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Celeste and I had heard, as perhaps you had, as well, that Comet Neowise was a sight to be seen, briefly seen, and that this past Thursday night would be a particularly good time to catch a glimpse. Reportedly, the comet would be low in the northwestern sky, beneath the Big Dipper, and we would have our best chance of finding it if we could look across a body of water unlit by city lights. Reportedly, our next best chance to see it would be at least four thousand, four hundred years in the future, and, since Celeste and I do not typically plan out our astronomical activities so far in advance, we decided, at about ten o’clock on Thursday night, to set out in search of this rare attraction. We hoped to get a picture.
The afternoon had been overcast, a break from oppressive heat, a good day for lawn mowing, which we had done, but the night sky turned out to be surprisingly inky and nearly empty except for a full complement of stars.
We drove on country roads from our home in Fjord to a cattail-skirted pond about seven miles distant. We arrived just in time to find a lovely orange crescent moon on the far side of the water, not as much as a fist’s width above the trees in the west, noticeably descending. Stopping our RAV4 on the shoulderless roadway, I shifted into Park, turned off the engine, and waited for the multitude of vehicle lights, inside and out, to fade away. Mosquitoes discouraged us from leaving the car or even lowering a window. Before we could grab a photo through the glass, though, the orange crescent slipped out of sight, leaving only the star-speckled sky. We found the Big Dipper, and we sat for a time, peering out into the darkness, hoping to find the smudge of the comet. We looked and looked across the skies, but we did not find our Neowise. Eventually we started the car again and headed home.
Sort of. We headed somewhere. We are not quite sure where we went when we drove away from the shore of the pond. Though we have resided in Galloway County for a dozen years and more, and though we often wander the country roads in daylight, we soon had zigged and zagged and had no idea where we were or even in what direction the nose of our RAV4 was pointed. The car’s GPS, a mysterious and secretive device upon which we cannot rely, offered no useful hints, and neither of our smartphones was getting a reliable signal when we requested help from Google Maps. We had a nearly full tank of gasoline, though, and nearly full confidence that we would eventually end up somewhere familiar.
And we did, as you can see. We aren’t sure how, but we did end up, in an hour or so, back again in our Village of Fjord, with its streetlamps and tavern signs and its diminished stars above. When we turned the corner at Mills Street and High and pressed the button on the little whatchucallit in the car, our garage door rose like the next day’s crescent moon would surely somewhere rise, and a sixty-watt glow welcomed us back home.
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