Shall We Go and Look at The Mountains?

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Photo #453: Look At MountainsLocation Taken: Banff National Park
Time Taken: June 2010

Shall we go and look at the mountains?

The towering peaks, rising towards the clouds.

The white streaks of snow in summer’s blazing sun.

The trees, growing shorter as the mountain grows taller.

The trickling tiny streams carving massive clefts in the rock.

Nay, we shall stare at glowing screens instead, seeing false images.

Tales of happenings elsewhere, of places grand beyond imagination, of life.

And in the learning of these tales, are we not choosing to deny such things for us?

For you can learn everything there is to know about something, and yet not know it until you go.

Go to see the mountains yourself, go to talk to people yourself, go to try all there is to try out there.

And yet, we sit, and learn, and laugh, never leaving our electronics, lost in the worlds we made ourselves, interacting only through a glowing screen showing us glimmers of what’s out there, never going to experience them ourselves.

Shall we go and look at the mountains?

  

This isn’t a short post because I suddenly noticed it was 11:50 and hadn’t updated, ok maybe it is.

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Photo #452: Snow TreesLocation Taken: Valparaiso, Indiana
Time Taken: February 2007

It’s midnight, why does it feel so hot?! I mean, it’s only 73 degrees farenhe- Oh, I guess that’s why it feels hot, it IS hot.

I hate it when the temperatures don’t drop down to reasonable levels by midnight…

I’mma just gonna sit here at look at snow pictures and wish I lived on an iceberg somewhere.

  

A History of Water in Rock

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Photo #451: Travertine CascadeLocation Taken: Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
Time Taken: October 2012

The Mammoth Hot Springs sure do live up to their name. They are a massive set of geothermic terraces, layered one on top of each other over the years as the build-up of new material changes where the best place for the water to escape the ground is located.

This particular section is at the lowest level of the hot springs, right by the town that sprung up as a resort based around the springs. The water cascading here goes into a stream that runs right through the middle of town. It’s no longer a town where people really live, the old buildings having been converted into upscale visitor’s attractions for the National Park.

It’s very easy to tell where the hot springs have been active most recently. The travertine rock that permeates the water and is deposited when it cools degrades rather quickly when it’s no longer being renewed. The brilliant white of pure travertine quickly turns into a mottled dark grey as it’s exposed to wind and rain and time. It also takes on the colors of impurities rather well, as seen in the brilliant reds and browns of this cascade.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about terraced hot springs like this is you can tell the way water has flowed in the past. Areas where the water is moving quickly downhill, you get that bumpy appearance of the upper part of the picture. Areas where the water slowed down and perhaps even stopped, terraces form. The edges of the pool or stream dry out faster and deposit more material, leading to a rim forming around the pool. And it just builds up the edge of the pool as the slow-moving water goes over the edge, briefly forming a very thin (and easily evaporated) area of water. And, of course, areas that aren’t part of the current water system age into the grey regions.

  

My earliest memories: rocks, snow, waterfalls. Can you tell I like geology?

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Photo #450: WaterfallingLocation Taken: Ithaca, New York
Time Taken: March 2010

One of my earliest memories, so faint that I’m half certain it’s a memory of a story my parents told me, is of playing under a waterfall. It didn’t really look like this one, but instead was a long thin stream coming over a cliff face, with a cave carved out at the bottom from years of heavy snow melt.

My memories place it in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, so it would have been when I was four or so, the year we lived up there. There are a lot of waterfalls in the UP, as it’s called, since the rock there is hard and the winters bring massive amounts of snow to cause springtime floods.  And my parents did take my sister and me to see the pretty falls in the area.

I’ve got a few other vague memories of that time. There was a sled-dog race or exhibition or the like that went through a downtown district. I recall watching it, being carried by my Dad. Then we ducked into a nearby store to warm up. I recall the explanation of why we ducked into the store better than the sled-dogs, by far.

I also recall the fantastic park that was right behind our house. I don’t recall if it had any playground features like slides or seesaws, but it had a fantastic large rock that I loved climbing on. It also had a gentle slope in one part of the park, where I once took a large toy truck, large enough that I could sit in it, and rolled down the hill in that. There’s probably a lesson or two about finding your own enjoyment in there.

And there’s also a memory of snow sculptures. There are parts of the UP that regularly get 10 feet of snow a year, including the town of Houghton, which is also home to the Michigan Technological University. Imagine what happens when a bunch of engineering students are presented with a massive amount of good snow and a snow sculpture contest at the annual winter carnival, and you can imagine how impressive the results are. Or, you know, you can watch a video or two to actually see what they do. They were certainly quite impressive when I was a little kid.

  

Spiky things, not so good for eating. Unless you remove the spikes… hmmm….

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Photo #449: Spiky CactiLocation Taken: Garfield Park Conservatory, Chicago, Illinois
Time Taken: April 2008

Cactus cactus, happy cactus~!

I like cacti!

They’re tasty!

No, really, they actually are edible and some species, such as prickly pear, are commonly used as food. My favorite cacti-type food is aloe, which is a succulent rather than a full cactus. They’re related plants, though, so close enough. I occasionally pick up an aloe drink (sweetened water with bits of aloe floating around) when my stomach feels a little off. The healing power of aloe, long used as a burn treatment, works rather well internally too. At first, I could only find them in Japanese and other Asian imported food markets, but it’s becoming more popular in the US, with brands like ALO now available in a lot of places. They’re pretty much only the natural food sections of stores (or in international sections, if they’re the Japanese drinks), but I can buy them at my local grocery stores.

Cacti has also been traditionally eaten by Mexicans, judging by the jars of pickled cactus I can also find at the grocery store. I’m not sure exactly how that tastes, since those jars are too large for me to want to buy just as an experiment. I don’t want to have to throw out four cups of cactus because I didn’t like the taste of the teaspoon worth I tried.

Most cacti species, though, aren’t used for food. Either they don’t taste good, they’re too woody, or they have too many spines to be worth bothering with. I suspect this particular cacti species falls into that last category, with that marvelous mane of spikes. Not that I tried to eat it. I doubt the botanical garden would have liked me taking bites out of their exhibits.