Day Length

Our home in Papagayos rests south of the Tropic of Cancer. In the summer the sun passes north of being directly overhead at mid-day, but the day lengths vary only about an hour through the annual cycle of seasons with the average day about twelve hours long. Nearly equal amounts of daytime and nighttime.

During our visit in Fairbanks, Alaska, in early July we got to experience the "land of the mid-night sun." Actually, Fairbanks is a little bit south of the Arctic Circle, but the daylight to dusk cycle fills each day at mid-summer.

For some reason I awoke at 1:30 in the morning on July 6th. I peeked out of the closed blinds in our camper and I could still see the green of the cottonwood leaves and the grass nearby. All nature called me to walk to the Chena River that flows past our campground.

The thrushes chanted their mantra to call the sun back for another long-in-the-sky day. It was not the spiral song of the Vermont veery or the heartaching beauty of the wood thrush, but their own sweet Alaskan melody. The mosquitos dive bombed my head using my ears for bull's-eye targets. A fish jumped to catch an insect for breakfast in the swift tannin filled waters. Two gulls flew upstream in their sleek flight jackets in contrast with the ragged shoreline white spruce trees.

By 3:00 AM there was color rising in the eastern sky, a blush of rose, and the sky overhead was brightening to blue with the approach of morning. There was plenty of natural light to read and write without using electric lights. The smell of damp cottonwood filled all the space between the water's edge and our camper as I headed back to the screened refuge of our traveling home.

What a State We're In!

The republic of Mexico, officially titled Estados Unidos Mexicanos (the United Mexican States), consists of 31 states as well as a federal district with the nation's capital Mexico City.

We live in the state of San Luis Potosí. It is named after our state capital, a town that was founded in 1592 as San Luis in honor of King Louis IX, the only French monarch to be made a saint. When silver was soon discovered nearby, the name Potosí was added, in reference to the rich silver mines of Potosí, Bolivia.

Roughly just north of the geographical center of Mexico, our state is ranked 15th in size and 16th in population. In a nation of 31 states, it's hard to be more average than that.

But for budding geographers who like to pore over political maps, there are a couple of special, not-so-average things about our state. One is that it holds the distinction of bordering more states than any other in Mexico. In the USA, it's Missouri and Tennessee that hold the record for each bordering eight other states, but San Luis Potosí is the winner by touching nine neighbors. (Padre Salvador, one of the priests in Ciudad del Maíz, was in an expansive mood recently and sang us a song about San Luis Potosí and its ten neighbors, but the lyrics included a state that is only nearby and doesn't actually share a border. So we're sticking with nine as the official count.)

The other geographical oddity that makes San Luis Potosí famous is its shape. There's no denying the state outline looks like a Scottish Terrier. With its oversize ears pointing north and its furry nose headed toward the west, the state just about jumps off the map and onto your lap. (Incidentally, here in Papagayos we're on the doggie's back. Think of our location as a flea.)

So my brother Warren was recently making friends with a stranger in Virginia. When he found out the stranger was Mexican, Warren casually mentioned that he has a brother (that's me) living in Mexico. "Oh, in what state?" the stranger asked. Warren couldn't remember the name San Luis Potosí, but he did remember enough to describe it. "Well, on the map it looks like a Scottie Dog."

"I'm from San Luis Potosí too!" the stranger exclaimed. "That's my state!"