Matt's Homepage

These guys did a good job capturing what it’s like staying in a fire tower during winter weather. There’s nothing like staying in a fire tower alone for a few days – especially in winter when the wind is blowing, snow covers all the forest roads so that you are an entire day’s snowshoe from any help.

I stayed at Warner Mountain in winter and it took almost all the short daylight hours to snowshoe the 10 miles into the cabin at the top of the peak. These guys were smart and used a snowmobile – but snowshoeing or cross-country skiing makes it even more of an adventure. You need to pack in all your gear for the whole stay and you really get to feel how far you are from civilization after you spend a whole day going through largely untrodden snow in the wilderness to a tower.

One of the things they don’t catch as much of in this video is the slow tick of time, probably because there are several of them to entertain each other. If you stay in a fire tower for more than 2-3 days alone, you start to shift into what I think of as ‘tower time’. Your day isn’t focused on work hours, when shops open, or people/society schedules. There is no 8-to-5. Instead, you start living in step with the rising and setting sun – and your day focuses around long, quiet hours without TV, radios, internet, and instead filled with reading, small chores such as cutting wood, cleaning, writing in a journal, lighting fires, and most importantly – meals.

You tend to wake up at least once when the sun just starts to lighten the horizon like they did – usually some single digit hour of the morning just as light starts filling the horizon. The air is cold and often damp from your breath perspiration during the night. It’s not unlike camping, but you’re in a bed in a room.

As the day passes, without the distractions of any sign of civilization, you shift into your own patterns during the day. Naps, reading, eating, tending the fire, going on short walks, and reflecting/thinking. The day passes without any sense of ‘what time is it’.

As evening approaches you do those small things to prepare for night. Putting chairs back, picking up things you left outside, and finally cooking. As you eat and the watch the sun go down, you might stay up for a while watching the stars all come out. Starry nights out in these wildernesses is amazing compared to urban areas. You find yourself going to bed when the sun goes down – only to get up the next day and enjoy it all again.

Every have fuzzy childhood memories of going somewhere? I remember going to Hueston Woods Lodge when I was very little on a family vacation. I was taking a trip down memory lane and got lost looking it up because I remembered the name, but was looking for ‘Houston’ Woods.

I remember the odd shaped high-pointed main building, the big pool, and the hiking trails. I also remember walking down to the dock. It’s nice to see it’s still around and still looked almost the same. Maybe I should go visit it again someday…

St Boniface parish in Lafayette, IN has put on a live stations of the cross passion recreation every Good Friday for years. They have people in costume and even soldiers on horseback. People that have gone say it is very moving and definitely worth going if you have the chance.

I found this quote from a German describing his fellow countrymen to be helpful in understanding some of my interactions when I was working there:

Germans are not efficient, they’re thorough. In fact, they’re often focused on being thorough to the point of being blatantly inefficient

If you grew up in the 80’s, you knew the amazing Superfriends cartoon. The opening nearly always showed them at the Hall of Justice.

But did you know it is based on a real place? Union Terminal in Cincinnati.

Fourth Place does a great job describing some history and tour around this Art Deco icon.