Travels with Gunther and Kara

Alabama’s Crimson Tide continued their undefeated season yesterday against Texas A&M…but it was quite a struggle. They got their offensive line issues sorted out and turned up 31 first downs and 500+ yards of offense; including 234 rushing…along with a great passing day and 4 TD passes. After a slow start when they fell behind 14-0 (darn those A&M guys play fast) they scored the next 35 points and then another 14 in the fourth quarter.

The defense on the other hand…played poorly. True, they were playing Johnny Manziel the whiz kid…and he’s going to get his yards and pass completions…but they gave up way too many cheap yards and scores due to penalties, being out of position and just playing poorly. Nick Saban will still have some teaching moments for them during practice this week. Next up is Colorado State on Saturday the 21st.

There was one very strange play during the game. One of the A&M receivers went up for a deep ball down the sideline and ‘Bama’s defender was also going for the ball. They bumped chests and the ball was incomplete although the defender came closer to intercepting it than the receiver did to catching it. The ref threw a flag for “targeting” which in the new rule means you hit the head or neck area of a “defenseless” receiver…with a 15 yard penalty and ejection of the defender from the game. The replay official overturned the call and said it wasn’t targeting since the defender was going for the ball and only their chest/shoulders hit anyway. However…the only thing that can be overturned in this situation is the ejection…and not the penalty…so the defender was allowed to stay in the game. Basically…Alabama got hit with a 15 yard penalty…simply because the ref made a mistake. Even though the review concluded that it was not targeting the penalty was allowed to stand. What a dumb way to enforce the rules. I agree with the targeting rule since it does protect defenseless receivers…but if the replay official determines that it wasn’t targeting then penalizing the defense 15 yards anyway seems dumber than dumb.

Sheesh.

Today was Mass and then we sat around and watched TV…Neil checked the air and oil in the vehicles and planned out our detailed route and stops between our leaving here on Wednesday morning and arrival in Moab, UT Sunday afternoon. We’re watching the weather in the Denver area and will make a call a couple days before we leave Moab on the 30th to decide whether to follow our original plan of a 3 day stop in Denver, modify it with a stay west of the Rockies where they haven’t had the rain and flooding like Boulder and the northern Denver suburbs, or whether to head south and then east through Durango, Albuquerque, and then up to Junction City.

We also did some laundry including the sheets and towels so we’re starting out with an empty hamper. Tomorrow it’s a Costco run for some meat and then we’ll head up to pick up some jewelry that Connie is getting repaired and a stop by the Ford place for some Diesel Exhaust Fluid for BAT…and if the rain holds off we’ll go to Military Appreciation Day at the County Fair. Tuesday we’ll be getting ready to travel…and we are surely ready.

No pics today…can’t see the mountain and it’s rainy and foggy.

Cyas.

Yesterday was the big day…our last significant medical appointment for our time here at Graham. In the words of the guy from the TV commercial…”You’re now free to move about the country.” In the words of a famous man…”Thank God almighty, I’m free at last.” Here’s a picture of Neil after his appointment today at the ortho cline at Madagan Health Center on Fort Lewis…notice anything different about it?

After his appointment we ran a last few errands over at the base…haircut, package store, commissary and headed home. On the way we spotted these trees in some guy’s back yard…we had to ask ourself “what was he thinking” when he trimmed them this way.

Neil named them ‘short for Richard Trees’ if ya get what I mean. Strangest thing we’ve seen in awhile. 

Afterwards we sat out in the recliners awhile and then grilled a steak…which we had with leftover stuffing from the other night. Today Connie worked in the morning while Neil uploaded a whole bunch of our photos to our Smugmug site…I’ve added a link to it in our top menu and you can always see slideshows of our photos at http://laubenthal.smugmug.com. That will get you larger versions and slide show and all that jazz. I’ll try to keep this up on a more timely basis…and it will also probably get some additional photos posted that I didn’t put on the blog.

