A few hours later my tired, dusty car and I had our first glimpse of the Pacific Ocean. San Francisco, we have arrived!
Monday, October 4, 2010
California: Reaching the Pacific!
From Reno, Nevada I drove hard to San Francisco. No stops, just a lot of interstate. It was a bit of a culture shock, seeing other cars and highways with three, four, or five lanes of traffic all heading the same direction. Here's a picture of the mountains near Lake Tahoe:
I was surprised how different the land was almost immediately after crossing the border. I guess I was expecting it to be an arbitrary border, like the one between Utah and Nevada, especially since on a map it looks like a straight line just drawn by someone thousands of miles away. I suppose that's true, but the line was drawn to go around Reno, and Reno is located at the foot of the mountains...
A few hours later my tired, dusty car and I had our first glimpse of the Pacific Ocean. San Francisco, we have arrived!
A few hours later my tired, dusty car and I had our first glimpse of the Pacific Ocean. San Francisco, we have arrived!
Nevada: the Loneliest Road in America
Leaving Utah with its canyons and trilobites behind, I headed into Nevada on Highway 50, which is known as "The Loneliest Road in America". It's even on the signs:
And it certainly is empty. Towns are all at least fifty miles apart, and most are nothing more than a gas station and a post office. The land consists of perfectly flat valleys with dry, salty-looking lake beds that last about twenty miles, followed by a line of mountains rising up a thousand feet, then going down to the next flat valley. Here are some pictures of emptiness, Nevada-style:
But Highway 50 has its share of geology and history. This is where the Pony Express traveled, carrying important mail from Missouri to California during the tense period leading up to the Civil War. Men rode horses across the scrub desert, changing horses every ten miles at station houses located anywhere water could be found. Here's the remains of one station house:
Looks like a lonesome place to live and work, huh? Here's another station, located near a local phenomenon known as Sand Mountain:
Sand Mountain is a spot where the sand and dust from a dry lake bed forty miles wide all gets dumped by the wind as it hits the nearest mountain range. It's huge, and people bring dune buggies and sand surf boards to play on the dunes. Here's a closer picture (but still not close enough to see the dune buggies):
Nevada also has fantastic camping. I stayed at a place called Hickson Petroglyphs. There were petroglyphs, not quite as dramatic or clear as the ones in Moab, but it also had 180 degree panoramic views of a fantastic night sky and a moon bright enough to cast a shadow, even though it was only half-full. Just down the road I found a place that will DEFINITELY be where I camp next time I find myself on America's loneliest road: Spencer Hot Springs. This is a lone hill three miles down a dirt road that has several seeping hot springs on it. Some have been developed into pools, and folks have made campsites all around. It is BLM land, so there are no facilities, but leave-no-trace camping is allowed. I stopped by for a much needed soak. It's hard to beat waking up in the first pre-dawn light, walking to see some petroglyphs, watching the sun rise over the desert, then heading to the hot springs for an early AM soak. Here's the view from "my" spring:
Nevada, you have been a wonderful surprise!
But Highway 50 has its share of geology and history. This is where the Pony Express traveled, carrying important mail from Missouri to California during the tense period leading up to the Civil War. Men rode horses across the scrub desert, changing horses every ten miles at station houses located anywhere water could be found. Here's the remains of one station house:
Looks like a lonesome place to live and work, huh? Here's another station, located near a local phenomenon known as Sand Mountain:
Sand Mountain is a spot where the sand and dust from a dry lake bed forty miles wide all gets dumped by the wind as it hits the nearest mountain range. It's huge, and people bring dune buggies and sand surf boards to play on the dunes. Here's a closer picture (but still not close enough to see the dune buggies):
Nevada, you have been a wonderful surprise!
Western Utah: TRILOBITES!
