She learned as I am interested in most everything that no one else cares about, never thought about and would not know what they were looking at if they did.
Kansas, for example. Have your traveled I-70 across Kansas? It seems to be flat.
It is... along the highway. To the north and south... it is not. There are mile wide River Channels going West to East south of I-70. The 'river' is now a small creek... part of the year and a dry culvert much of the Summer.
No body even notices. WHY is there such a WIDE RIVER VALLEY? They did not teach that in school, as most teachers do not know. Melting Glaciers in Colorado. Even the South Platte River changed course from flowing South and now to the northeast to the North Platte. Really...
Traveling from Kansas City, Missouri you leave Pennsylvanian limestone cliffs full of brachiopods, crinoids and some areas with small starfish in shales along I-70. These are Ocean Deposits.
You get to Western Kanas and the yellow shales are Cretaceous Ocean Deposits with Reptiles and large Fish.
Getting to the Front Range of Colorado the Cretaceous Ocean deposits are gone and buried under younger deposits with Horse, Camels that are millions to hundreds of thousands of years old... and then the Front Range of Colorado where the mountains pushed up all of these rock formations thousands of feet into the sky.
Few... give it one thought. Why, how... what? Once west of the Front Range you get to the Ski Area, like Keystone. You are on Top at 12,000 feet above Sea Level and look north... Black Ocean Deposit a thousand feet thick of fine salt water deposits, 60 million hears old. Leaving on the Front Range with Dinosaur Footprints standing on edge.
Few even notice. Few even care. But Nancy and I enjoy the changes in Climates, Environments and changes in Rocks, Fossils and Terrain.
Among everything else... we enjoy what we do. This is not for everyone. Climate changes by watching the rock go from Black Shale from the bottom of a deep Ocean, to Sandstone close to shore and then Boulders and Debris from mountains that have been wearing down for millions of years.
Yet... few notice. Few care. We did a Wyoming Adventure and most did not care where they were, did not explore... nor inquired. Some did. It was unpleasant experience for them. For us... that is why we have our Airstream.
Our water well west of Littleton, Colorado at 350 feet into the ground is drawing out crystal clear, cool fresh water from the LAST ICE AGE. It is now pumped into thousands of homes as if it will never... run out. It is. We knew and left.
Be aware of your place on the planet. Change is very slow, but you can see it around you.
To Explore. From the Oregon Trailer to 10,000 year old Indian hunting grounds, to tepee rings scattered among the grass and hills. It is all there... to see.
Change your attitude and try to understand that time changes everything. Even you and ourselves. Have fun this year. We will.
*****
What does this have to do with a Trailer and being On the Road? Stop along side the road, step out and walk to an rock outcrop. It changes from shale to sandstone, or limestone to shale to sandstone... look at the fossils. What happened?
I have a friend who is working on Asteroid impacts south of Casper, Wyoming. He did not know about those in the Ozarks of Missouri. Same Time... There was a paper done of those in Missouri. Whoa... what happened? They are working on it.
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Trail and Plenty of Error...
The previous photographs are Not National Parks, RV Parks... but discovered by trial and plenty of error. You will figure it out... soon, I hope. Bring a fly rod. Bring a walking stick, pulled out of a Beaver Dam... find a special rock to take home. Do something.
Get an Atlas. Find a place you might think is worth seeing. If it was a good experience, mark the date, location and why you liked it. If you did not, mark it and say why. Some day... it may be what you wanted to see, again.
Get yourself a Blue Heeler, or two pups. Take THEM on a trip. They will like you and where you take them. They do not whine, get tired or hate you for it. Do it. Or... at least a photograph of a Blue Heeler to two.
Cost: Your time... My time becomes shorter every year that I do nothing.
Some try new things and failed at first. Many do nothing and succeeded.
What are YOUR PLANS for 2022? Nothing... well, you are among many who succeed to do that. Make mistakes. I am a Neanderthal. We managed to find interesting places and camp sites.
Make this year a NO RV PARK year. "I am not going to pay One Dollar at a RV Park with electrical power."
