Gleanings of the Week Ending March 7, 2015

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

'Bionic' eye allows man to see wife for first time in a decade - The system is not yet advanced enough to provide high resolution vision - but it is enough to improve quality of life….and sets the stage for more development of similar devices. Certain types of blindness (caused by retina problems, not the optic nerve) are candidates for this type of ‘bionic’ eye.

Global Pesticide Map Shows Large Areas of High Water Pollution Risk - Enlarge the map in this article; what is the risk in the area where you live? In mine is high/very high…..that’s not good.

Economic models provide insights into global sustainability challenges - Making decisions based on simplifying assumptions - which is what we normally do - may not be wise. The advent to models that can help us integrate what we know about global economics, geography, ecology and environmental sciences may provide some surprising insights and lead to better decisions.

Twelve Milkweeds for Monarchs - Wow! There are a lot more different kinds of milkweed than I anticipated.

Food Additives Linked to Inflammation - Yet another reason to reduce the amount of processed food you consume.

Special Tours Offered At Mesa Verde National Park - Something to remember about Mesa Verde. My husband I enjoyed our visit almost 40 years ago and have been talking about visiting again.

Lab-on-paper developed for rapid, inexpensive medical diagnostics - Point-of-care testing is projected to expand over the next few years. Imagine not having to wait for several days to get lab results for your annual physical!

Nine steps to survive 'most explosive era of infrastructure expansion in human history' - Bottom line: The builders of infrastructure need to consider the full context of their projects….not just who will benefit.

The Chemistry of Colored Glass - Glass is one of my favorite materials. This post includes a graphic that talks about what is added to the basic soda-lime glass to create different colors of glass.

Seven strategies to advance women in science - Good points. We’ve been trying some of these things for at least the past 40 years…..maybe it is doing ALL of them that will make the difference.

F. Kaid Benfield: How to Create Healthy Environments for People - There seem to be quite a few articles this week with lists. Here is the last one! All these ideas seem to make sense….so why are they not already part of the way development takes place?

Master Naturalist Training - Week 3

River Birch

White Birch

This week was the third of eight days of training to become a Master Naturalist in Maryland. The forecast was for rain all day but it held off long enough for us to take two short hikes - one for each of the topics for the day: Botany and Mammals. We tromped through snow to look at buds, bark and dry plants. I managed to get some good close ups of bark. How many of these would you recognize: river birch (peeling bark), white birch (white with dark striations), dogwood (blocky bark…but the buds are easier for me to use for identification), and tulip poplar (complete with lichen growing beneath the furrows? Can you guess what the hairy vine is growing up this tulip poplar trunk?

Dogwood

Tulip poplar (lichen)

Tulip poplar (poison ivy)

The second hike was for mammals which was harder for several reasons: mammals are very good at hiding, it was wet (snow melt and sprinkles), the freeze thaw cycle had distorted the tracks even though we were able to recognize some deer tracks, and the one non-deer scat we found was dissolving in a puddle of melt water (although it did include hair so was from a carnivore). I managed to get snow over the top of my boots a couple of times; I took the boots off to let them dry out along with my socks while we finished up the class.

Now that I’ve had those two short hikes I am looking forward to the great thaw and run off….and a good round of picture taking of winter trees for shape and bark….may some buds before they pop open (or right after). I’m keen to create a tree tour of the Belmont location (where our class is held) as my project associated with the master naturalist training.

Like the previous sessions - the Wednesday class day dodged the hazardous weather. Yesterday was very snowy in Maryland!

Previous posts: Week 1, Week 2

Gleanings of the Week Ending February 28, 2015

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Pollinator Partnership Planting Guides - Planning a garden? How about giving the pollinators in your area a boost too? This site has a planting guide for ‘ecoregions’ in the US - accessed by entering your zipcode!

A Wet and Wild look Inside the 'Mushroom Houses' Of a Fungi Farm - Ever wonder how mushrooms you buy in the grocery store are grown? This post includes a short video. If we had household gardener robots - would you grow mushrooms as well as vegetables?

