Petrified Forest National Park is an easy exit from I-40 in the wide open spaces of Northern Arizona. Perhaps it is those vast desert plains, or deep blue skies, that keep drivers focused on the road to Grand Canyon or beyond. They are missing a starkly haunting place of spectacularly colored patterned petrified logs, and not so easily seen, but just as spectacular: dinosaur remains, petroglyphs, and fossils, and the mystery that surrounds their existence here.

Recently Claire and I were lucky enough to catch a hike guided by the park paleontologist and an interpretive ranger. The short, two mile or so, hike took us away from the road and interpretive signs and into the washes and flats where dinosaurs died 225 million  years ago in the late Triassic Period. We found pieces of bone and Claire even found an intact tooth.  The stark landscape adds to the mystery and amazement of the realization that you are holding a thing that was once part of a living Stagonolepis so long ago. Nothing like science to put one’s lifespan into perspective.

The Olympic Peninsula of Washington State is not as famous for sunset skies as some places, but when the sun has a little space between clouds to work with, spectacular results. Some of the best skies are late in the day in winter. It seems like winter is coming early this year (La Nina), and this evening sky gives strong hints of things to come.

We were shopping later that evening and I overheard this conversation from one woman to another, “Ha! I can’t buy anything for the freezer, there’s room for nothing in there but fish”

I should have such a problem. Salmon is $11/lb here, more expensive than the lower 48. Can’t figure that one out.

I spent quite a bit of time on St. Helens in the few years I lived in Portland before the eruption. It wasn’t a high mountain as Northwest Volcanoes go, and not a very technical climb, and I soloed her several times for fitness, and pleasure. It was a short drive from Portland and I went often. We were still new lovers, when she began to rumble and belch ash. Soon she wasn’t so pretty anymore, smudged with black and shedding great avalanches of snow, ballooning in an unflattering, and threatening way. I stopped going to see her when the area closed. Good thing. Hoping for a break in the awful Northwest spring weather earlier this week (will summer ever come?), Claire and I slept in Turtle at a disused log landing near the mountain. The next morning we began to ride fairly early, and encountered only a few sprinkles. We were wet with sweat and beginning to chill by the time we gained Johnston Ridge, but had extra clothes. Our Arizona blood is beginning to thicken a bit, but just a bit. The crater socked in, so we didn’t stay long, but were able to get a few photos on the return ride, when the clouds broke fitfully a few times.

I skied to a nearby ridge with friends the first February following the eruption. We snow camped with fantastic views of the still actively growing central plug. It glowed in the dark, and the splintered trees surrounding us stood out in stark gray strangeness to the white snow. During the first night we all felt an earthquake, but nobody mentioned it until late the next morning; never speak the name of Evil. It was just too scary an idea that there might be a new big eruption while exposed. There were constant belches of steam and ash from the crater. We were reluctant to leave. I never went back. I wanted to remember her that way, and a ski trip was an excellent way to say goodbye.

The eruption of Mt. St. Helens was the most spectacular and significant natural event of my lifetime, so far. I had ash on my car more than once, and lucky to witness natural history. I was also fortunate to have been not too near my mountain.

I’ve seen her at here worst, and now being recolonized with trees and wildlife. But my most treasured memories are of the perfect symmetrical cone I knew best. Someday she will rebuild that cone, but none of us will be here to see it. And, in another 10,000  years or so, she’ll blow her top again, and contribute to Earth’s surface and atmosphere, the gasses and ash that ultimately helped create the conditions that led to us. The great mandala rolls on.

Continued appropriation of their bamboo woods habitat has led to designation of them as an endangered species. Captive breeding has reasonable success, but there is not enough habitat to warrant reintroduction to the wild. China’s increasing population leaves little hope of that changing.

We recently rode our bicycle from Chengdu across the SW China mountains (Himalayas and Tibetan plateau). We began in Chengdu and visited the Giant Panda Breeding Center. Lucky, our stuffed panda, made the visit with and was not sure what to think of the really really big (to him) pandas. We did not see any pandas as we climbed through the life zones of the mountains. Though we certainly saw enough bamboo, it was interspersed with villages, farms and other human uses of the land.

Some Photos from the Giant Panda Breeding Center in Chengdu:

Lucky at the Giant Panda Breeding Center, Chengdu, China

Giant panda doing what pandas do best, eat.

