Sound Travels

Returning to the house after walking Jasper at 1 a.m., I heard what sounded like stone slabs being dragged around. The scraping sounds were emanating from St. Joseph’s Cemetery, behind the Catholic Diocese. Hmmm, worrisome. Loose spirits afoot. 

I took Jasper over to the cemetery fence to investigate further, something he fully supported, since it helped prolong the walk. After awhile, I realized that what I was hearing was construction on the W-X segment of Highway 50, off in the distance, beyond the Catholic Diocese. 

As I recall from graduate school, sound tends to travel better under conditions of a surface temperature inversion. Sound travels faster in the warmer air aloft, and so bends down to the ground over distance. I could hear other sounds well too, like a person walking several hundred feet away. 

So, no spirits. Just science at work.