Unusual sight

I really enjoy hiking Squaw Peak. The only problem is that the place is short on parking most of the time. However they measure these things, it's one of (if not the) most highly used hiking trails in the country. Which no doubt has something to do with being located in the middle of a huge urban area with year-round hiking weather.

Anyway, here's the parking area at 6p last Saturday. I've never seen it so empty. No waiting around to park (usually there's a short line of waiting vehicles, certainly no empty spaces). Deathly quiet, very few folks on the trail. Which was a nice change of pace.

Oddly, there is a ringtail cat that has been hanging around the summit lately. Or maybe that's not odd, given that folks are often snacking up there and it's probably a good spot for scavenging. And in any event the cat could enjoy a great view. Here's a recent photo looking east toward Camelback Mountain.

In the future I will use the correct name for this mountain (Piestewa Peak, renaming described here).

Father's Day pattern . . .

"Back when I was a kid," our Father's Days had a pretty well established pattern. Go to Mass at St. Joe church. (I don't remember when they started the Saturday evening stuff but I'm sure in these days it was all Sunday, all the time). I'm guessing now, but think we probably ate the noon meal (aka dinner) at our house.

Then it was onto Algona and a gathering of the relatives in honor of Grandpa (Mike) Bormann. This involved lots of yakking among the adults. As little kids, we amused ourselves down in the basement playing cards or board games and somehow shooting baskets at a hoop hung from the basement rafters. I'm remembering that line drive shots were rewarded and any shot having anything resembling a normal arc was a failure. There always was some good food involved. Sometimes we'd go for a walk around the block, or play catch on the south side of the house.

Then back to St. Joe (farm on the hill) for a gathering of the relatives in honor of Grandpa (Ernest J.) Gales. Lots of daylight hours that time of year. Lots of talking among the group (normally at a bit higher intensity level than the earlier party). Cards. Food. Kids played outside and then moved it inside. No school the next day, so no particular curfew issues.

The scan from my 1969 diary summarizes a pretty typical Father's Day from that era. These were pretty excellent days. And the two grandpas and one father were pretty excellent father-role-model types. But I'll have more to say about that.

I'm sure we must have paid some attention to our own dad, but the day definitely was focused on Grandpas Gales and Bormann. (Photos are from 1970, I believe. Grandpa Bormann (top) turned 80 that year, and Grandpa Gales turned 70.)

(The diary entry ends with some whining about one of my front teeth, which had been busted up the previous day when I carelessly looked over the back of a truck box just when Francis Kenne lifted the endgate. That led to one of those now-obsolete and then-unattractive metal caps for a few years.)

I wonder what this is