Fairfield 13: Sprucing Things Up

In November 2016, I embarked on yet another two-week visit to Fairfield, Iowa, and the campus of Maharishi University of Management (MUM), where I participated in extended group meditation sessions. It was also a chance to catch up with several friends.

My usual place to rent a room wasn't available, so I did some online searching and found a great alternative. Here are two panoramas which together take in the whole room. Note the separate sink/toilet nook and shower; the shower is entered from the room itself. It works!

Lots of light.

If you need more space, the adjacent living room and kitchen can be rented at additional cost. I just needed a place with the basics. 

The view from that front bay window.

My traveling companions, Pork Chop and George, loved the scene.

Looking back from the street. It was a delightfully quiet place to stay.

For several days I saw this praying mantis hanging around the gate in the fence.

It was a mild November, and getting up early to head to the Men's Dome, the Maharishi Patanjali Golden Dome, I admired many sunrises.

At first I thought I faced an indirect route to reach the Men's Dome, but my host let me know that there were communal paths through the intervening neighborhood. (This playback has been accelerated by 2.8 times.)


Seven months had flown by since my March visit, and a lot had been going on, the results easily spotted.

Just in front of the Argiro Student Union a miniature Vedic Observatory had been constructed. These come in all sizes, from tabletop to 1½ acres in Vedic City.

Here's a view of the center structure. The innermost ring denotes the visible planets, plus the rising and descending nodes of the moon. (The moon's orbit around the earth is somewhat tilted with regard to the earth's orbit around the sun -- otherwise there would be a total eclipse of the sun every month!)

The second ring lists the signs, such as Capricorn, etc., and the third demarcates the 27 or 28 nakshatras, or "lunar mansions," one for each day in the lunar month. Lunar mansions appear in many systems of astrology, although I'd never heard of them until recently and they do not seem to be emphasized.

The campus road leading to Argiro from the north now has so much pedestrian traffic that it's been blocked off to vehicles.

Within walking distance of my room the expansion of North Campus Village continued. There's a waiting list for the townhomes being built here.

What about goings-on downtown? Well, the sushi joint Shokai now occupies the corner that had been Mohan's.

Mohan Delights was in the process of moving into a south-facing storefront on the square. They will have a west-facing entrance from the alley.

There's now a donut shop in the renovated but closed movie theater, where the lobby and concessions had been.

Repair and facelifting appeared to be the order of the day.

All around the square, and adjacent to it.

Back on campus, the bridge over nothing in particular, which had been in such bad shape that it was blocked off in my last visit, was undergoing renovation. I had to check it each day to see what the elves had done next.

New posts and railing, but no finials, and the little seats at either end have no top.

 Now we have a top to sit on.

 Finials going up.

These globes date from the original bridge.

It is good to be able to see the bridge at night.

The nearby bridge over Crow Creek has warning tape along the flanks of the entrance. Dead brush and trees are being removed, and until new plantings are made, yellow tape mitigates the risk of someone stumbling over the edge.

Saplings of several species had already been installed around the Women's (Bagambhrini) Golden Dome.

The stairway from the north parking area to Argiro was also bustling.

Storm water flowing down the steep hillside was undercutting the poured-concrete stairs. Plastic barrier sheets were put in place and well-anchored with stones.

The interior of the student union held some surprises and revelations. This is a view of the lobby.

This student-initiative poster in the lobby surprised me. Twenty years ago, even fifteen years ago, MUM administration was rather strait-laced, but now the University is moving into the same era as its students. (Click on the image to enlarge.)

Some things, however, will never change. This is an example from the food services feedback board.

There was one more surprise.

I'll wrap up this report with some odds and ends.

An electric car charging station next to the Sustainable Living Center.

A campus electrical map showing the two points to disconnect the Men's Dome solar panels from the grid.

A pig in the garden. Yay!

Moon and clouds, taken from the entrance to the Men's Dome.

There, I got through the entire post without talking about a particular election that occurred while I was in Fairfield. (I voted by absentee ballot.)

Three Metro 5-0 Hikes

In the last third of 2016 Joan and I participated in three Metro Five-O hikes, sponsored by the Columbus Metro Parks, all at Clear Creek Metro Park. These jaunts for those 50+ took us into areas that are part of the largest state nature preserve in Ohio and normally off-limits to visitors. Our guide for all three hikes was Marcey Shafer, the naturalist at Clear Creek.

I didn't take any notes, but I did get a few pix!