Leaving Moab I started on one of my bigger detours. Way back in Chicago I had heard of a fossil place where you can dig for trilobites. Getting there meant detouring two hours north of I-70 through some very empty country, then down twenty miles of dirt road just south of the empty quarter of Utah, the section with nothing but salt flats. So I found myself camping near Delta, Utah, and waking up before dawn to pack up my tent and hit the road. By 9:30 I had turned onto a gravel road leading as far as the eye could see before hitting some distant hills, and by 10:00 I found this:
Twenty minutes later I had a plastic bucket and a rock hammer and was sitting on top of a large pile of shale, happily hunting. Here's one of my first finds:
I was quite the happy camper! And surprisingly, I was not alone in my enthusiasm! There were a few retired couples pounding away at the rocks as well, and then as I was getting ready to take my bucket of trilobites and head out, a van of Japanese businessmen arrived, accompanied by their American businessman colleague. I have no idea where they were from, as I was six or seven hours from Salt Lake City, and three hours from anyplace that had more than a gas station, and twenty miles down a dirt road at a place with no water or food, but they were very excited about fossils and were chatting and pounding rocks and comparing trilobite finds. It was a surreal experience. I think I saw more people at the trilobite quarry than I did in the rest of the state of Utah!
I suppose at this point, I should describe what trilobites actually are. Trilobites are arthropods from 300-500 million years ago. They resemble miniature horseshoe crabs, or little stink bugs, and they lived in shallow seas from the Cambrian until the mass extinction that killed most of life on Earth at the end of the Permian. They swam around before anything was moving on the land, and their appearance in the fossil record is the official mark of the beginning of the Cambrian period. They are cool little bugs! Here are closeups of some of my fossils:
A final note to my family - I hope you like trilobites too, because you're likely to find one in your stocking this year...
I suppose at this point, I should describe what trilobites actually are. Trilobites are arthropods from 300-500 million years ago. They resemble miniature horseshoe crabs, or little stink bugs, and they lived in shallow seas from the Cambrian until the mass extinction that killed most of life on Earth at the end of the Permian. They swam around before anything was moving on the land, and their appearance in the fossil record is the official mark of the beginning of the Cambrian period. They are cool little bugs! Here are closeups of some of my fossils:
Eastern Utah: Moab!
Tuesday morning after leaving the "Trail Through Time" I crossed the border into Utah, then took a detour south to Moab.
Getting off the interstate I took the back way, following the Colorado River's canyon south and west. It's not quite the Grand Canyon that the Colorado carves down in Arizona, but it was still quite a sight to see, especially in the morning light:
Moab itself is an outdoor paradise. Arches and Canyonlands National Parks, plus Manti-La Sal National Forest and Dead Horse Point State Park, the list goes on and on. With only a few hours to spend in the area, I opted for "none of the above" and went for some lesser-known hikes in the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) areas. I picked highway 279 because it had several short hikes that would let me see arches, canyons, petroglyphs, and dinosaur tracks and would not be mobbed with people. What could be better?
It was incredibly hot, hotter than I thought was possible for the end of September (this was on Sept. 28, and it was easily in the mid 90s), but I had lots of water and a supply of tasty peaches, so off I went! Here's a bunch of pictures of Corona Arch (notice my pink face - it's hot!):
This one is a panoramic I took from underneath the arch, looking up. And then, one final picture of a second "arch" along the trail (it's more of a cave with a circular hole in the roof, but still very cool).
One thing pictures can't show is the absolute silence of the place. The arch is about a mile and a half up a small trail, and I only saw one other couple on the trail, leaving as I was starting my hike. It was so hot, nothing was moving, just a few lizards skittering across the sand on their way from one shadow to the next. No planes flying overhead, no cars driving by, no footsteps, no voices, no wind in the trees, no running water, just silence. It was a quite an experience, and I had it again on each of my hikes in Moab, as soon as I was out of sight of my car.