When the sun started to go down Neil grabbed another shot of Ranier with that whole sky-blue-pink thing going on…sky-blue-pink is a term that Connie, Neil and their friend Joe Claxton from college came up with back in the day. Won’t be too many more photos of this particular mountain…but we’re looking forward to some different ones in the near future.

With nothing further to keep us in the area except Connie’s final post operative appointment…we’re going to go up to the county fair on Monday afternoon/evening since military are free on that day. Tuesday we’ll pack and Wednesday we’ll be outa here. First stop is overnight in Benton City WA then a 2 night stop in Boise ID…there’s a 7 site 10 dollar a night full hookup and free laundry (woot! woot!)park on the National Guard base there. We’ve never seen Boise so will check it out. Then it’s down to the Salt Lake City suburbs where we’ll stay overnight in either Logan or Ogden or Brigham City depending on where Connie picks out then it’s another short day down to Moab, UT near the confluence of Arches National Park and Canyonlands National Park. We’ll probably get down to Monument Valley as well and some of the other south east Utah attractions like Four Corners. Antelope Canyon and Capital Reef National Parks are also sort of nearby although Antelope Canyon is about 275 miles each way so we’ll likely not make it that far with only a week in the area…since we missed out on so much hiking and fun time we don’t want to waste any more of the week than we have to just driving. Besides, Arches, Canyonlands, and Monument Valley should keep us pretty busy. Then it’s another 2 day hop over to Denver for a 4 night stay then 2 days to Junction City for our warranty work. After that Neil is still working on it but will most likely be east through Tennessee then down through Alabama, Georgia, Florida to Cedar Key for a week then on to Fort Myers.

Cyas.

A great weekend in Graham with a couple of nice shots of the mountain. It’s been clear, low humidity and beautiful since mid day Friday and we’ve just hung out. Saturday we watched a couple of football games…although we really started watching them Thursday night with the NFL opener. Friday’s dinner was sautéed chicken with leftovers for Saturday night…Neil had some Montreal Chicken Roasted Garlic spice he used but it wasn’t that great of a combination…he thinks he’s going back to using his own spice combination.

Sunday we headed off to Mass and then ran by Walmart to pick up a few items we needed…that way we can make it until Thursday when we’ve over on the base anyway for Neil’s ortho appointment and the prices there are significantly less than off base. On the way home we stopped by the veggie stand and got a tomato and looked for corn…they were out of corn as they sold out yesterday but there was more coming. Neil ran back down there a mile about 1530 and got corn that was literally still on the stalks at 1000 this morning…we’re talking really, really fresh. On the way in he spotted that the mountain was really clear today so grabbed the camera and took a few shots on the way on. Today is almost the clearest day we’ve had as far as views of the mountain go.

We’re having grilled pork tenderloin with a rub of cocoa, allspice, and ground chipotle pepper, roasted potatoes in the oven and the corn which will get grilled as well. We’re going to try a new recipe for grilled corn today. We usually strip the silk out but leave the husks intact, soak them in water for a couple of hours and then roast/steam them for about a half hour total. We’ve been seeing lots of recipes that call for removing the husks, soaking for an hour and then grilling for 10 minutes or so total. We’re not sure that this will be any better but we’re going to give it a try and make sure that we don’t like it better. Connie will make our usual butter with lime juice, hot sauce, and chili powder to pout on the corn and we’re sure that will be good as well. Last time we tried a slightly different butter flavor combination with a  bit of maple syrup in addition to the usual suspects but decided we like our original recipe for the butter better anyway.

Tuesday we’re going to head off on another day trip; over to the coast at Aberdeen WA then south along the coast to the mouth of the Columbia River where the Lewis and Clark National Historic Site is located. Following that we’ll head inland along the river until we get back to I-5 then head north for home…if time permits and the afternoon weather is nice we will probably head back out to the Volcano Observatory and take some pictures not in the fog:-) If it’s too late and/or the weather isn’t cooperating then we’ll just come on home.