The Surprising, Depressing Reason Why City-Dwelling Robins Sing at Night - When I saw the picture at the front of this post, my first thought was “that’s not a robin.” But it is - a European robin. I was thinking of the North American variety. It is disturbing that our lights are messing up circadian rhythms - our own and other organisms.

What is the oldest city in the world? - It is surprisingly controversial. How many of the possibilities in the article have your heard about before?

Deconstructing mental illness through ultradian rhythms - A study that suggests that regular meals and early bedtimes may lead to a better life and prevent the onset of mental illness. The study discovered a new dopamine-based rhythm generator. The full paper is available here.

Retracing the roots of fungal symbioses - Mycorrhizal fungi live on the roots of host plants where they exchange sugars that plants produce for mineral nutrients that fungi absorb from the soil. It is hard to visualize - and often not well understood. Now genomics is being applied. Climate change will put whole new stresses on symbiotic relationships. I hope the knowledge gained from this type of research will help us maintain or increase food production as the environment changes.

Liquid Biopsy - Fast DNA-sequencing machines are leading to simple blood tests for cancer - There are some technologies that are so appealing…that you wish they were already available. But it is not easy. So far - the work is for specific types of cancers. The ability to do faster DNA sequencing is improving the prospects.

Ocean circulation change: Sea level spiked for two years along Northeastern North America - Climate change and the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC)…most of the models predict a weakening of the AMOC over the 21st century and it appears that there was changed in the 2009-2010 time frame.

Computational Anthropology Reveals How the Most Important People in History Vary by Culture - This study looked at articles about significant people in the English, German, Chinese and Japanese language versions of Wikipedia as a data source.

These Brilliantly Colored Bolivian Buildings Look Like Alien Spaceships - Wow! Almost too much color…but certainly different than the majority of buidlings.

Ten Days of Little Celebrations - February 2015

Noticing something worth celebration each day is an easy thing for me to do. The habit of writing it down reminds me to be grateful for these and a myriad of other things in my life. This month has been full of ‘little celebrations’ - as had been the usual for the past few months. Here are my top 10 for February 2015.

Zentangle® Class - There were 4 classes in the course and I got to three of them; there were 2 snow days so the class extended across 6 weeks rather than the 4 planned. And now I am hooked on Zentangles and do at least one each day because they make the day better.

A day in the 70s - I celebrated the warm days in Texas - knowing there would be none that warm in Maryland in February.

Snow - I do enjoy snow scenes (in Maryland) as long as I don’t have to drive until the roads are treated and plowed. It has been so cold that the snow has lingered for most of the month and I’ve enjoyed feeding the birds and watching it slowly melt in the sunshine.

Snowed in at home - There have been a few days when it was snowing hard enough that we didn’t get out at all --- and I celebrated the days warm at home. We had plenty of good food, a fire in the fireplace, and a movie to watch.

Piles of books - I ordered over 100 books via paperbackswap to use up most of my credits before mid-February and now I am savoring the piles. It is a lot like Christmas when they arrive in the mail and then I have lots to choose from for winter reading. Every time I see the stack - I celebrate all over again. I’ve read 6 so far so the pile will be around for a while.

Carrot cake - I couldn’t resist buying two slices in my Mother’s grocery store….and celebrated that they didn’t skimp on the spices. It was good carrot cake.

Sizzling apple pie - One of the Mexican food places I went to in Dallas served apple pie on a hot skillet with sizzling syrup and topped with cinnamon ice cream. Yum! It becomes my favorite place for dessert in Dallas.

Birds at Josey Ranch Lake - It is hard not to be joyous at the sight of birds and people in the park.

Beginning of Master Naturalist training - I celebrate the content - the intensity - the instructors - the students. Everything was even better than I anticipated….and I did more follow up studying than I thought I would do too.