"I will step into a National Forest Pit Toilet and enjoy it."
"I will not listen to those with slick shoes, wide arses and the I will not do it, attitude."
"I am going to make mistakes... and enjoy every one."
Things are changing fast today. The Frontier today still exists to those who look for it.
Afraid of doing it alone? Find a friend. One you trust and enjoy to discuss A to Z. That is what you need, more than a guide at a Camp Ground. Jump into the shallow flowing river in Wyoming or Montana... avoid jumping into the Yellowstone River in Montana, though. Common Sense... use it.
I am looking at an Atlas of Montana. We were in Wyoming.... Plan ahead. Add Idaho, Nebraska, South Dakota... Arizona and... and... Iowa? Maybe.
OK. I have not disclosed any locations. Only photographs of them.
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Bosque Farms
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The site from which I print a graphic that I show to visitors is from the ABQ area, sitting right on top of the Rio Grande rift. In the graphic, pay attention to the scale in feet at the far right.
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Private Property: Ask Permission and have FUN
I appreciate everyone who takes the time to read and understand that I mean well. Some need some inspiration and get a bit excited to prove that they can do different things... too. Then my time has not been wasted.
Some, like myself, did not have a mentor to show new interests. I was looking for fossis in Missouri in 1964. My fat tired bicycle without brakes had a hundred miles of off the road... traveling. The short cut to the limestone quarry was to cut across a plowed field along the Little Blue River just SE of Independence, Missouri. I found my first Missouri Blue Flint Dart Point. I was 14 and found a NEW exercise... hunting Indian Artifacts in plowed fields in Missouri.
I never imagined you could find a 2,000 year old man made item in the USA. Then discovered pottery, metate, manos... axes... Whaaaa Hoooo. I was skinny then and just filling in... now. Exercise and fun at the same time.
I found that if I "thought like an Indian, I could find their campsites". I did that and... can spot a campsite with a glance... or, maybe never was seen by anyone that was looking for a place to set up their... Trailer or TiPi?
Finding a 12,000 year old Clovis on the south side hills of the Missouri River in a field with a view of the entire Missouri River in a plowed field. Now fields are not plowed like in the 1960's or 1970's for conservation. But... they still are getting broken, if not picket up.
I found the publication of the Impact Area in Missouri's Permian Rocks that were also found in the Permian Rocks south of Casper on Casper Mountain. The Permian limestones are Ocean Deposits that lasted 'only' 47,000,000 years. The Permian Period ended 299 million years ago... included 'leap years'.
Meteorites fall to the surface of Earth every day. Your front yard, or in the Big Horn Mountains on a Tuesday. You could be standing on a 120 pound metallic Meteorite worth a new Airstream... slip off of it and kicked it hard. How would you know? Might want to check it out next time you want to kick something.
If you are not prone to burning calories by standing in the entry way of your Airstream... get an interest of finding rocks from the sky. No arrowhead hunting on Federal or State Property... Then fossils were added as an Artifact.
Meteorites... wide open. They fall on Xmas today and New Years 2 million years ago and you need a magnet. If it looks like what I scanned... and magnetic... that is a good sign. Sorry to say... this is not magnetic, nobody knows what it is, including myself... and a friend picked it up at a Garage Sale in Flagstaff, Arizona. He wanted an arrowhead for it. It is heavy, looks like a meteorite, feels like one... but not magnetic. Someday... take it to Tucson, Arizona to the laboratory there. They never answered my email with photos... and ask for people to send information. Yeah... right. Hmmm.
When you park and set up your Airstream. Walk the area to loosen up the stiff joints. I find items that fall out of pocket holes and blow away... like paper money stuck in the grass outside a Walmart parking lot... down wind. You have to be curious to discover what no one else thinks about.
******
I was there before the plastic dinosaurs were on display. You can find sharks teeth, small, south of town in the chalk beds. Also Reptile teeth and bone.