Here are two nice shots Neil got today on the beautifully crisp fall afternoon. I know you’re probably getting tired of seeing similar photos…but I’m doing the best I can since we’ve been stuck. Assuming Connie’s pathology report is fine this week then we’re planning on heading out on Wednesday Sep 18 and after a day stop in Boise ID will most likely spend a week at Moab UT to visit Arches and Canyonland National Parks and other southwest UT stuff like Antelope Canyon and Monument Valley. Then a few days in Denver before heading to Junction City for house work on Oct 6 then continuing on southwards towards Cedar Key and Fort Myers for the winter.

Cyas.

Kara here; we’re going to talk volcanoes today. I’m taking over from Gunther ‘cuz when ya’ll need to be edumacated then he just ain’t up to it…we all know I’m the smart one in the family.

Anyhoo; Wednesday we headed off to visit the National Volcanic Memorial down at Mount St. Helens about 120 miles away down towards Portland a bit. We were originally going to go Tuesday but it rained all day. Wednesday didn’t look much better…it was only forecast to get up to ‘partly cloudy’ down near the volcano but we headed out anyway since Connie will be sore for a couple of days after Thursday.

By the time we got down there; it might have been partly cloudy by WA weather guesser standards but it was pretty much overcast and foggy by any normal person’s standards. Hence we didn’t get any really decent pictures of the volcano itself; we’ll see if we can grab a few more next week when we head down to the Lewis and Clark National Historic Site if the weather cooperates a little better. However; Neil snagged a few copyright free photos from the web that were taken in better visibility because they are better than his shots in the fog and so that the vulcanology lesson will make sense. He was able to get a few halfway decent shots at an overlook just in case partway up and it turned out to be a good thing he did.

Ok then…on with the lesson. First up is a map of the area around the mountain along with some description of the topography to orient you so the rest of the discussion will make sense. Neil cribbed this photo from one of the exhibits at the Johnston Ridge Observatory that they visited.

The Johnston Ridge Observatory is at the black You are here star in the center of the map. Before the event, starting from the observatory at an height of 4,200 feet 5.5 miles almost due north of the summit of the mountain…heading towards the mountain into the South Fort Toutle River valley 1,200 feet below the ridge at an height of 3,000 feet…then rising about 6,500 feet to the 9677 foot summit of the volcano. Before the blast the summit cone was a more typical round cone and not the U-shape that the above post eruption map shows. Spirit Lake to the northeast of the summit is at an elevation of 3,400 feet…about 400 feet higher than the valley floor. The general slope of the valleys in this area is downhill from east to west.

The red circle labeled Scymansky is the approximate location where Neil got his photos of the mountain…good thing we stopped by the overlook on the way in as by the time we got to the observatory it was completely hidden in the clouds from a front rolling in.

Ok, let’s go back to spring of 1980 and talk about the eruption of the volcano. As everybody knows…the mountain blew up on May 18 at about 0832 in the morning, right? That’s what everybody thinks but in actuality that’s not precisely what happened. There was a volcanic eruption but that was a secondary event and was only a minor contributor to the damage caused by the event.

So, if it didn’t blow up what really happened. Stand by because here comes the vulcanology lesson.

Mount St Helens is a basalt rock volcano and (because it’s in the Pacific Northwest where it tends to rain a lot) is covered by snow most of the year which means that the rock forming the mountain is waterlogged most of the time. Since it’s a volcano it periodically over the centuries has magma rising into the mountain below the cone…this magma contains a lot of dissolved sulfur dioxide gas. As the magma comes into contact with the wet rock the gas mixes with the water and forms sulfuric acid…which tends to dissolve and weaken the basalt rock and turn a lot of the rock into clay. Now we all know what happens to clay when it gets wet, right? It’s gets very, very slippery.