Josey Ranch Lake - February 2015

In my last family visit to Carrollton TX, I discovered that the round trip walk to Josey Ranch Lake was less than 2 miles so I did the walk several times and photographed birds each time. It turns out that during the winter quite a few people feed the birds so there are gatherings of birds near the boardwalk area and at the reed end of the lake where someone always seems to be offering food to the birds (sometimes the nutria too - although I am sure it is not a good idea to encourage an invasive species).

The well-mannered ducks and swans seem to feed with a fair amount of graceful sharing of the bounty. The coots (small black birds on the water with pointed beaks) can get contentious with each other.

If the ring billed gulls show up there are all kinds of acrobatics. They tend catch the food mid-air or just as it hits the water. The coots are the only ones that seem to challenge them! In the incident I saw - the gull always won.

I noted two ducks that I had not seen in the summer and, when I looked them up on allaboutbirds.org they are ducks that winter in Texas…traveling north when it gets warmer in the summer: the lesser scaup

And northern shoveler.

It is a lot easier to identify birds if I manage to take a good picture! My favorite picture from all three times is this last one - the swan with its wings frothed.

Gleanings of the Week Ending February 21, 2015

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Add nature, art and religion to life's best anti-inflammatories - Yet another reason to savor the awe of nature, art and spiritually - if you need one. Including these in day-to-day living should not be a hard sell but many times they fall by the wayside if our lives get too full of other things. They don’t go on a ‘bucket list’ for some other time; they need to be included every day!

In a crisis, the bigger your social network, the better - This research indicates that more extensive social networks are a backup strategy for crises - or at least it was in the pre-Hispanic Southwest. Is it always the case? Sometimes it seems that all the increased communication going on in the modern world has increased the divides rather than built positive networks.

Never trust a corporation to do a library’s job - The history of Google and Internet Archive as ‘library.’

High Stakes in Declining Monarch Butterfly Populations and Six Ways to Save Monarchs - The rapid decline of Monarch butterflies is very sad….but there are things to do. I am going make the dominant plant in my chaos garden beginning this year!

How the Eastern tiger swallowtail got 'scary' - Another butterfly story. I bought some tiger swallowtail earrings (one is the caterpillar and the other is the butterfly) so this article captured my attention.

The Chemical Compounds behind the Smell of Flowers - The smell of roses, carnations, violets, lilies, hyacinth, chrysanthemums, and lilacs. The only flower whose smell is not produced with compounds containing ring structures is the lily.

Increasing individualism in US linked with rise of white-collar jobs - A lot has happened in the last 150 years…including a higher percentage of the population working in white-collar jobs. This study showed that the trend in type of job was more correlated with the trend toward individualism that some other changes such as urbanization or frequency of disease or disasters.

How Tourist Garbage Causes Yellowstone's Morning Glory to Change Color - The color of the Morning Glory pool is no longer the blue color of its namesake. Too many people have thrown coins, rocks, and trash into it. This article reports on why the trash caused the change.

Larger area analysis needed to understand patterns in ancient prehistory - In the past, the main tools used to study prehistory only addressed very small areas. Now there is an acknowledgement that some conclusions cannot be drawn with only those small samples and technologies that can look at larger areas are being applied more frequently to understand how cultures responded to population pressure and climate change in particular.

An ocean of plastic: Magnitude of plastic waste going into the ocean calculated - More than 4.8 million metric tons of plastic waste enters the oceans from land each year; it could be as high as 12.7 metric tons. That’s a lot of plastic. The ocean seems so vast…but we are pushing it in ways that it may not be able to absorb without huge impact to itself and the planet.

Electrochromic polymers create broad color palette for sunglasses, windows - What fun! I’d like these in the windows of my office rather than sunglasses! Maybe the window could be powered by a solar cell.

Butterfly House at the Texas Discovery Gardens

The Butterfly House at the Texas Discovery Gardens is a colorful place to visit in the winter. I was there earlier this month when I travelled to Dallas. There are lush tropical plants and butterflies! It was not crowded even though it was a weekend.