Was in the area in 1966/67 with my 1956 VW. You can camp on the south rim of a big Chalk Exposure... if you can handle the wind some miles off a dirt road.
Have about 50 fossil locations on a map for the area I took from old publications. When you find a Bone exposed and walk around the exposure 25 feet and bone from the same Reptile is sticking out... too big for me. Still have the maps... tired of sharks teeth. They shed them like a dog sheds hair... kind of thing.
You have been out, as well. I liked the Stone Fence Poles and a Rancher let me take two. Might of weighed 50 pounds each. Took them home and set them up in my yard. Fence poles of Chalky Limestone with fossils. Wood was scarce and expensive... but lots of Stone.
The center of North America had a shallow warm Ocean extending all the way into Canada. Cretaceous Dinosaur, Gorgosaurus teeth found on the 75,000,000 year old ocean beaches at Drumheller, Alberta, Canada. I had been in Hays and Wakeeney, Kansas then. Wait long enough... and it may come around a second time. I am not that patient.
So.... I have a couple of geology degrees, have worked as such for a couple of decades now...
You're right, wherever I go, I find myself scrutinizing the location. New town, why is this town here? What drew people to be in this location, as opposed to that last little speedbump on the highway? Why is this road running here in this valley, instead of in that valley to the north? So many questions as such, can be answered by looking at the geology... what's here, why is it here and not there, what would one need from this location, etc. etc.
I'm glad to know there are other people out there that ponder things as such....
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LNBright has started some curious members to think.
I inspected Oil Well Servicing and Drilling Rig safety, working for a State (western USA)... OSHA 1970 to 1972, among other occupations. After seeing what a Geologist had to go through, in a small trailer next to a 110 foot Drilling Rig, drilling, 24 hours a day, in Winter, a small sign along the highway so supplies could be delivered, or not... mud flying, wet, 40mph wind in nowhere Wyoming... time to move on.
We drove to find the Rigs at night, as they were lit up like a Christmas Tree. They did not think State employees worked.. late. Or in Winter. No... only the younger ones. I was a younger one... survived, too.
I did. Now have an Airstream and Oliver. Yep... 'the good ole days'.
LNBright... when looking at a home alongside a River could easily tell you, if you like to hear it or not, WHY NOT TO buy the house or build... or it is just the perfect location.
Most people do not know how the Great Lakes became great. Or how a tiny, wimpy river like the Colorado and Green Rivers carved out a thousand feet or more of Canyons. And, protected so people do not fill it full of junk.
Glacial Moraines in the Colorado Front Range? How did that happen? It has always been nice and arid in the Rockies. (What is left is at Glacial Park, Montana...)
Diamonds on the Wyoming / Colorado border and not discovered until 1975. We all know about Arkansas... but few know about Wyoming.
We have gone through a number of large Ice Ages and small ones. Lucky for us... we are in a Warm Spell... in between ages. Get it... in between? Probably not, but the NEXT Glacial Period will occur if people say.. not so.
Think about it... WINK...are the first letters to four of the latest ICE AGES. We are in the Warm Cycle in between. Yep... it will come. As the wind blows and the winter snows come... the year the snow does not melt during the Summer... buy property in Florida.
Read about the Little Ice Age in Europe. Oops... not a pleasant read.
Iowa: Every square mile of Iowa, is said to have one or more Pleistocene Elephant, Mammoth / Mastodon skeletons buried... for you to find. ... and Alaska... wow. This is not taught in school.
We had fossil horses in North America at the same time as Europe and Asia. They are found in Wyoming's Eocene soft deposits of Badlands. We had full sized horses during the end of the Ice Age in North America... and Elephants. But... they were wiped out. Hmmmm. How could that happen? You figure it out. Nobody is talking.
The wind is howling and everything is on hold. No one wants to sit around and talk about Saber Tooth Cats, asteroid impacts, Pleistocene glaciers, horses that were two feet tall or why wiped out the Rhinoceras in Nebraska? Ahhh... prove it, they say. How could that be a horse tooth... that is a mammal molar. Much like we are more related to a Chimpanzee than Big Foot in Washington. Yep... just prettier and ask them to not stand on the fossils bones under their flip flops. Oops.
