July 18

This is the day we will remember. All week the weather service was declaring an excessive heat warning for the desert areas. We decided to try to work for three reasons: 1 – we thought we had learned to pace ourselves and hydrate well (last weekend was a lesson learned) – remember Nietzsche: “That which does not kill, strengthens” or was that Conan the Barbarian? No, Conan said, “Do you want to live forever?” , 2 – we want the roof up by Thanksgiving which means we need to start roof construction by Labor Day, and 3 - this was the club’s annual Starbecue, a barbecue just before sunset so we get heavy and listless and our greasy fingers muck up our telescope lenses and mirrors.

I got started on sanding the 2X4 steel beams and John worked on ripping an internal wall out in the warm room that we didn’t want as well as unearthing about 500 pounds of concrete that was dumped just outside our front door during the original construction.

2X4s prior to sanding and painting

As we’re working we’re both realizing that this is by far the hottest day we’ve experienced. There were more than 20 people on site by early afternoon and all but John and I, plus one other were in AC somewhere. That one other guy was about 30 yards from me and was partially insane. He was wearing heavy, dark blue, full length jeans, a black shirt, and just a small hat; plus he was on his hands and knees cutting 5 foot high brush with a pair of hand clippers! A bit later another guy Sammy is calling and waving to me from about where that guy was. I went over and there’s the clipper guy, jabbering away incoherently and half-conscious in the brush. I helped Sammy load him into a car and he drove the guy down to the bunkhouse. Other people there got him in front of an AC unit and got him into some ice for several hours. If Sammy hadn’t walked from the bunk house to his car and passed by this guy, he probably would have died because no one could see him on the ground. I was actually the closest one. By the time I got back to the observatory, John was taking a break inside so I joined him. When I entered I felt like I just walked into an AC room. I said so and he started laughing and showed me the thermometer – it was 99 inside!

Diligently sanding somewhere beyond 110 degrees

With that example, let me talk about the weather. First of all, the US Weather Bureau station in Anza about 5 miles east of us reported a high of 111 for the day; a local private weather station about 5 miles south of us reported a high of 118. I can tell you that with those temperatures, there is no way that you can accidentally work too fast or drink too little. A couple other unusual weather events. Several dust devils blew through our site early in the day. One I didn’t see while I was sanding until I got a mouthful of dust and sage brush. It started to lift our canopy despite having six cinder blocks holding it down until John and I jumped onto the posts. We also had a light shower around noon time from some clouds I thought were 15 miles away - rain at 110 degrees! We quit about 4 PM after about 7 hours – about the longest day we put in thus far.

By the way, clipper guy apparently felt better by that time but was still insane because right after we quit, he came back out and started his whole thing all over again – including passing out.

We hung around for the barbecue that started around 6 in the shadow of the main observatory. Nice food spread and about 50 people enjoying the seemingly pleasant 100 degree temp. However, I can’t understand how people can eat hot food in such heat.

Despite the extreme heat, neither John nor I had any problems at all working with those temps. Slow movement, lots of cold water regularly, and protect yourself from the intense sun.