{"id":5072,"date":"2016-11-01T21:59:08","date_gmt":"2016-11-01T19:59:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.knottinbotswana.com\/?p=5072"},"modified":"2016-11-01T22:03:17","modified_gmt":"2016-11-01T20:03:17","slug":"when-the-stars-come-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.knottinbotswana.com\/index.php\/2016\/11\/when-the-stars-come-out\/","title":{"rendered":"When The Stars Come Out"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week was hectic, with work meetings in Tsabong and Sowa (thankfully the company stumped up for me to fly to and from Francistown, so not entirely awful).<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
A Week On The Road: Bring Me My Cessna<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Now I’m back in Tsabong to do some site measurements with our South African stainless steel fabrication specialist, and true to form I only escaped Gaborone at 1400. It’s about 550km, of which the first 100km is a traffic filled road to\/from hell and the remainder punctuated by livestock and potholes. The last 150km were done after sunset.One of the snippets in Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff<\/a> recommends taking a more relaxed approach to driving, which I have been doing on and off for a while anyway, so the journey was quite relaxed and after sunset not more than 100km\/hr.<\/p>\n

Today’s moon is apparently a waxing crescent, or fingernail. Being out in the bush round here means an almost perfect dark sky, so you can actually (just) see the features on the shaded side as well. Unfortuantely I’m not a professional photographer<\/a> so you’ll have to make do with some white spots from a smartphone camera.<\/p>\n

\"Moon<\/a>
Moon about to set low in the sky over Kgalakgadi Transfrontier Park from the road to Tsabong.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Over the course of an hour and 100km the moon fell below the horizon as well, bringing out the Milky Way<\/a> in all its glory. It was so powerful I pulled off the road, stopped the car and turned out the lights for 10 minutes. Just me, the night birds and infinity.<\/p>\n

Which brings me almost perfectly to the second step in the 52 Small Changes For The Mind<\/a> programme: Music.<\/p>\n