Speaking of fossils, used to live on the side of a mountain in Alabama. About 900 feet ASL. Busted tons of rock to build the house. The kids found lots of fossils in the rocks and boulders around the back yard. Kept them very interested in the local geology.
__________________
Rich, KE4GNK/AE, Overkill Engineering Dept.
'The Silver HamShack' ('07 International 22FB CCD 75th Anniversary)
Multiple Yaesu Ham Radios inside and many antennae sprouting from roof, ProPride hitch, Prodigy P2 controller.
2012 shortbed CrewMax 4x4 Toyota Tacoma TV with more antennae on it.
I've always been interested in Geology, Geography, and History. To me they are all entwined. After driving through Sedona numerous times over the last 40 years (never had time to stop) Last fall I finally stopped, for a week. Took the train ride through the Verde River canyon and gazed upon the formations there. Hiked the various formations around Sedona and Slide Rock State Park. Learned a lot in the week we were there. Going back this spring boondocking for another week. Have a lot more to learn and explore.
As a kid "helping (hindering) out" on the creeks where some friends had a family gold mine, I became aware that all was not as the text books said. Fossils of once tropical plants and animals showing up in the overburden just above the bedrock? In Alaska? Where i would frequently be called upon to freeze my teenage a** off just trying to get by of a winter day? Hmmmm. Might have been a bit warmer up this way sometime in the past.
Learned because I wanted to about the area... theory is that much of the Tanana Valley had not been glaciated during the last ice age... making for some unique geology at that parallel. Also enjoyed a Prof. of "Rocks for Jocks" (geology science with a lab for non-geology majors) at WSU who introduced me to the concept of catastrophism, including field trips around the Columbia Plateau. I never look at the area from 30,000 feet the same...
Since then, whenever I travel around Alaska or elsewhere I am looking for signs big and small of both gradual and sudden events. Getting better at spotting camp sites and game-spotting spots that generally produce fire pits and cast-off weapons. It is truly the biggest fun of travel for us.
There is a lot of interesting learning that can help save your brain from the pretzel logic in common circulation if you keep your eyes and mind open.
__________________
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2020 F250 powered by converted solar
Ray, you might have added Bird-ology and Fish-ology to your Ologies listing. (One of your supporting images looks ever so much like Ouray, CO looking north.)
Roberta and I have a Navy veterans association reunion to catch in Boston this May—USS Nicholas (DD-449)—and a Nicholas mast reconstruction project in Chehalis, WA immediately following, but the NEXT spring it’s Birding the lower 48 while we still have strength in our limbs. (Trout species decals go up on our Airstream cabin door as fast as they are caught and consumed, Rainbow the first of 7+ principal varieties in the western states, caught last year on Paulina Lake, OR.)
2019 27' International
2014 25' International
2006 23' Safari SE
Boulder City
, Nevada
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Continental Drift... Rock and Fossils tell the story
Many topics are not taught in High School... and at the University. I was very disappointed that some topics were avoided. I had a question in class... I was told to go to the Library.
Over a couple decades... I accumulated 24,000 books and papers. Now whittled down to 10,000 or so. From Darwin to Cope to Einstein to Powell.
... how I did this, is a different story... but "The Hunt" is the incentive.
Ting Ying Ma was pretty much ignored. I have a few of the English papers. Corals were very important Climate Change Indicators.
Continental Drift. As kids, we noticed South America and Africa fit together on a map. Grownups may have, but no one was speaking out.
Continents Drift... move on Plates. Maybe 7... I cannot recall the exact number, but on the Internet. Also smaller plates.
You cannot find a fossil turtle in any rocks in Missouri. They are too old and no turtles existed... yet. You can find turtles / tortoise in the Badlands of South Dakota by the hundreds... most rotted from weathering and in pieces.
Age and Climate differences.
I went to the University to learn. I left, rather dumber.
