Drive Me To The Moon ...

“Fly me to the moon

Let me play among the stars

Let me see what spring is like

On a-Jupiter and Mars

 

In other words: hold my hand

In other words: baby, kiss me …

 

… In other words: please be true

In other words: I love you”

   ~ “Fly Me to the Moon”

 ~ song written by Bart Howard & made famous by the wonderful Frank Sinatra

 

  ~originally titled “In Other Words,” the song was written in 1954 by Bart Howard. The first recording of the song was made in 1954 by Kaye Ballard. Frank Sinatra’s 1964 version was closely associated with the Apollo missions to the Moon.

 

Frank Sinatra sang “Fly Me to the Moon,” but in the beautiful surreal of my imagination, those in this vehicle can say, “drive me to the moon” as they come upon a full Snow Moon gently dipping into the Little Lehigh Creek as a winter sunset looms in late February.

 

I created this image by blending my painterly, HDR shot of a vehicle motoring along the road at Lehigh Parkway, Allentown, Pennsylvania with my capture of the full Snow Moon over the West End of Allentown on February 24, 2024.

 

February’s full moon was called Snow Moon by many Native American cultures due to the typically heavy snowfall that occurs during this time of year. According to the National Weather Service, February is the United States’ snowiest month.

 

The Snow Moon was 2024’s only micro full moon. Micro moons appear about 10 percent smaller than a normal full moon and are about 14 percent smaller than the other extreme in appearance – a supermoon. Micro full moons occur when the moon is at its farthest point away from Earth in the orbit called apogee. Not only did the Snow Moon look smaller, but the added distance reduces how much sunlight can reflect back to Earth. This micro moon looked about 30 percent dimmer than normal.

           

This was the last full moon of the 2024 winter season.

 

Snow-Dipped Robin Hood Dell ...

“ … Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,

In the bleak midwinter …”

   “In the Bleak Midwinter”

  ~ Christina Rossetti

    ~ 1830 ~ 1894

 ~ “In the Bleak Midwinter” is a poem by English poet Christina Rossetti, commonly performed as a Christmas carol. The poem was first published under the title “A Christmas Carol” in the January 1872 issue of “Scribner’s Monthly.”

A snow-dipped Robin Hood Dell is dressed up in winter’s beauty in this infrared image as the waters of the Little Lehigh Creek flow beneath the bridge at Lehigh Parkway, Allentown, Pennsylvania on a mid-February afternoon soon after seven inches of snow blanketed the area.

 

Winter Still ...

“Listen to the silence inside the illusion of the world.”

            ~ Jack Kerouac

              ~ 1922 ~ 1969

 

The Coplay Creek rambles in winter’s silent beauty beside the Ironton Rail Trail on a late February afternoon in Egypt, Pennsylvania, as the season inches toward spring – but it is winter still.

 

The Ironton Rail Trail loops more than nine miles through Whitehall Township, the Borough of Coplay and North Whitehall Township.

The Ironton Railroad was a shortline railroad in Lehigh County. Originally built in 1861 to haul iron ore and limestone to blast furnaces along the Lehigh River, traffic later shifted to carrying Portland Cement when local iron mining declined in the early 20^th century. Much of the railroad had already been abandoned when it became part of Conrail in 1976, and the last of its trackage was removed in 1984.

In 1996, Whitehall Township purchased 9.2 miles of the right-of-way from Conrail, transforming it into the Ironton Rail Trail.