Busy day yesterday. Went to the Radcliff/Ft Knox area in search of geodes. Then took off for aurora-watching in Goshen at 11pm.

The geode hunting trip was a marginal success. First we tried a large creek near Radcliff. I had to go knocking on sketchy trailer doors to ask if we could enter the creek from the back of their property. This is serious Trump country, so every trailer down by the river had flags, signs about guns and a lot of stuff piled around their place. I halfway expected to be staring down a gun each time the door was answered, but it was all women holding down the fort, some with kids and several of them with the strong smell of pot coming through the door. Guess there’s not much to do during the day around Radcliff. Nonetheless, I got permission from a couple of them. But in each spot the creek was too deep to wade and the rocks looked wrong – more like limestone, square chunks, not round.

Next we tried a spot recommended by the Rockhounds website, a smaller creek running through an RV park in Vine Grove. There we found good access and a few small geodes, just 2-4 inches in diameter. So it wasn’t a shutout. Here’s a picture of the creek in question. Gorgeous.

We weren’t going to try and see the aurora Thursday evening – we had decided to wait until Saturday when most websites said chances would be best. But then texts started coming in from local folks who were seeing the lights here in KY, so off we went. Here’s one of the better shots I got while in Goshen, looking northwest toward Louisville. Not bad, but nothing compared to a shot received from the Ashland area (title picture above). The geomagnetic storm was strong in eastern KY.

It’s kind of amazing that we’ve seen the aurora twice in 2024, in Kentucky. Guess I didn’t need to spend beaucoup money to chase the lights in Norway after all. Plus we’ve seen a comet. So Louisville is now the champion of rare celestial events, in my opinion.