On the morning of Saturday, October 15th, 1994, a "Dawn Patrol" stargaze was scheduled for the
Lenawee Astronomy Club members at the Lake Hudson State Park beach area. Only three
members were there at the 3:30 AM start time (not too surprising!), Wes Boyd, Jack Whiting,
and myself. We observed through clear to partly cloudy skies until about 5:00 AM. By then the
clouds had pretty much taken over, and we were reduced to relaxing conversation.

Jack decided to call it a night and left about then. The wait for the 6:00 AM opening of a nearby
restaurant for breakfast was peaceful and pleasant. At about 5:30, we decided to head toward
Hudson to have a bite before going home for somerest. We were going West from Clayton
toward Hudson, with Wes about 100 yards ahead of me. It was still pitch dark out, and we were
probably going 40 mph or so. There was no hurry as the diner wouldn't be open until 6:00 AM
All of a sudden I saw Wes's brake lights and before you could realize what had happened, his
headlights were looking back at me. He had done a 180 right in the roadway! The trailer was
demolished. The top was ripped completely off, and EVERYTHING was strewn on the roadway.
The trailer itself was upside down and still attached to the car by the safety chains. I was there in
seconds, of course, and saw that Wes was getting out of his car. We both stood there for what
seemed quite a while, looking and comprehending what had happened.

What a mess! There were big chunks of glass everywhere, and there was no doubt as to their
origination. The doe had escaped into the field and was on her way! Wes had missed her, but in
doing so had jackknifed the trailer. The first thingto do was to try and get the roadway cleared
of glass and any other debris. Traffic was coming!! We could only try to kick the larger pieces of
glass off to the side as we had no way to really clear the surface of the smaller pieces. A
bowhunter had stopped and in his pickup truck it happened that he had a large push broom. He
single handedly swept the road clear as Wes and I dragged the remains of the trailer to the
shoulder, and organized the other stuff to the side.

With the road clear now and traffic moving again, we collected our thoughts and decided not to
chance personal injury in the dark by walking around looking for things with a flashlight. Dawn
would soon arrive and take care of the light problem. Wes decided to drive to the house and get
another trailer from his dad, which is big enough to load the mess and get back to the house to
see what might be salvageable. Upon our return, we loaded the trailer section onto the other
trailer, the broken telescope,  & everything else that we could find, and headed back to his place.
While there, it seemed to be the thing to do to go back to the site and carefully sweep-up and
check around one last time for any items we had overlooked. It was now full daylight.

Back at the site, we covered the area carefully, and decided that anything which had gone into
the grass had to be considered lost. At this point, I spotted a glint of light and headed for it.
There in the grass was Wes's expensive UV filter! Wow! The cleanup was completed and we
went to town for a breakfast, but Wes was too upset to order, and just had a cup of coffee.

Wes thought the telescope might have some insurance coverage, and since his insurance office
was now open, he would like to check on it. The outcome seems to be that he did  insure the
equipment and that everything eventually would be all right. Tremendously relieved about that,
we called it a day.

Bob Frybarger
910 Edgewood St.
Jackson, MI 49202
bfrybarger@prodigy.net                     Back to home                            Back to top of Page