Owning our first Airstream we could camp out where we wanted and had no time limitations. Every day we hike and explore. It is amazing what has not been discovered and weathering on the surface, soon to be dirt.
I scanned a couple covers of interesting papers. Today... mostly accepted. Then... not. When you understand E=MC2... you learn how LITTLE of processed Uranium it takes to make an Atomic Bomb... Einstein was also amazed. Somewhere the volume of an Uranium isotope needed must be in print. Takes very little...
Yellowstone Park is very interesting on the Surface today. What you are standing upon is not seen by looking. Check out the fossils, as far as central Nebraska, about what Yellowstone can do instantly or over millions of years.
I deleted some, as I get carried away with interesting subjects.
A Compose Toilet or a Standard Toilet in my Airstream is not as interesting.
India is still pushing Mount Everest... Higher. Just a bit every year.
2019 27' International
2014 25' International
2006 23' Safari SE
Boulder City
, Nevada
Join Date: Aug 2007
Posts: 5,703
John&Roberta... is correct. Birding is a great opportunity for photographers, too. I had a neighbor in Colorado who travels and takes Bird photographs across the World. He tried to get me interested, but I am not that... patient. He has photos published and they are art.
People do not understand how complex just FISHING really is. We buy Salmon at Costco in prepared packages.
Lake Trout in Flathead Lake, Montana in the 1930's to 1950's would have small birds in their stomachs... they dropped down to get a drink... and became a meal.
My Aunt Faye caught that Lake Trout and the newspaper wanted to get a photograph. They sent us the photos and clippings over the years. Some day... will sort them out.
Curious kids get in trouble... but learn from it. Exploring was what kids use to do. Needed the 'iron on' knee patches on the denim pants. They had to be passed down to the younger brother.
I do not make any of this up. See my Uncle Dallas from Somers, Montana in the 1950's photo. Yep... tall stories? Only for some who have to make things up...
Well done Ray! Out here in kalifornia(sorry) we add volcanic soils and rocks. Lots of fossils in the central valley and more volcanos before you get to the coastal range. This goes north up into Canada. To many peaple just drive and not think of the history/geology. Kurt
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, Nevada
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Corps of Engineers Camping- 11th Edition 2018
For those who want to live on the 'edge' between RV Park and Off the Grid Boondocking... this may be the book for you.
A book with 265 pages of very good simple directions with GPS locations and Telephone numbers.
This book came with the Oliver Elite II we purchased recently.
Go to www.abebooks.com and look it up. Older editions are $13.46 and Free Shipping. There are 84 copies for sale. Some asking $116.53 for a 2014 for people who have money but no brain. Select 'Lowest Price' sorting on Advanced Search. "A sucker is born every minute."
I think every Second... but YOU are following this Thread and must be among real Human Beans. Keep it up!
A mind is a terrible thing to not use. An older volume is just as good, as these places have been around for a long time.
Now for using your Brain. Go to a western USA Corps of Engineers campsite. Find a good spot, prices are reasonable, too. Detach the trailer. Then take a drive further into the National Forest and find an interesting campsite. Note the location and how to get back to it. THEN... you are beginning to break away from Community Trailer Glamping to actual Boondocking and maybe Off the Grid. If you do not like the OTG... then this book is full of great places.
I always enjoy your posts. If you can, visit Pinnacles National Park. The Pinnacles rocks traveled on the Pacific plate 195 miles north over 23 million years after a volcanic eruption and action by the San Andreas Fault. Fabulous walking trails, caves, rocks, condors, bats and gorgeous night skies. Half priced camping with your senior pass in a funky laid back campground in East Pinnacles. My favorite place to camp.
Hi Ray
While most meteorites have magnetic properties some rarer "Stoney" meteorites do not - Since I knew of meteorites - about 70 years ago I wanted to find one - no luck yet.
Here is a good link about the various types.
I love your post and your mind set - I have moved in your direction, but my other half wants civilization now and then... We travel in an Interstate - it has seen many miles of gravel roads..
Thanks for your extensive comments!!
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