So…over the centuries the mountain has been transformed from solid basalt rock to having lots of veins of gooey clay running through the mountain. The volcano had been mostly dormant overall for several centuries before the 1980 event but starting in March the watching vulcanologists started observing lots of earthquakes in and under the mountain as serious amounts of magma started to flow into the interior of the cone. These earth quakes increased in number until there were about 10,000 per day by the middle of May. Here is a shot taken from very near the site of the observatory looking almost due south towards the summit in early March 1980 before the earthquake activity.

So, the magma started pushing up from below and caused the small earthquakes under and in the mountain as it came up. The magma was stopped from coming out by the summit cone which was plugged at this time…and since it was being pushed from below it looked for someplace to go. After a little looking around it found the acid weakened, clay vein filled north slope of the peak and started pushing horizontally out towards the north. The vulcanologists called this phenomenon the Bulge and it grew by 5 to 80 feet per day as it bulged out from the north face. By May 16 when the picture below was taken the Bulge had grown in size to 450 feet out from the mountain and was a mile tall and a mile and a quarter wide.

Finally, at 0832 on May 18 gravity and the weight of the Bulge overcame the surface tension holding the weakened side of the mountain together and the north side of the mountain collapsed. The precipitating event was a 5.1 magnitude quake only a mile underground immediately below the north face of the volcano. This resulted in the largest known landslide in history…about 3/4 of a cubic mile of rock, snow, and mud. The landslide was the first phase of the event and headed north across the valley at a speed of 150 miles an hour. It hit the 1,200 foot high Johnston Ridge and a little of it sloshed over the top but the majority of the landslide turned either left and headed west or right and headed to Spirit Lake 8 miles away. Some of the landslide ended up in Spirit Lake which raised the elevation of the surface by 200 feet and doubled the area of the lake. The valley between the mountain and Johnston Ridge was filled with as much as 600 feet of debris with the majority of the debris flowing west and inundating the entire North Fork of the Toutle River. The river was covered for a length of 13 miles at an average of 150 feet deep with a maximum of 600 feet deep. Here is the crater post event; this and the previous two photos were taken from almost the same spot near the location of the present day observatory.

When the side of the mountain fell down…naturally the compressed magma in the center decided to leave next. So, starting about 90 seconds after the landslide the magma core of the volcano came out sideways in a pyroclastic flow. St Helens doesn’t erupt with relatively thin, glowing orange lava like you see from the volcanoes in Hawaii…it has pyroclastic flows instead which is a much thicker and much cooler than glowing orange type of lava…think of it as 600 degree concrete. This flow was essentially comfined into the area directly between the mountain and Johnston Ridge due to it’s viscosity.

The third part of the eruption was the gray ash cloud that we all saw on the news back then…rising to a height of 60,000 feet and producing a mushroom cloud about 25 miles in diameter. This ash cloud eventually spread worldwide via the jet stream.

About 90 percent of the material ejected was in the landslide and most of the rest was in the pyroclastic flow. The total energy released was about 25 Megatons…or about the size of both atomic bombs used in World War II combined. 

Trees were shredded out to a range of about 8 miles, knocked down out to a range of about 13 miles, and killed out another couple miles past that. Over 230 square miles of forest were obliterated…and even today we were astounded by the few numbers of trees and the large areas of essentially bare rock that remain.

Here is two superimposed shots of the before and after profile of the mountain…it’s a pretty dramatic change.

Finally here are the few decent shots that Neil was able to get. The first two were taken from east on highway 504 from the Scymansky location on the first map…about at the bottom of the first dip to the south heading east from there…and show the crater from about 10 o’clock (the opening of the U is almost exactly at 12 o’clock) from about 15 miles away. The last shot is of the corner of Spirit Lake…taken from the observatory about 7 miles from the lake. The mountain itself is about 90 degrees to the right from the view toward Spirit lake and about 5.5 miles away…but unfortunately it was completely hidden by the clouds rolling in…in fact the view to Spirit Lake was obscured completely less than 10 minutes after this shot was taken. I wish he had been smart enough to rotate the camera 90 degrees to the right after the lake shot and take one of the obscured peak…the difference in visibility was extremely pronounced as you could see nothing but clouds/fog looking toward the peak and nothing of the peak or valley between the peak and the observatory on the ridge.

