Listening To Santana On Wharton Ridge

Keith’s note: this just came out of my head as a stream of inter-related events. Some times I feel like Forrest Gump. Other times I am in Luke Skywalker mode. And this all happens inside a world not unlike the movie “Cloud Atlas” and sometimes the cult classic “Silent Running”. And at least once a day I go back to Everest Base Camp in my mind.

I am adding some things to my Astrobiology.com website including a update about Mars. I just played “Dance Sister Dance” – the original version – by Santana from 1976. I happened to glance over at a Snake plant that I have had for nearly 50 years. I got it out of a planter in 1977 at my friend’s cottage on Highland Lake in Winsted, Connecticut where we were going to school. The song was playing on the stereo. I then recalled seeing Santana play live in Waterbury, Connecticut in 1972 or 73.

I then recalled riding home from Seneca Rocks, West Virginia in an old red pickup truck with my friend from NASA HQ Bob Wharton. It was September 1991 and we had just done some multi-pitch rock climbs at Seneca Rocks. I was playing the one 8 track tape Bob had in his truck: “Amigos” by Santana. This song came on. I played it again an hour later.

Then I though of Bob’s unexpected passing in 2012 and my friend Dale Anderson’s exploits in Antarctica with him. Then I recalled how Dale just got a cool award from the Explorers Club and that picture of Dale and Bob and Sir Edmund Hillary in Antarctica that I first posted on my website in 1996.

Then I thought of being at Khumjung, Nepal in 2009 with some small Apollo 11 Moon rocks in my hand posing for a picture with a statue of Hillary. And then I thought of how those Moon rocks went to the summit of Mt. Everest with Astronaut Scott Parazynski and now these Moon rocks and a piece of the summit of Everest are now inside the space station that flies over my house – one that I helped build.

On board the ISS is a plant growth chamber that I got dedicated to my mentors from NASA Thora Halstead and Ken Souza – both of whom Bob Wharton, Dale Anderson and I worked with – at the same time I first met Scott Parazynski.

And then I let my mind drift to that location on Mars called “Wharton Ridge” that was named after Bob Wharton in 2016.

Someone needs to sit on that rock some day, eat lunch, and play “Dance Sister Dance” on their tricorder.