February 23

23 Feb 2014 Thurs.  Spent the day researching addresses and looking up inactive Elders and prospective Elders.  In the evening I drove to Illapel for district Presidency meeting while Carolyn stayed in Los Vilos.  On the way home, around midnight, I pulled over at the top of the mountain pass to look at the stars.  It was an unusually clear and dark night… dark except for the Milky Way with an unmistakable swath of bright white from horizon to horizon… and except for the trillions of other stars everywhere.  I have not seen a sky like that since camping as a kid in the back country of New Mexico when at that time there was little light pollution and other forms of pollution to block the starlight.  It is absolutely awe inspiring to see the heavens here on dark, clear nights. 

I can only begin to imagine what the view is like a few more hundred miles to the north of Chile, in the high desert where some of the most famous telescopes in the world have the clearest view from anywhere on earth.  That is because they are so high, and the desert there so dry (some places have never recorded any rainfall, ever) that the air is crystal clear, giving great views of the heavens. Wowzer.  

Ben and I once stopped in the Wyoming desert around 2 a.m. on our way to Utah, to look at the stars in the dark sky there. (Maybe it was Calvin.  No matter.  One of them can witness that it was a great sight that they will probably remember for a long time.)  Anyway, the difference between the dark sky here and that, is like the difference between the Charlotte NC sky and Wyoming.  (In Charlotte, there is so much humidity and light pollution that you only see a few of the brightest stars).  

Awesome.