Jo, May I make a suggestion for next time? At a star party at Skyline Drive many years ago I made the mistake of giving the local sheep-herder's horse a handful of grapes. (His name was George and he was from Altair but that's another story ;-) As I had just fallen asleep after stargazing all night I felt a nudge on my tent wall. I awoke to find 'George' pushing his nose into my tent. I shoved his head and yelled at him to get him to leave but to no avail. Then I saw something on the tent floor that I thought might just do the trick. A tin of Altoids!! I put 3 or 4 in my hand and offered them to him. As he chewed them he gave the expression of 'this is interesting' but soon he started shaking his head back and forth and soon was galloping down the road. I've never seen a cobbled horse run so fast. I don't know about the horses at the Gravel Pit...maybe they fancy peppermint. Dave On Monday, December 9, 2002, at 04:31 PM, Grahn Family wrote:
They left us alone for the rest of the night, but I must admit we hesitated about getting the scopes and binoculars out. They were big enough to do a lot of inadvertent damage, and I have no question that they would have wanted a glimpse of the horsehead nebula, if they came back.