Shortly after the photo of Spirit Lake was taken the ranger came out for a talk about the event…he has been at the observatory for 27 years (essentially since it opened about 3 years after the event). He had lots of before and after pictures and talked through the entire sequence of the event with a lot of hand waving and pointing at various topology features around the area to give listeners a great understanding of how the topology of the area, the tectonic actions prior to the event, and the exact effect of the various things in the sequence of the event caused the effects we see today. Like many of these presentations we’ve seen over the years but especially since we hit the road full time…actually looking at the ground where it happened along with a discussion by somebody who knows the facts and can relate what those facts actually mean in regards to being on the ground proved really fascinating.

We also watched the Park Service movie inside the observatory before the talk…which was sort of cool but actually was relatively non-informative compared to the ranger talk…and then headed home as the weather was getting pretty socked in by this time due to a front coming in from the southwest. There’s been a circulating storm out off of the Aleutian Islands the past week or so and the counter clockwise flow from it keeps bringing in rain clouds from the southwest causing it to be really rainy the past week or so. Connie drove down the mountain pretty much in the cloud bank for the first 10 miles or so then it was just overcast the rest of the ride home. We did stop by a Home Depot and get some measurements on a couple of Weber gas BBQ grills that allowed us to decide what to order to replace our charcoal grill which is about rusted out.

We had dinner and watched TV but went to bed early about 2200 since we had a 0330 wakeup call/alarm to get to Connie’s scheduled medical procedure on Thursday morning.

I already posted about the results of Connie’s test. It’s supposed to rain from now through Sunday but we’ll head out to see the Lewis and Clark National Historic Site whatever day between now and next Thursday that it’s nice weather.

Cyas.

Good news today on the medical front. 

Yesterday we went on our planned trip down to the Mt. St. Helens National Volcano Memorial and there are pictures but Neil’s not done with them yet. I did want to go ahead and post after Connie’s D&C today.

We got up at 0330 to get there for her arrival time at 0515…turned out her surgery was scheduled for 0715. Neil camped out in the pretty nice waiting area and about 0830 or so Dr. Froelich came out and gave him the news. The procedure was done…and rather than being a thick endometrial lining like the ultrasound indicated there was essentially no thickening of the lining. There were two polyps which she told Neil were frequently misidentified via ultrasound as thick lining. Both of them were removed…and she said they appeared completely normal and she’s 99% sure that removing them will complete the needed treatment and that no hysterectomy will be necessary. Still have to wait on the pathology report and make sure that Dr. Froelich here and Dury down in Fort Myers concur…but things are looking up on her end.

Neil’s foot is continuing to improve…and he’s holding out hope that next Thursday he’ll be out of the boot but will get told not to hike extensively for a few more weeks.

With all that in mind…Neil will start working on detailed planning for our trip back east…he’s thinking we’ll likely go have a 2 day drive to Boise, ID…stay a day…another 2 day drive to Moab, UT and stay at Arches National Park (one of our original destinations before the broken foot thing) for a week. Then one day over to Denver for 4 or 5 days and then 2 days to Junction City for our warranty work starting Oct 6. From there it’s 3 or 4 days down to our scheduled stop in Cedar Key FL on Oct 25 but we’ll stop a couple of times on the way; assuming we leave Kansas on Oct 12 or so that’s gives us two weeks for a leisurely transit the remaining distance.

Yea! I think the end is in site.

Stand by for another science lesson in our next post…we learned a lot about the Mt. St. Helens eruption back in 1980 yesterday and Kara will be doin’ some more edumacation of you with the pictures we got.

Cyas.