Big Oak
The first hike was to the "Big Oak." At the time of European settlement, the temperate forests of Ohio were so widespread that it was said "a squirrel can go from the Ohio River to Lake Erie without touching the ground." Then the trees were hacked down to feed an insatiable appetite for farmland, for housing, for firewood, and for charcoal to smelt iron. By 1860 southern Ohio had sixty-nine iron furnaces fueled by charcoal, and by the end of the 19th Century, practically all the original trees were gone.

However, a few survived, hidden in the ravines of the corrugated southeastern Ohio landscape, where they were on unfarmable land and too difficult to carry out. Today we would visit one, and lots of people showed up.

The first part of the hike was up an old access road, still used occasionally by a gas pipeline company. Along the way we spotted a couple of toads. Then Marcey took a right turn into the woods and downhill.

We all followed.

There were some tall, but young, trees, such as this beech.

It would have taken three or four of us to hold hands around the circumference of the Big Oak. 

It's difficult to take a photo all the way to its top! We hung around and admired it for a while; Marcey spoke about the history of the area.

Rather than returning the way we had come, Marcey took a route through one of the many rock formations at Clear Creek.

We did have one scramble up through the leaf litter.

On this as with many other Metro 5-O walks, as long as your balance was OK the hike wasn't strenuous. Occasionally a pole was helpful!

Buzzard's Roost
There must be a hundred rock formations in Ohio named Buzzard's Roost. On October 16th, 2016 Marcey led a Metro 5-O group to the one within Clear Creek Metro Park.

At first we were on official park trails. Shortly after leaving the trail system, Marcey found a ring-necked snake, a cute little critter with a pleasing necklace. It's nocturnal and spends the day hiding under leaf litter or other debris.

We lingered for a few minutes to admire it.

In this picture we've just reached the rock outcrop, Buzzard's Roost.

You wouldn't know there was a road down there.

Trees, trees, trees!

This daredevil is growing out over the edge. What happens when it gets bigger?

We tromped back the way we had come, ready to take in one more Metro 5-O outing before 2016 disappeared.

Neotoma Valley
On a chilly but sunny December 21st a Metro 5-O group gathered for another guided off-trial hike, into the Neotoma Valley.

In 1921 Edward Thomas, one of the first commissioners of the Metro Parks, purchased an 80-acre tract of cut-over timber (what wasn't?!) and named it Neotoma, after the Allegheny Wood Rat, Neotoma magister.
Ed converted a rustic frame shack into a cabin where he could offer hospitality to friends and scientists conducting studies in the valley.

Marcey, our naturalist, has the key.

The first room of the cabin is big (by comparison).

Another room held only a few of us at a time.

A message or correspondence board for members of the Wheaton Club, which began as an ornithological society in the 19th Century.

From the cabin our group continued up the valley past various rock formations of Blackhand sandstone.

Sandstone is easily eroded, and Blackhand sandstone can weather unevenly.

Eventually we descended to the valley floor and began our return. Rather than heading directly for the cars

we first took a short walk to the nearby Mathias cabin.

The grounds are open to the public but the cabin is locked. You can peer inside the ground-level windows if you like.

Adjacent to the cabin, and on the edge of the public-access zone, is a lofty rock formation known for the pool favored by salamanders at its base.

Plenty more Metro 5-O hikes will be scheduled for 2017, and you can bet that Joan and I will be on several of 'em.

CR2016: Ptarmigan Cirque

Moose were already visiting the wallow below Mount Engadine Lodge the morning of August 9th. Early on we saw three males, and later a female and a youngster. One fellow bore an impressive set of antlers,

and a younger one wore a starter set.

Today was a transition day; Joan and I planned to hike Ptarmigan Cirque in the morning, and buy chocolate and drive back to Calgary in the afternoon. We hoisted our luggage into the car and set off, and spotted one of the earlier moose browsing on the side of the road.

The parking area for the Ptarmigan Cirque trail, among others, is at Highwood Pass, the highest paved road in Canada at 2206 meters, 7239 feet. The cirque trail adds another 700 feet or more, depending on how far the hiker goes.

Early in the day the sky overhead was a transparent blue.

Landing approach into Calgary

We weren't the first to arrive. It's a popular family destination.

After a short walk leading to an interpretive trail and other destinations, including Pocaterra Cirque, Joan and I crossed the highway and began to ascend.

Folks find the first mile steep

The straight trail split, becoming a loop around the cirque that separated the incoming and outgoing traffic much of the way.

