Justin and I will be traveling back to PA tomorrow for a long weekend trip. I can't wait! We're gonna go to camp and have the family over for a cook-out. Looking forward to seeing everyone! Posting will continue after my return on Tuesday.
Last week I traveled to do bed sediment sampling in 3 of our nation's beautiful national parks. A field hand was needed and I gladly volunteered. We spent two days in Yosemite N.P. and two days in Kings Canyon/Sequoia, which border each other.
The upper falls is Nevada Falls and the lower is Vernal Falls.
Upper and lower Yosemite Falls. Our cabins were just on the other side of the road from the lower falls!
Lower Yosemite Falls.
The log I walked across in one of our sampling sites to stay out of all the water in the meadow.
Add another park to my list!
Bad picture of the bear we came across when hiking to a sampling site. We saw another one in the meadow we sampled in too!
Trunk of a downed Sequoia tree.
Last weekend Justin and I volunteered at the Ebbett's Pass rest stop at the Death Ride. (Bicycle race over 5 mountain passes, not sure the distance, but really really long) My office staffs this stop every year and we had quite a turn out. We drove up Friday night and camped because the road is closed at 5:30am when the race starts. The theme of our rest stop is the Highway to Heaven, so a few of us had angel wings...myself included this year.
The angels.
The whole crew.
Us.
And all the chaos.
Weather in this area has been ideal for fires as of late. In the 90s, dry and pretty dang windy. The afternoons often bring dark storm clouds that come over from the Sierras. Most of the rain is dropped on the west-side, but we get stuck with the lightning, which sparks an unheard of number of fires. Dry grass and sage brush go up in flames. Carson City had our own fire that came really close to taking over 300 homes. I still need to get the after picture, but here's a few while it was burning.
A few weeks ago I went out on a one day field trip with a retired hydrologist from our office. This guy, Pat, is Mr. Nevada. There is more information in Pat's head than I ever thought was possible. I learned about all the different landscapes, ancient Lake Lahontan, all the river diversions from the Truckee and the Carson Rivers, the political creation/history of the USGS, old and current projects the USGS is involved in, ancient petroglyphs, and ancient inhabitants of the western Nevada area that were cave-dwellers...just to name a few things we talked about!
Part of Soda Lake. I love the reflections in the amazingly calm water.
Fallon, NV. Insane amounts of irrigation in this desert town produce some of the best fruit in Nevada. The cantaloupes are incredible.
Petroglyphs.
Fish Cave. In this area, just outside of Fallon, there's a bunch of big caves that archeologists are still working on. A number of different anceint bodies have been found.
Close-up of Fish Cave. We heard some winged thing back in there. All of a sudden these 2 huge eyes were accelerating toward us. Turns out it was a BIG white owl that flew out just past our heads!