The next hike was a double whammy: Petroglyphs and dinosaur footprints. I scrambled up some rocks and around a corner to find them both. Unfortuantely, the petroglyphs had been defaced. So here are the dino tracks only:
On the next hike, where the petroglyphs were not advertised at the trailhead, I just was lucky enough to be looking up at the right time, and then scrambled up to them (and almost got stuck when I tried to take a different way back down... oops!)
There were also herds of animals and groups of dancing figures, quite an impressive arrangement of figures, looking like they had been done in batches at different times.
My final hike for the day took me up to the top of the cliffs to the plateau above. I wasn't expecting what I found: a bizarre landscape of petrified sand dunes, and off in the distance, a formation that I believe is called "The Needles".
With my water supply running low and several hundred miles between me and my final destination for the day, I decided it was time to head back to the car. I'd like to come back to Moab sometime when I have a week or more to spend really exploring.
Getting off the interstate I took the back way, following the Colorado River's canyon south and west. It's not quite the Grand Canyon that the Colorado carves down in Arizona, but it was still quite a sight to see, especially in the morning light:
Moab itself is an outdoor paradise. Arches and Canyonlands National Parks, plus Manti-La Sal National Forest and Dead Horse Point State Park, the list goes on and on. With only a few hours to spend in the area, I opted for "none of the above" and went for some lesser-known hikes in the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) areas. I picked highway 279 because it had several short hikes that would let me see arches, canyons, petroglyphs, and dinosaur tracks and would not be mobbed with people. What could be better?
It was incredibly hot, hotter than I thought was possible for the end of September (this was on Sept. 28, and it was easily in the mid 90s), but I had lots of water and a supply of tasty peaches, so off I went! Here's a bunch of pictures of Corona Arch (notice my pink face - it's hot!):
This one is a panoramic I took from underneath the arch, looking up. And then, one final picture of a second "arch" along the trail (it's more of a cave with a circular hole in the roof, but still very cool).
One thing pictures can't show is the absolute silence of the place. The arch is about a mile and a half up a small trail, and I only saw one other couple on the trail, leaving as I was starting my hike. It was so hot, nothing was moving, just a few lizards skittering across the sand on their way from one shadow to the next. No planes flying overhead, no cars driving by, no footsteps, no voices, no wind in the trees, no running water, just silence. It was a quite an experience, and I had it again on each of my hikes in Moab, as soon as I was out of sight of my car.
The next hike was a double whammy: Petroglyphs and dinosaur footprints. I scrambled up some rocks and around a corner to find them both. Unfortuantely, the petroglyphs had been defaced. So here are the dino tracks only:
On the next hike, where the petroglyphs were not advertised at the trailhead, I just was lucky enough to be looking up at the right time, and then scrambled up to them (and almost got stuck when I tried to take a different way back down... oops!)
There were also herds of animals and groups of dancing figures, quite an impressive arrangement of figures, looking like they had been done in batches at different times.
My final hike for the day took me up to the top of the cliffs to the plateau above. I wasn't expecting what I found: a bizarre landscape of petrified sand dunes, and off in the distance, a formation that I believe is called "The Needles".
With my water supply running low and several hundred miles between me and my final destination for the day, I decided it was time to head back to the car. I'd like to come back to Moab sometime when I have a week or more to spend really exploring.
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Western Colorado: Adventures Through Time
Leaving Boulder, I drove across Colorado and stayed the night with a friend in Fruita, about 15 miles from the Utah border. Fruita is right on the Colorado River, which has carved big canyons through the rock. They've discovered dinosaur fossils there, so of course I went on a dinosaur hunt.
First, the geology. Near Fruita I found the Colorado National Monument, with impressive canyons and cliffs. Here you can get an idea of the landscape, and see Fruita peeking through the end of one of the canyons:
But look again and notice the rock layers. The cliffs are mostly red sandstone, from a time when this area looked like the Sahara. Above that and later in time is the Morrison Formation, which is full of DINOSAURS! You can see this layer as one of the lighter color bands at the very top of the cliff in shadow on the left side. (Thanks, random person with a camper van who was boring her companion with yet another geology lesson when I walked up and got excited and started asking questions, and sorry to the bored companion for lengthening the lesson!)
