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 B L O C K  I S L A N D,  R I Second Bluff, Block Island, Rhode Island The sandy path I’m following ends at the end of an era.  Fifteen thousand years ago, this path would have been underneath a glacier, but when the Ice Age ended and that glacier retreated, it left behind piles of ground up conglomerate forming a string of well-known east coast islands including Nantucket, Long Island, and where I’m walking: Block Island, Rhode Island. This path terminates at a bluff high above the Atlantic on top of that sand pile left behind by the Ice Age.  It’s a pile at war with the sea.  Incoming waves have been chewing away at the conglomerate for eons creating Block Island’s iconic Mohegan Bluffs.   To the east of where I stand is the more popular access to Mohegan Bluffs, complete with parking lot, kiosk, placards, safety railings, and a long staircase leading the base where those chewy waves are at work.  But the path I’m on is off that beaten path – a much lesser known one that most others

F L O R I D A     Kissimmee Prairie (87) Okeechobee, Florida Vast & Humbling   I exit Florida’s Turnpike at Yeehaw Junction and drive into a dense darkness.   I’m a lone traveler on a now-thinner road no longer surrounded by the highway’s luminance.   Suddenly my headlights seem quite feeble.   The feebleness though, is a good sign.   I’m deliberately headed toward the state’s darkest place – Kissimmee Prairie Preserve State Park (KPPSP).   When I arrive, two hours before sunrise, the gate is closed.   An expected obstacle.   The park doesn’t open until 8:00 but surmised that even at its gate the stars would be magnificent.   The early arrival was just the first of three things to have lined up perfectly.   Today is also a new moon, meaning it’s just a sliver of distracting light in the sky, plus there is not a single cloud to be found, awarding ideal stargazing conditions.   I hop onto the trunk of my rental car, lean back, and there it is – the Milky Way.   Someth