awaiting the sunset , which disappoints thanks to a horizonal cloud layer that lessons the hues anticipated from this hour. I meet a retired couple, from Georgia, who return to this spot after 40 years; now they spend their life in a Winnebago visiting National Parks and filming, with a 16mm, what they see "for posterity".

The strata measure geo-spatial time covering 75 M years at the top to 250 M years at the band rising ten feet from the river bed (visible on the left side of the photo)

Grand County

Our first night in Moab, >100 degrees, Sonnet, Madeleine and I explore a local park behind the fancy part of town (Eitan remains in the room, smartly, to watch TV). Our reward : a brilliant sunset followed by the moonrise, pictured, which otherwise appears much bigger than my camera records

The Biblical name "Moab" refers to an area of land located on the eastern side of the Jordan River. Some believe the name used because of William Pierce, the first postmaster, believing that the biblical Moab and this part of Utah were both "the far country". However, others think the name has Paiute origins, referring to the word "moapa" meaning mosquito. Some of the area's early residents attempted to change the city's name because in the Christian Bible, Moabites are demeaned as incestuous and idolatrous. One petition in 1890 had 59 signatures and requested a name change to Vina. Another effort attempted to change the name to Uvadalia. (Source: City of Moab website)

La Sal Jnct

La Sal Junction, pictured, connects routes 191 and 46 in San Juan County, Utah, 5,886 feet altitude.

I order Eitan, who idles, to write one full page about something he has seen in the past 24-hours (mind you, Dear Reader, that we are in Arches National Park and the Canyon Valley) :

"I saw a really cool breakfast bar. It had really nice food. I had fruit salad, a blueberry muffin and hot chocolate and a really delicious cream cheese pastry and chicken sausages which I unfortunately couldn't find any ketchup for. All in all , it was a delicious breakfast that I would recommend to all my friends for the Hampton Inn breakfast bar. Plus they give out free peppermints in the lobby."

--Eitan

"Serves you right."

--Sonnet

Flume

Behind the mesh, pictured, is a 1,500 foot vertical drop to the Colorado River, whose wide swathe chisels the red sandstone.

"In need of water to work the Dolores Canyon gold claims, the Montrose Placer Mining Company built a thirteen-mile canal and flume to deliver water to from the San Miguel River. The last five miles of the flume clung to the canyon itself, running along the cliff face below. Constructed between 1888 and 1891, the four-foot-deep, five-foot-four-inch wide "hanging flume" carried 23,640,000 gallons of water in a 24-hour period. Its construction dazzled mining pros with its sheer ingenuity. The placer claim, unfortunately, dazzled no one; after three years of indifferent yields the company folded, abandoning the flume to the ravages of weather and time. Now listed in the National Register of Historic Places, this engineering marvel symbolizes the twists of fate so often encountered in the pursuit of Rocky Mountain gold."

--US National Parks plaque

"This work will show how easy it is, when backed up by engineering capital, to bring water from and to points which were always thought to be inaccessible."

--Engineering and Mining Journal, January 1890

"We're looking pretty good for mid-40s."

--Sonnet

Gateway

Gateway Canyon Resort, and its surrounding area, owned by John Hendricks, the founder of the Discovery Channel (Hendricks got his start, in '85, with a $5 M investment from Allen & Co, whose partner - Botts & Co. - my first opportunity in London. Allen's investment worth $ billions ). Hendricks' father, a home builder, knew of the area and , since public land, told his son that, should he ever have some money, he must own it. The rest of the story, as they say, history.

Rte 90/141 takes us by Ridgeway (where John Wayne's "True Grit" filmed), the 17,000-acre Ralph Lauren ranch, Telluride, Naturita, Uravan and other postage stamps which make me wonder : how do people live in small towns with a gas station , liquor store and US post office ? There is charm to the beauty but services narrow to non-existent : schools, grocery stores, Pete's Coffee and public amenities a long drive - 20s of miles, maybe. Cowboy country , I would last a week. Naturita has one of the best libraries in the state, Stan tells me, and Silver checks it out.

"Ma'am, I don't know much about thoroughbreds - horses or women. Them that I did know, I never liked. They're too nervous and spooky; they scare me. But you're one high-bred filly that don't. 'Course, I don't know what you're talking about half the time."

--Rooster Cogburn

“I've had three wives, six children and six grandchildren and I still don't understand women”

--John Wayne

44 Road

Photo from 44 Road, of Route 141, in Gateway Canyon, mid-day.

The Orenstein-Stanfill roaming family circus picks up sticks and heads for Utah via Route 141/90, taking a scenic detour to Gateway Canyon Resort, on Stan's recommendation. We caravan with Stan and Silver and Marcus.