Armed with new knowledge, I headed to the Dinosaur Museum in Fruita. This place is packed with fossils from the area and a couple of rather frightening robotic dinosaur dioramas that move and roar. And in the back, big glass windows into the work room where people clean and process fossils as they come in from the field. Very cool!
The next morning as I left Fruita I stopped at the Walk Through Time park. This is an empty hillside where several dinosaur skeletons have been found, and new excavations are still happening. Safely away from the active sites, a little loop trail goes by a few fossils that have been left in the rock. Here's my foot about to step on a Diplodocus neck!
And then further along the trail I found a rock with something sticking out of it. There was no helpful labeling sign, so I have no idea whether this was once a piece of wood or bone or what, but it looks like a fossil to me!
So, with another fossil find under my belt, I hopped back in the car and headed into Utah....
First, the geology. Near Fruita I found the Colorado National Monument, with impressive canyons and cliffs. Here you can get an idea of the landscape, and see Fruita peeking through the end of one of the canyons:
But look again and notice the rock layers. The cliffs are mostly red sandstone, from a time when this area looked like the Sahara. Above that and later in time is the Morrison Formation, which is full of DINOSAURS! You can see this layer as one of the lighter color bands at the very top of the cliff in shadow on the left side. (Thanks, random person with a camper van who was boring her companion with yet another geology lesson when I walked up and got excited and started asking questions, and sorry to the bored companion for lengthening the lesson!)
Armed with new knowledge, I headed to the Dinosaur Museum in Fruita. This place is packed with fossils from the area and a couple of rather frightening robotic dinosaur dioramas that move and roar. And in the back, big glass windows into the work room where people clean and process fossils as they come in from the field. Very cool!
The next morning as I left Fruita I stopped at the Walk Through Time park. This is an empty hillside where several dinosaur skeletons have been found, and new excavations are still happening. Safely away from the active sites, a little loop trail goes by a few fossils that have been left in the rock. Here's my foot about to step on a Diplodocus neck!
And then further along the trail I found a rock with something sticking out of it. There was no helpful labeling sign, so I have no idea whether this was once a piece of wood or bone or what, but it looks like a fossil to me!
So, with another fossil find under my belt, I hopped back in the car and headed into Utah....
Friday, October 1, 2010
Lost Items
My bread crumb trail of lost belongings keeps getting longer... Here's a brief list so far.
Massachusetts: Shampoo (that I thought I had left in Ohio, but my grandmother found it and claims it is doing wonderful things for her hair)
Ohio: Sun hat (left in Karl's car)
Chicago: Sweatshirt
Boulder: This one takes the cake so far. I left sunscreen, a GPS, and the battery charger for my camera. Oops! Luckily, the GPS and camera charger and I will be reunited in San Francisco.
Massachusetts: Shampoo (that I thought I had left in Ohio, but my grandmother found it and claims it is doing wonderful things for her hair)
Ohio: Sun hat (left in Karl's car)
Chicago: Sweatshirt
Boulder: This one takes the cake so far. I left sunscreen, a GPS, and the battery charger for my camera. Oops! Luckily, the GPS and camera charger and I will be reunited in San Francisco.
Boulder Colorado Part 3: Music and Entertainment
Just in case hiking and biking and the great outdoors were not enough fun, Erin and Keri and Jim and crew made sure that there was lots more going on. Again, I'll organize by theme rather than by date.
For music, it appears that everyone in Colorado plays in a band, mostly Bluegrass (although I suspect Erin was biasing the sample in an attempt to lure me out here on a more permanent basis). We saw members of the Yonder Mountain String Band twice, once in Lyons at a late-night show with just two of the band members, and then a second time at the Gold Hill Inn, which was just barely spared by the Fourmile Canyon fire a few weeks ago. The Gold Hill Inn gathering was a last minute community benefit concert involving everyone who was in the area, and the entire neighborhood showed up in this tiny backyard pavilion to listen to music and check in with neighbors they haven't seen since before the fire, including those who lost their homes. Here's a picture of everyone on stage, and another shot of Erin grooving to the music.