Breakfast

Focused on food

This panda found a stash of bamboo, and a good place to watch tourists

A young panda looking for trouble

Panda Cubs Like Climbing

The Chinese love their pandas!

White Sands National Monument sure can look like snow. It even crunches under tires like very cold snow. Spooky.

Cold on the feet too, in the early morning after a cold night.

Lots more life than expected. The gypsum holds water and the plants are able to get water even when it hasn’t rained in months. All they have to worry about are rockets falling from the sky from the White Sands Missile Range.

Things have changed: the long drive up the Peninsula is now cluttered with hundreds of huge (read, very expensive) beach houses on stilts, just waiting for the Big One. Don’t worry, we taxpayers will help them out, and rebuild their beach too.

But once you get inside the gate of the park, much is the same as it was a decade ago, except that it is now bone dry in the dunes, result of the very serious drought the Southeast is suffering now. The night is quiet now, compared to the night walk we took then, because their is no water for the sonorous critters and they have gone elsewhere, or died. We walked several miles today and saw not one sign of alligator, and no water for frogs or other fresh water dwellers.

Another consequence of the drought is that Atlanta has taken the fresh water that used to flow naturally into the estuary just east of here; now the oysters, and the ecosystem dependent on them are dying. The oysters, and the oystermen don’t have a chance in Washington against growth crazy Atlanta.

But the beach and dunes are still beautiful, and nearly empty this time of year. I don’t know why so few people come here in winter; morning fog, but 70 degrees by noon and beautiful sunsets, but we’re glad. As far as I am concerned, this is the best part of Florida, by a long shot; perhaps that is because it has the fewest people. Most of the rest of Florida is too crowded.

beach kiss 

final cast         

beach runner

bird berries

snow?

good night

Dinosaur National Monument Panorama

Panorama in Dinosar NM (you should see it large)

We parked at an overlook near the top of Douglas pass, and after a run-in with a curious cow butting Turtle on the grill, had a peaceful, cool night in aspen country. The next day we spent the morning of June 4, hiking and photographing Freemont rock art of Canyon Pintado for a future story. Then we drove to Dinosaur National Monument Canyon Area visitor center and decided to explore the Harpers Corner road and hike the trail to the Green/Yampa River overlook, a truly spectacular vista of colorful rocks and deep gorges. It was nice to change the sagebrush juniper scents for the pitchy scent of pinon pine and crisp air of 7,000 feet. There were new wildflowers, or perhaps stunted versions of familiar ones; the globe mallow that grows to four feet in Tucson and was maybe four inches here. I would consider this canyon section of Dinosaur NP to be a real hidden gem of the park system. Most people go to the Vernal, Utah entrance where the dino bones are kept, and though nice, it is not as spectacular or remote in feeling as the Canyon District. Having BLM nearby for bush camping is a plus.

At the overlook we conversed with a pleasant couple from Virginia out for a fast-paced three-month trip in their new class-c. When the subject turned to age, the man and I (we expect an email with their id’s any day) turned out to have the same birth date of 6.7.44, or the day after D-day, the beginning of the end of WWII. Neither of us had ever met anyone born on that day, so we posed for our wives. After that long busy day, we found a county road onto BLM land, drove a couple of miles and had yet another million dollar view for a bush camp (boondocks are in parking lots or on main road, bush camps are hidden on public lands). We had some spectacular clouds that had us wondering about getting stuck, but got only a few sprinkles. The cows left Turtle alone.

BLM bush camp among the sagebrush and cows. Clouds provided only a few sprinkles, thankfully.

June 5. Craig. Colorado.

The library has no wi fi, but we found a hot spot at a local hotel, and parked across the street. We tried to find the manager of the Moffat County Fairgrounds, but failed; we stayed anyway but felt we should leave early. Avoiding those RV parks takes a lot of work sometimes. June 6. Craig. High winds and the local Hot Shots are busy chasing down small fires from lightning and winds are gusting to 50mph. Following this is a cold front our weather radio will take night temps down to the mid 20’s; from summer hot to winter cold in two days. It’s springtime in the Rockies! We were going to ride Rabbit Ears Pass east of Steamboat Springs, but snow and cold are forecast for several days. Bummer. We will work here a couple of days and see what comes next.