The Butterfly House is a multistory conservatory with a ramp that wonders through the tops of taller foliage down to a courtyard with water features. The butterflies were on all levels but densest near the water.

The enclosed space was bigger than the Tucson Botanical Garden butterfly exhibit but there were not as many butterflies when we were there and not as many people either.

The standout memory of the day was color - since so much of Texas (and Maryland) is mostly drab in winter. The flowers and fronds were a welcome change from winter overall.

We stayed for the daily release of newly hatched butterflies at noon. They were brought out in a net barrel. The tiger swallowtail did not want to leave the safety of the container. Maybe its wings were not entirely dry.

Some of the new arrivals left the container quickly but chose to walk rather than fly!

Children gathered around to see the release and noticed a more battered butterfly nearby on the ground. They tried to entice it to safety (out of the walkway).

Butterflies and conservatories….always a pleasant interlude.

Coming Home

I enjoy traveling…but coming home always feels good too. This past weekend was no exception.

The flight from Texas was smooth until just before landing in Baltimore when gusts of wind started buffeting the plane. The pilots did an excellent job getting the plane to the runway; there was applause in the cabin. All around us on the runway snow was swirling and the runway was just as white as the air. There was a little delay getting to the gate so we all had time to notice how bad the weather was and realize that there was a 50 degree temperature difference between the Dallas afternoon we had left and the Baltimore evening. Walking through the jetway to the terminal gave us a hint of the cold. When I got to baggage claim, it was even colder because of doors opening and cold air coming up with the luggage which was delayed in arriving due to wind and snow challenging the baggage handlers. Before it came, an announcement was made that the airport was closing. After that - the situation improved for me: my baggage came, my husband arrived just outside the terminal, and we got home without incident (even though we saw cars in ditches along our route). It was scary enough that I didn’t think to take pictures.

When I got home there were piles of books I’d requested from Paperbackswap - using up my credits. What joy to have them just in time for the really cold days of this winter!

And the snowy scene from my office window is appealing too.

Another joy - plants at the kitchen window that survived the 10 days I was gone (my husband watered them).  The green leaves sprouting from the celery cores and the pleats of the red potato leaves are like a little spring garden with the snow and ice of hard winter in the background.

Last but not least - I actually enjoyed shoveling the driveway yesterday. It was the first time for this winter and was a very light snow that was easy to shovel. I am still celebrating the winter season!

It is so good to be home again!

Tucson Sunset

Taking time to observe the sunset is something I do on vacation more than other times. I photographed three sunsets while we were in Tucson in January.

The first was when we were driving back into Tucson from our three day road trip that took us to Montezuma’s Castle, Sunset Crater, Wupatki, Grand Canyon, Meteor Crater, Painted Desert, and Petrified Forest…taking the scenic route through Show Low and the White Mountains on the last leg when the sun we down as we got close to Tucson. I was in the passenger seat and took pictures of the sunset as it progressed. There appeared to be rain that was not reaching the ground at one point but then there was enough clearing for the color to develop and reflect.

The second sunset was a disappointment although we did confirm that the Gates Pass Overlook in Tucson Mountain Park (taking Speedway west to W Gates Pass Rd) was an excellent place for sunset viewing. There are lots of saguaro and teddy bear cactus to catch the evening light. At first we thought the break between two cloud layers would make a great sunset but the lower layer was too thick and there was only a little color.

The third sunset was our second attempt from the Gates Pass Overlook. There were some modern technology intrusions - helicopters and a drone - but all was quiet as the sun actually set. It was worth the effort….the best sunset while we were in Arizona!  I started out with a picture of the teddy bear cactus glowing in evening light…then concentrated on the sky.

Gleanings of the Week Ending February 14, 2015

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Behind the Photo: Paul Nicklen’s Leaping Penguins - Video of leaping penguins….and how it came to be.

This Scientific Paper Proves That Nature Never Stops Weirding Us Out - Did you know that frogs retract their eyes into their heads to push crickets down their throat?

