The Darkling Night

If I had spent thousands of dollars and gone to the ends of the Earth, I couldn't have had a more deep and meaningful few days than I did last week from Thursday to Saturday, September 8th through the 10th. I was really and truly home, or as close as one can get to home on this planet.

A very competent pilot, one of my four sons, picked me up at the Millard Airport in Omaha, and we flew to Buffalo, SD. He Who Must Be Obeyed was at the little landing strip in Buffalo with his red Wrangler. That evening we drove west the 24 miles to Camp Crook to the Corner Bar and Cafe for their rib steak dinner special. Going and coming we had a welcoming committee of deer and antelope along the prairie road. In the evening on our way there, they were beautiful creatures, not as much interested in welcoming us as they were eating their last meal before dark. Coming home they played their little game of getting across the road before we broadsided them.

And then it was the "Darkling Night;" as we drove right through Buffalo and north 10 miles, to the Cave Hills Lutheran churchyard and flashlighted our way to the steps. There we settled ourselves in that darkening nightsky to drink in the balmy night breeze, the brightening stars, Mars at its closest to Earth until 2099 or some such year, and watched the Milky Way first appear in the east behind the church and climb the sky as the hour or so passed. A couple shooting stars streaked across the sky to the south. Who could even think to wish for the wonder of it all.

We were 10 miles north of Latitude 45.61N and Longitude -103.52W and if you can figure that out, you will know that the darkness was as good as it gets in our light polluted land at night. Actually one of the very best.