It was a great Labor Day Weekend here in Graham WA. Saturday we stayed home and watched Alabama open their season against Virginia Tech on ESPN. Bama is trying for their third consecutive BCS championship…but has some holes to fill from last year’s squad. On the defensive side of the ball they had a few graduations but mostly just reloaded with new folks…with the exception of a single play where the linebacker was out of position (and with the help of an outstanding block by the Tech right guard and tackle) where the running back scooted for a 70something yard score they were the typical Alabama defense with Tech punting on 10 possessions. The special teams opened the scoring with a punt return TD only a minute something into the game and the same return man added a kickoff return TD after a Tech field goal…he also added a TD pass on the Tide’s only sustained long drive of the night.

The offense on the other hand…still needs some work. After losing 3 members of last year’s line to the NFL they were decent but not the usual terrific run blockers that we’re used to seeing. Lots of missed assignments but I’m sure they’ll get things sorted out pretty quickly. You’re in pretty good shape when you win 35-10 with only one decent offensive drive; the remaining scores were a pick six by the defense and a short drive after a lousy Tech punt. Texas A&M is up next on the 14th and they’ll need to more consistent line play to success against an offense better than Tch’s.

Dinner Saturday was some Italian Sausage sandwiches with onions and peppers on hoagie rolls…we added a strawberry/coconut/blueberry yogurt combo that went pretty well with it.

Sunday we went to mass then ran by Walmart to pick up a few things we forgot to get the other day. Came home and watched football on TV…I don’t think there are any NFL games this weekend so we had college football both last night and some more tonight on Monday night. Dinner sunday was a pork tenderloin…marinated in lemon juice, EVOO, and Italian spices then grilled with a glaze of BBQ sauce, balsamic vinegar and maple syrup. It was pretty yummy…we had some delish roasted Rosemary Potato Wedges and fruit salad to go with it; apples, craisins, mayo and grated sharp cheddar.

The weather all weekend has been great; 70s and low humidity…today Connie is working a couple hours since she can’t work Thursday due to her upcoming procedure and will likely be feeling poorly on Friday. We got some fresh corn on the cob from the veggie stand last week and are having grilled corn (topped by Tabasco/lime/maple butter) and burgers…and we’ve got a little peach pie in the freezer that we’ll bake and have with ice cream for dessert. Probably watch some football as well and maybe the end of the golf tourney as well.

I’m not sure if I ever posted a picture of our RV sign once we put it outside; I know I had one of it sitting on the couch but here’s where we have it mounted. Neil got a metal stake hanger for it as well but we don’t’ have enough space here to use that…hanging on the king pin is our alternate location.

He also got a couple more nice shots of the mountain Saturday when there wasn’t much haze…I faded one out to almost a black and white mood for the textural contrast.

I kinda like that last one…rather than looking completely naturally colored it’s more of a texture and study in details. The large white spot in the summit saddle heading down to the right is one of 20something glaciers on the mountain. We googled a few weeks back to find out the difference between a glacier and a snow/ice pack…the difference is that a glacier flows and an ice pack doesn’t. Connie thought it had to do with the whether it survived the summer or not and Neil had no real idea but now ya’ know. This is amazingly detailed for a shot taken from almost 30 miles away, isn’t it.

I think we’re heading down to Mount Saint Helens on Wednesday…it’s 40% rain tomorrow morning and only 10% on Wednesday…the pictures we took on our Columbia River Gorge trip were from the south side and the park observatory is on the north side about 8 or 10 miles away. This means you can see mostly into the interior of what used to be the central lava dome before it blew up, taking most of the north side of the summit away and sending downstream into the Spirit Lake area north and slightly east of the peak. We’re not sure how much you can really see from there…but it will be a nice day trip. Next week after Connie recovers we’re planning on making a trip down to the Lewis and Clark National Historic Park right on the Pacific at the mouth of the Columbia River (about 40 miles downstream from Portland) then continue up the coast highway for some photos and then heading back home. We are looking at some short hikes along the way…Connie found one at the Willapa NWR we’ll be passing…the Lewis and Clark NWR near the Historic Park is larger and looks more scenic but it’s almost all islands and hence not explorable unless we wanted to kayak and since it’s right in the Columbia River we’re thinking we don’t want to battle those currents.