Older adults: Double your protein to build more muscle - Maybe the recommended daily allowance for older adults needs to change.

Your Two-Minute Break to Enjoy Wildlife Along The Moose-Wilson Road In Grand Teton National Park - A short video….I enjoyed the reminder of how much I enjoyed a vacation at Grand Teton National Park years ago.

Expert panel recommends new sleep durations - Is your sleep duration within the new recommended range? Mine is. I was intrigued that there were two new categories added for this study: Young adults (18-25) and older adults (65+).

A surprisingly accurate map of the U.S. made with 600,000 bridges — and nothing else - Map created from data in the National Bridge Inventory maintained by the Federal Highway Administration…includes bridges that are longer than 20 feet. That’s a lot of bridges!

6 Wildlife Facts for World Wetlands Day - World Wetlands Day was Feb. 2….enjoy the facts and photos.

Fake Meat Gets Real - There are lots of new ways to get protein…some better than others. I liked the last sentence “you’re better off getting most of your protein from whole foods, including legumes, nuts, seeds, and whole grains.”

Review of nonmedicinal interventions for delirium in older patients - Good! My observation has been that older people on multiple medications have side effects (like increased delirium) that are often worse than the symptom being treated….so it seems prudent to resist adding medications unless they are absolutely necessary.

An Inventory of Protected Bike Lanes - Bikes are becoming more popular for recreations and transportation in many places around the country. Bike lanes are one way cities are responding. By the end of 2014 there were 191 around the country. I hope the trend continues!

Wupatki National Monument

The first time I visited Wupatki it was a very hot June day and I can remember taking the short walk around the site vividly. I drank almost all the water I had with me and got very hot….and the walk to the ruins is short - within sight of the visitor’s center. In January - it was cold and breezy with snow still on the ground. We didn’t need to carry water although I did refill my water bottle and drank most of it as we drove away; high altitude and dry air is dehydrating even if it is cold.

It is easy to visualize how the ruins could have been homes. They are a neat cluster of walls even today. The stone walls often incorporate larger boulders of the site.

Sometimes the lintels above the windows and doors held….and sometimes they didn’t.

There is a community room in the center of the settlement in a natural depression that still held some snow. Further away there was a ball court.

The old wildlife I saw was a very cold rabbit sitting in the sun. Note the pock marks (like mini-potholes formed wind and sand) and striations on the rock above the rabbit.

Next time I go to Wupatiki I want to plan more time to see some of the other areas...but I enjoyed this area near the visitor center even more than I did the first time around.

Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument

We had Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument to ourselves when we were there a few weeks ago. It was cold and breezy with snow and ice still clinging to the cinders in all the places that did not get full sun. It was quite a contrast to previous visits to the monument that were extremely hot with the sun glaring off the rock.

I did notice a pine tree that had probably been struck by lightning at some point. Part of the tree managed to survive and is now almost as large as the original trunk! Surely it was there a few years ago - but I didn’t notice it then.

The trail was too covered with snow and ice to be passable without boot spikes and poles - so I contented myself with a few pictures from the trail over the cinders. Some of the lava is very black and some shows the colors that gave the crater its name.

I like the idea of visiting this monument during the cooler months. It would be the best time to the hike (as long as there is not ice and snow). I was glad I didn’t have any altitude problems since it is quite a bit higher than Tucson; I did focus on making sure I drank water even when I wasn’t thirsty.

Tucson Botanical Garden - January 2015

I’ve already posted about the butterflies and poison dart frogs at the Tucson Botanical Garden. Today the post is mostly about cactus! I am always fascinated by how alien cactus sometimes looks. Their flowers look like they don’t belong nestled in thorns or atop smooth surfaced succulents. And what about the ones that look hairy? Sometimes the thorns are unusual colors - or several different colors. Sometimes the ribs stand out - sometimes the plant looks like a cushion - or a long stem that flops over. One non-cactus in the slide show below is the very last image. Can your guess what it is?

