Baby (my telescope) and I spent last night at the Wedge, Campground 7 as my favorite site was taken. Actually, I was lucky to find that place, with so many other campers present. The next campground, I think it was called 7A, had a huge house-size camper with sometimes squally kid, a generator and a barking dog -- but I drowned 'em out when I got my generator going. Temps dropped pretty swiftly but I was all right with a heavy jacket, parka and watch cap. The night was supposed to be clear, according to the NWS, but actually there was a dark cloud mass to the east and I suspect thin clouds overhead. It never got really dark, even after moonset. I attribute that to light bouncing off a cloud cover. But mostly the viewing was all right. I enjoyed studying the Ring Nebula (M57), the Dumbell (M27), M51, and a new favorite, M66. I could barely make out M100, a big face-on sprial galaxy in the Virgo Cluster; basically I saw only a vague oval mottling with my least powerful eyepiece. I was taking a couple of preliminary luminance views of M66, a beautiful S of a barred spiral, when a breeze kicked up and bounced my scope around so badly that Igave up on longer exposures. I had trouble with balancing Baby with the guidescope refractor attached, with two CCD cameras and a finder scope. So it didn't track as well as it should have. But thanks to Steve Dodds' fine resurfacing of my secondary, and my cleaning the corrector plate, the telescope is delivering better views than ever. My generator either ran out of gas or gave up because it needed oil, and I turned in to sleep in the Jeep before dawn. I think I'll do a blog about M66 because barred spirals are so interesting. -- Joe