Cyas.

Another great view of Mount Ranier today…I guess that the Ranier View RV Park is aptly and appropriately named.

After our day trip to Nisqually earlier in the week on Wednesday we just spent Thursday and Friday around the house. Connie had some work to get done…it’s getting time for  the new class of techs to start school and she’s been hard at work organizing them, incorporating some new software that the college has in it’s arsenal into her workflow, and catching up on some professional reading. Meanwhile Neil has been doing…well, not much.

Late Wednesday afternoon/evening/overnight and Thursday morning it pretty much rained constantly; so doing nothing was pretty much the best thing he could have done. After Connie’s work was completed on Thursday by mid afternoon it appeared that the weather had cleared…so we decided to run out and handle a couple of errands before rush hour really got going. We headed north about 10 miles to a jewelry store in Puyallup to get her diamond tennis bracelet repaired…departed from home in beautiful weather but just as we parked about a half block around the corner from the jewelry store it started raining. We managed to get inside before it poured and got an estimate and filled out the paperwork for the repair. Just as we got back to the car it really opened up but it stopped after a few minutes. We had to stop by Safeway for a couple items and (naturally) it poured from just as she dropped Neil off at the door to go shop until just after he got back in after the completion of the errand…and then had stopped completely and was bright sunshine again by the time we got back home.

Friday was more of the same…rained all night and stopped about mid morning then it cleared up and remained clear the rest of the day and is supposed to be clear and warm through the holiday on Monday.

After a great dinner of home made crab cakes Neil walked down to the dumpster to drop off the garbage and noticed a really beautiful sunset on the mountain as he walked back to the house; so he grabbed the camera and took a few photos…here are a couple of slightly different final shots…the second one really invokes what it actually looked like more…the mountain sticking up out of the clouds and brilliantly lit on the glaciers by the setting sun.

We could get used to views like that…but they would require us to remain near mountains…which means it would get cold with all the related snow and such…nah, I think we’ll head on down south  here in a few weeks.

Today we’re watching football and drinking beer in the afternoon and I think we’ll have an Italian sausage with some stuffed pasta from the freezer for dinner. We’ll grill either tomorrow or Monday depending on how the weather looks…burgers and fresh grilled corn we got from the farmer stand up the road.

Cyas.

Wednesday was a day trip to the Nisqually NWR. The refuge is a freshwater marsh encompassing the delta of the Nisqually River and is about 30 miles from our location in Graham but just about 5 miles west of our previous location on the southern end of American Lake at Joint Base Lewis McChord. The marsh was formed back in the early 1900s when a Seattle lawyer built a dike to enclose 1000 acres of salt marsh which was used for farming up until the 1930s…at that point it was abandoned and the artesian wells formerly used for irrigation flooded the fields and it grew into the freshwater marsh it is today. There are a bunch of trails on the refuge but due to Neil still being in the boot (albeit he continues to improve) we elected to do the 1 mile (which turned into about 1.5 miles by the time we took the side trips to each of the overlooks) boardwalk. On our arrival we went ahead and renewed our Inter Agency pass…this is an $80 pass from the US Park Service that gives you unlimited access to all National Parks, NWRs, National Forests, National Landmarks, and pretty much everything else run by the Park Service…over 450 places in all. It also gets you into places run by other federal government departments. It’s good for a year and it only takes 10 or so visits to save you money…and best of all once you turn 62 you get a permanent pass for $10. Check it out.

Anyway; we loaded up with the cameras and binoculars and headed out. Our first stop was the Riparian Forest overlook; there are three overlooks on Twin Barns boardwalk representing the three types of environment…Riparian (essentially near the river) Forest, the Nisqually River itself, and the grassy freshwater marsh area…each of the overlooks is a short hike off the main boardwalk. There was water in the Riparian Forest area although it was pretty stagnant and completely covered with bright green algae. Here’s a shot of the wetlands from the overlook and then a shot of Connie and the boardwalk as we headed towards our next stop. I am trying a new photo size for the blog; these are 900 instead of 600 pixels wide…let me know if you like it better this way or whether the smaller ones are easier to view. [added later: Uggh; the larger size stomps on top of the right hand sidebar so I’m going to have to either figure out how to fix that or change  back to the 600 pixel wide photos.]