A pomegranate! The tree had several dried fruits on it. Another non-cactus was a net-leaf hackberry. I know this one only because there was a sign. The leaves were gone but I was fascinated by the bark.

Airports and Airplanes in Winter

Our trip to Tucson a few weeks ago had all the pluses and minuses of flying in the winter. It was snowing when we drove the airport….and continued on as our flight time approached. Our plane arrived at the gate with snow patterning the airflow over the body of the plane. We were delayed by an hour boarding the plane and then had to be de-iced which added a little more time on the ground in Baltimore.

Fortunately we did not miss our connecting flight in Little Rock to continue on to Las Vegas and then Tucson so our trek to Tucson was just a little bit delayed. I was prepared for delays with plenty of reading material and healthy food (fruit, veggies, protein bar, nuts). If we’d been delayed much in Las Vegas, I would have taken the opportunity to charge my electronics in the airport. Comfortable clothes - with layers - is important too. I appreciated that I had been able to get my coat in my checked luggage so I was not lugging very much through the airport between planes. Is there anything unique about those things for winter? Maybe not. I supposed I’ve just had more lengthy delays in winter and so I think about them more when I fly during the winter months.

A joy of the flight back from Tucson to Baltimore was the view from the window between Tucson and San Diego in the early morning - a lovely sunrise! And in January it happens late enough that it is easy to be awake to see it.

Poison Dart Frogs at the Tucson Botanical Garden

The butterfly exhibit at the Tucson Botanical Garden (earlier post here) included more than butterflies and plants. There were poison dart frogs that were roaming about the greenhouse. The docent told us they had been imported a few years ago to help control ants and fruit flies; they seem to do a good job! When they first arrived they were about as big as a thumbnail. They are still small - about the size of a thumb.

For some reason - the blue ones (not sure how many of them there are) seemed to be the most active.  These frogs tend to climb around on plants and objects rather than jump. They are quite agile.

They seem to be constantly in motion and like to be under vegetation. One got close to the door and one of the volunteers moved the frog back to some plants. These are non-native to the US so are carefully contained in the moist greenhouse that is the butterfly exhibit in Tucson!

Which color is your favorite? I think the blue is mine but maybe it is because I managed to photograph them more easily.

Pinyon Pines and Birds in Arizona

Two topics today - both from Arizona: pinyon pines and birds.

Pinyon pines are part of the landscape of the Grand Canyon. I have always been fascinated by their cones. They are short and squat and often full of sap. I learned that the hard way on a trip across New Mexico in a new car 30+ years ago. I picked up some pinyon pine cones and put them on the dash of the car - enjoying their wonderful smell as we continued our road trip. The sap stayed on the dash for years! I am enjoying the pictures I captured this time. The first picture is of a cone that has already lost its seeds; the second and third are developing cones.

I accidently took some good bird pictures in Arizona. They were accidents in that I was not set up to photograph birds; I was just being opportunistic. The varied thrush was in the parking lot of the Petrified Forest Visitor Center! The bird is a little out of normal range according to allaboutbirds.com.

The next three birds were in the alleyway outside my son-in-laws research greenhouse in Tucson (I was waiting outside after getting too hot in the greenhouse). The mockingbird kept an eye on every move I made but rummaged in the pebbles for food. This bird lives year round all of the US but they are usually too nervous for me to photograph.

The curve-billed thrasher felt secure on the electrical line. The wind ruffled the feathers periodically making the bird look rather scruffy.

The white-wing dove was also overhead on the lines. The red eye outlined in blue and the white tips on the wings are distinctive….and the ruffling of the feathers by the wind is too.

I am learning to always be prepared for bird photography in unlikely places!

On the Road in Arizona

I enjoy being a front seat passenger on road trips and catching the landscape ahead of the car. Our road trip within our vacation to Tucson was a great opportunity. I’ve perfected my technique over the past few vacations: make sure the windshield is clean, zoom a little to get the car out of the picture, and try to keep the horizon level!