After many switchbacks we emerged from the trees, the trail became gentler, and wide views opened up. This photo is pointed south.

Joan and I were curious about various small flags we saw planted in the meadow. Fortunately there were a couple of explanatory signs; it's all about Columbian ground squirrels.

Looking up to the head of the cirque on a gorgeous day.

As Joan and I drew closer to the loop's apex we saw that a large group (11+) had gone off-trail for a long stop. They were the oblivious owners of several poorly-taught dogs, all of whom were yapping without pause, echoing through the cirque.

There was no temptation to linger within earshot. A more adventurous group took a spur route deeper into the cirque (click on the image to enlarge).

In this view, the inbound trail is on the far right and outbound is left.

Joan spotted a group of mountain sheep moving up the north flank of the cirque, drifting away from the humans who continued to stream in.

We returned to our car and drove to an overlook on Highway 40, where we had lunch. On the way we saw that King Creek Ridge, which we'd hiked the year before, was off-limits due to bear activity. A family of three that had also been staying at Mount Engadine Lodge arrived at "our" overlook.

We stopped at the Barrier Lake Visitor Center to donate our bear spray, which cannot be taken onto an aircraft. At the center it could be used in demonstrations, but not resold. We were told there was a shortage of bear spray in Canmore!

And of course we had to stop at Le Chocolatier in Canmore for chocolate goodness to take home. We enjoyed watching the chocolate being worked before driving on to Calgary.

Joan and I again had dinner with Barry Ronellenfitch at our hotel restaurant, as we have for several years. He asked if we were flying Delta. Three days ago Delta's operations center in Atlanta was down for three hours due to a power outage and backup failures. We used Barry's phone to check our flights and everything was supposed to be OK now.

The next morning came all too early, because the flight was scheduled to leave at 8:20 and we would need to go through check-in, security, and U.S. immigration and customs. Check in was smooth although the flight was listed as running late.

Earlier in the summer Joan and I had signed up for Global Entry, which would greatly speed our transit through the hideously overburdened Calgary infrastructure (an airport overhaul was finished late in 2016). However, there was a Canadian official who was verifying that everyone had filled out the U.S. customs forms before permitting them to enter the customs area. He wanted to see proof of our Global Entry status before allowing us through without standing in line; however, we didn't have any. The Global Entry program states that carrying your GE card is not necessary, but in Canada the equivalent program, Nexus, requires showing the card. After some discussion he allowed us through with the warning that if our Global Entry didn't work we'd go back to the end of his long queue.

There were four kiosks at the Global Entry portal. Two were obviously out of commission. We tried the other two twice each, but they timed out at the point that they should have taken our photo. Fortunately, the U.S. passport officer saw our dilemma and waved us forward. He said the kiosks often don't work, and we had a good chat while he scanned our passports on his own equipment.

To enter the pre-check security line Joan and I again had to explain about not having our Global Entry cards. Canada doesn't care about the airline's pre-check designation on the boarding pass. The Swiss Army knife in my mini first-aid kit, which I overlooked when repacking, was confiscated at the x-ray scanner.

At our gate there were more delays. First, not all the kinks had been worked out of Delta's aircraft allocations since the outage three days ago. Second, the customs computers in Calgary had just gone down, for an hour. Finally, the flight crew had arrived late the night before due to weather, and they had a minimum number of off-duty hours to observe before flying again.

There was a long line at the gate and I joined it; this was like the old Soviet Union -- see a line, get in it! When I reached the head of the line it was obvious that our Minneapolis connection was in peril, and the agent put a hold on two seats on a later flight.

There was a delay getting the baggage loaded, perhaps an aftereffect of the customs computers crashing. In the end, we left Calgary 2½ hours late.

In Minneapolis Joan and I dashed to the Delta help desk. There we saw a couple of self-serve work stations labelled "miss your flight?" (or the equivalent). We scanned our old boarding passes and new tickets (not boarding passes) for a later flight printed out.

The Minneapolis gate staff were also harried; it had been a long three days I'm sure. I was rebuffed when I asked about getting boarding passes corresponding to our new tickets, but Joan was more charming and fixed that problem.

It had been an exhausting day by the time we arrived home in time to catch a few winks in our own bed. Our trip was a long and enjoyable one, and we remain proud of our ascent of Windtower.

Note: If you've made it through all eighteen of these posts about Canada 2016, I congratulate you. And admire your stamina, or, was it pacing? Thank you for your attention.