As the Shakespeares' changes shall be upon us, their transition discussed (or ignored) by the family. Thackery gives us guidance, Dear Reader, below, which I read to the kids, who cover their ears:

"James Crawley, when his aunt had last beheld him, was a gawky lad, at that uncomfortable age when the voice varies between an unearthly treble and a preternatural bass; when the face not uncommonly blooms out with appearances for which Rowland Kalydor [anti-zit cream] is said to act as a cure; when boys are seen to shave furtively with their sisters scissors, and the sight of other young women produces intolerable sensations of terror in them; when the great hands and ankles protrude a long way from garments which have grown too tight for them; when the presences after dinner is at once frightful to the ladies, who are whispering in the twilight in the drawing-room, and inexpressibly odious to the gentlemen over the mahogany, who are restrained from freedom of intercourse and delightful interchanged of wit by the prescience of that gawky innocence; when, at the conclusion of the second glass, papa says, 'Jack, my boy, go out and see if the evening holds up', and the youth, willing to be free, yet hurt at not being yet a man, quits incomplete banquet. . . ."

--William Thackery, "Vanity Fair", 1848

Storage Drums, Cascade St, Montrose

Silver recounts Quaker boarding school - The Grove, in Maine, before Vassar : 9:30PM lights-out! No matches (cigarettes!). No boys (heaven, forbid!). Students achieving certain minimum exceptional performance allowed to pursue extra-curicular studies and Silver chose . . vocabulary. She learned one-hundred words a week and has not forgotten one.

Gassing up at Conoco, the following sign: "Pork N Hop Tickets R Here".

We say good-bye to the Red Arrow , Presidential Suit , visit the Coffee Trader one last time, and head for Utah.

Russell Stover

We visit Russell Stover Candies factory in Montrose ("America's Favorite Chocolate Store"(R)) and, as Silver says, "kids in a candy store".

For those few unaware, Stover sells 60% of all boxed chocolate in the US of A or 100 M lbs of chocolate annually. Who hasn't, at some youthful moment, bought their most successful product : a heart-shaped box of Valentine's chocolates ?

Me: "How long does a gecko live?"

Madeleine: "It says 20 to 30 years."

Me: "That's nice. So who is going to take care of your gecko when you go to college?"

Madeleine: "I don't know. You, I guess."

Me: "You can always take it with you."

Madeleine: "The only way they are going to let me have a gecko in college, Dad, is if they are going to dissect it."

At Russell Stover

Madeleine: "I don't like chocolate, Dad."

Me: "Oh, really?"

Madeleine: "I only like four kinds: eclairs , Mars, Snickers and twirlers."

Me: "What's a twirler?"

Madeleine: "It's a kind of chocolate that has caramel in it. It is sooo nice."

Eitan: "I got a jaw breaker . [Eitan thrusts a radioactive blue ball in my face] "The women said her son had one and it took him two months to finish."

Me: "Oh, great. What do you do when you're not sucking on it?"

Eitan: "You can't break it with your teeth, either."

Madeleine: "Is it like chewing ice, Eitan ?"

Eitan: "Yeah. It's stronger than ice."

Madeleine: "Woa."

Me: "That's disgusting. Just don't let me see that thing anywhere in the house when we get back."

Eitan: "I bet I can finish mine in less than a month."

Madeleine: "Woa, Eitan, that is so wicked."

Self Portrait XIX

Trailhead, entering Mount Sneffels wilderness, Uncompahgre National Forrest, Colorado.

Blue Lake

We hike into Sneffel Wilderness while our trail takes us to the first of three Blue Lakes : this one 10,980 feet. The lake unnatural blue , filled by a stream from the towering Mt Sneffels, which has some scant snow. The water freezing cold - I last a few moments before too painful - while Eitan does a full-on cannonball then scrambles out, Dear Reader, in something near shock.

"Mount Sneffels is a fourteen thousand foot mountain peak located in the Mount Sneffels Wilderness of the northern San Juan Mountains, about 5 miles west of Ouray. The mountain named after the volcano Snæfell, which is located on the tip of the Snæfellsnes peninsula in Iceland. That mountain and its glacier, Snæfellsjökull, which caps the crater like a convex lens, were featured in the Jules Verne novel A Journey to the Center of the Earth. An area on the western flank of Mount Sneffels gives the appearance of volcanic crater. Seen from the Dallas Divide on State Highway 62, Mount Sneffels is one of the most photographed mountains in Colorado."

--Wiki

Madeleine: "Can we get a Gecko, Dad? Can we? Can we? When can we get a gecko? Will it go on the plane? I know, I will buy the cage and you can buy me the gecko."

Me: "What does a gecko eat?"

Madeleine: "Crickets."

Me: "Where will we keep crickets?"

Madeleine: "The garage. We can keep them there."

Me: "No, way. Your mom won't go for that."

Madeleine: "And if we feed him crickets we would have to take off every one of his last legs."

Me:

Madeleine: "So the ghecko can catch him."

Me: "Crickets: Out."

Madeleine: "Ok. We can feed him meal worms and wax worms as a treat. You keep those in the refrigerator."

Me: "Sonnet: Are you on board with this?"

Sonnet: "Is there a choice?"