My daughter did all the driving:

• From Tucson to Flagstaff (via Phoenix and Sedona, images 1-8 in the slideshow below),
• From Williams to the Grand Canyon in the early morning (image 9), and
• From Petrified Forest National Park back to Tucson (via Show Low and the White Mountains).

We had plenty of variety in the sky: clear blues, sunrise colors, patches of clouds building and a golden sky near sunset with rain not quite reaching the ground from dark clouds. There were roads winding and straight…up hill and down. Mountains with snow and mesas and buttes. Lots of red rock. Grasses, pines, scrub, and saguaro.

Enjoy the Arizona scenery from the road!

Montezuma Castle National Monument

Montezuma Castle National Monument is a good stop on the way between Tucson and Flagstaff. The reconstructed ‘castle’ is in a large depression in the cliff face. But everywhere there are smaller spaces that were walled to make storage areas

And on flatter ledges near the base of the cliff there are walls were there were other dwellings.

Water is nearby. It is easy to imagine why this was a place people chose for building/farming.

In one of the rock niches on the cliff, there were combs of bees (I used my camera zoom to 30x)!

There is good signage for native plants like Desert Christmas Cactus

And Arizona Sycamore. The Arizona Sycamores look different than the ones we have on the east coast. There is green shading in the peeling bark and the lobes of the leaves are deeper.

Next time I am in the area, I want to plan enough time to check out Montezuma Well that is part of the same National Monument but not contiguous with the castle area.

Meteor Crater in Northern Arizona

The Meteor Crater near Winslow, Arizona is a stop we always make when we are in the area. The weather for our visit a few weeks ago was cool/cold and cloudy. The crater is too large to fit in one photo. There are handy line of sight pipes at one of the overlooks to help orient the view. I’ve included one of a house size rock on the rim of the crater.

And a bill board of a 6’ tall astronaut and flag on the fence around the very center of the crater where some drilling was done and some of the old equipment is still in place.

The snow on the side of the crater that gets the least amount of sun helps for orientation too. The differences in light as the sunlight came and went between clouds influences the colors you see in the rocks.

The walls of the rim still show the trauma of the impact. I liked that the snow provided additional contrast to make the striations more visible.

Much of the rock is fractured from the impact and then rounded by erosion.

In my previous visits I took binoculars but this time I relied on the zoom capability of my camera and probably saw more on than my previous visits. It also helped that it was not blazing hot!

Grand Canyon National Park

I’ve been to Grand Canyon National Park three times:

• When I was in high school - in early spring 1971 when I walked a little ways down Bright Angel Trail then turned back when it started snowing.
• In May 1983 when my husband and I walked down the Bright Angel Trail to the plateau level. I remember blisters from the too-new hiking books and my legs feeling like jelly for most of the walk back up.
• In January 2015 when it was cold and breezy. We drove to the park through early morning light and saw a bald eagle landing in the top of a pine tree beside the highway. I wasn’t fast enough to get a picture but it started out the day right. The pictures below are from the visit a few weeks ago.

It is hard to fathom the sheer size of the place. The rim trail on the South Rim - accessible from many points - is an easy walk to try to get perspective. We were early enough that the haze had not burned off completely and sometimes the vegetation seemed to glow from light within.

There has been a lot of building in the main park facilities since 1983. I liked the way the paving incorporated different colors of concrete to make designs - spirals and gentle curves. But we didn’t stay in the developed area long. We decided on our plan for the day - settled on where we would eat lunch (Maswik Lodge Food Court) and began working our way toward Hermits Rest stopping at just about every overlook. After lunch we headed in the opposite direction (toward Desert View) where we would leave the park and head to our hotel about sunset. Along the way we saw rapids and twists of the river below, a mini-snowman, beefy crows, and the zigzag of a trail into the canyon. Sometimes I took pictures of lichen and small plants just to not be overwhelmed by the Grand Canyon vista!

I am already thinking about when I can go again!