Have Hat, Will Travel
On Friday, I lost my hat. Fortunately, the loss was temporary.
There were extremely high winds most of Friday-- weather reports said 20 to 30 miles per hour. I was camping in Michigan and having a splendid time. I was wearing the hat I acquired from a souvenir dealer on the Piazza San Marco in 1989.
Photo courtesy Nora Chaus.
About 1430 EDT, as I was walking across the barren sands, my hat was lifted from my head and began to tumble. It hit the ground and rolled. And rolled. And rolled.
It was moving faster than I cared to chase it; I walked briskly after it. It was really rolling surprisingly far.
Eventually it ran out of steam, when it hit a patch of ground where some scrawny vegetation had sprouted up.
Hat in repose, following lengthy chase across sands.
When I caught up to it, I took some photos with my Droid cellphone. Then I took a GPS reading, and mailed the coordinates to myself. I recovered the hat.
Hat where it landed among the weeds.
I trudged back across the sands to the point where I had lost the hat. I took another GPS reading. The phone claimed an uncertainty of 2 meters.
Later I used Wolfram Alpha to calculate the distance of the roll:
209.9 ± 2 meters
Is this a record for this type of hat?
There were extremely high winds most of Friday-- weather reports said 20 to 30 miles per hour. I was camping in Michigan and having a splendid time. I was wearing the hat I acquired from a souvenir dealer on the Piazza San Marco in 1989.
Photo courtesy Nora Chaus.
About 1430 EDT, as I was walking across the barren sands, my hat was lifted from my head and began to tumble. It hit the ground and rolled. And rolled. And rolled.
It was moving faster than I cared to chase it; I walked briskly after it. It was really rolling surprisingly far.
Eventually it ran out of steam, when it hit a patch of ground where some scrawny vegetation had sprouted up.
Hat in repose, following lengthy chase across sands.
When I caught up to it, I took some photos with my Droid cellphone. Then I took a GPS reading, and mailed the coordinates to myself. I recovered the hat.
Hat where it landed among the weeds.
I trudged back across the sands to the point where I had lost the hat. I took another GPS reading. The phone claimed an uncertainty of 2 meters.
Later I used Wolfram Alpha to calculate the distance of the roll:
209.9 ± 2 meters
Is this a record for this type of hat?