This jam session included Nick and Helen Forester, the hosts of E-Town, the awesome music show on NPR. Earlier in the week we saw a live taping of E-Town with Cyndi Lauper and Charlie Musselwhite. I didn't realize that a lot of the music played on E-Town is actually Nick Forester playing and singing. He switches instruments while singing during a set change. It's pretty impressive! We also caught some local live music at a place in Denver called the Cheeky Monk - Angie Stevens sang a full set of songs that were just phenomenal.
For sports entertainment, I put on all my purple clothes and we went to a Rockies game! Sadly, Rockies lost in what had to be just about the quickest game ever. It was so quick that it was still getting dark when the game ended and several of the East Coast games weren't over yet! But I got my ball park frank and got to hang out with my friend Ari!
Also sort of in the sports entertainment category (sport for me, entertainment for anyone watching), Erin took me to a kickboxing class at her gym. Now, anyone who knows me well knows that I have a very bad sense of rhythm. So imagine me trying to "and jump and kick and punch and turn, and jump and kick and punch and turn" in line with 15 other people. Now further imagine that halfway through the routine I bump my hand and reopen a cut (from repairing a toilet) and promptly start dripping blood... "jump and kick and punch and OOOPS! I think I just dripped on the floor!" After dancing around with my thumb in my mouth for a few minutes (skipping the "and punch" moves) I finally gave up, ran out the side door and found a bathroom to clean up. And after class, I cleaned up the drips.... I guess kickboxing is not for me.
For music, it appears that everyone in Colorado plays in a band, mostly Bluegrass (although I suspect Erin was biasing the sample in an attempt to lure me out here on a more permanent basis). We saw members of the Yonder Mountain String Band twice, once in Lyons at a late-night show with just two of the band members, and then a second time at the Gold Hill Inn, which was just barely spared by the Fourmile Canyon fire a few weeks ago. The Gold Hill Inn gathering was a last minute community benefit concert involving everyone who was in the area, and the entire neighborhood showed up in this tiny backyard pavilion to listen to music and check in with neighbors they haven't seen since before the fire, including those who lost their homes. Here's a picture of everyone on stage, and another shot of Erin grooving to the music.
This jam session included Nick and Helen Forester, the hosts of E-Town, the awesome music show on NPR. Earlier in the week we saw a live taping of E-Town with Cyndi Lauper and Charlie Musselwhite. I didn't realize that a lot of the music played on E-Town is actually Nick Forester playing and singing. He switches instruments while singing during a set change. It's pretty impressive! We also caught some local live music at a place in Denver called the Cheeky Monk - Angie Stevens sang a full set of songs that were just phenomenal.
For sports entertainment, I put on all my purple clothes and we went to a Rockies game! Sadly, Rockies lost in what had to be just about the quickest game ever. It was so quick that it was still getting dark when the game ended and several of the East Coast games weren't over yet! But I got my ball park frank and got to hang out with my friend Ari!
Also sort of in the sports entertainment category (sport for me, entertainment for anyone watching), Erin took me to a kickboxing class at her gym. Now, anyone who knows me well knows that I have a very bad sense of rhythm. So imagine me trying to "and jump and kick and punch and turn, and jump and kick and punch and turn" in line with 15 other people. Now further imagine that halfway through the routine I bump my hand and reopen a cut (from repairing a toilet) and promptly start dripping blood... "jump and kick and punch and OOOPS! I think I just dripped on the floor!" After dancing around with my thumb in my mouth for a few minutes (skipping the "and punch" moves) I finally gave up, ran out the side door and found a bathroom to clean up. And after class, I cleaned up the drips.... I guess kickboxing is not for me.
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