The boardwalk was mostly dry but did have a bit of moss on it in places so Neil just had to be careful. About 200 yard past the above shot we ran across a bunch of birders with spotting scopes and binoculars stopped on the boardwalk…long experience tells you that when you see a bunch of people stopped you should stop and look too:-). We did and spotted a really pretty yellow bird…examination of the NWRs posted bird list and Peterson’s later told us it was either a female Yellow Warbler or an immature female Yellow Throated Warbler. We really couldn’t tell for sure; there are a couple of unique identifying characteristics for each; this one has both of them but also has some slight differences from the descriptions of both of the candidates. So I’m going to call this one an either/or…nothing else in the warbler family is both located here in the Pacific Northwest and is even close color-wise. I put in 3 different views of the same bird so all of the detail is visible. It also could be a Prothonotary Warbler based on the grey wings and tail but the yellow on the head and breast appears to bright to be a Prothonotary. Wilson’s Warbler was another close one but we didn’t have a good enough picture to really see it’s distinctive characteristics.

**Late Breaking News: Connie found another web site that better shows the underside of the tails and the colors on the various alternatives and we’re about 90% sure that it’s a female Wilson’s Warbler.

Our next stop was at the Nisqually River overlook…and for some reason Neil didn’t take any photos while we stopped there…the view was sort of restricted by trees and brush but there was enough to have taken at least some photos…don’t know what he was thinking. We did have a nice stop for a few minutes; the overlooks were about evenly spaced around the mile boardwalk so that provided a nice place to rest for a bit for him. We did see a whole bunch of large fish of various species eating flies off the surface or shallow swimming minnows…we never got a clear enough view of them to determine what they were other then several different types. A bunch of them looked like salmon in coloration but those were shorter and fatter/wider than salmon typically look like…and in addition we’re in the early stages of salmon spawning season and Neil doesn’t think they eat while they’re migrating upstream to their final destination. The rest of them looked more like large mouth bass in size, shape, and coloration but didn’t’ look like they had the typical large mouth bass sized mouth. We must have seen 50 of them in a few minutes though…but we eventually headed off for the third and final overlook at the Twin Barns…this one looks out over the freshwater marsh grasslands.

On the way up we spotted this really, really bright green caterpillar…which despite 15 minutes on google we could not readily identify…it’s even hard to decide which end is the head and which is the tail.

Once at the top of the overlook about 30 feet or so above the marsh we sat for awhile to eat our picnic lunch…which was immediately interrupted by several hawks flying nearby. Neil dropped his lunch and grabbed his camera and was able to get several decent shots before they got too far away.

Our first sighting was a female Northern Harrier…this is a raptor similar to a hawk and has distinct gender differences not common in raptors and hawk like birds…the female is brownish and the male grayish. It has larger wings for it’s size then most birds of prey do which allows it to fly at very low speed and altitudes, almost hovering as it hunts. After watching it for a few minutes it appeared to fly away and Neil picked up his lunch again…only to have it fly right in front of us about 30 feet from the overlook edge instead of the 40 or 50 yards away these shots were taken from.

Later, after we were done eating we spotted a pair of Red Shouldered Hawks off in the distance about 500 yards or so…hence the poor detail in these photos even with the long lens. Red Shouldered Hawks are usually solitary hunters that tend to soar and stay higher while hunting than these two are…so it wasn’t clear whether they were just in the same area hunting or whether it was a courtship ritual or even whether they were both staying in the vicinity of the nest. Given that it’s late August it seems a little late for courtship but maybe they nest year round up here as it doesn’t get all that cold during the winter. It is a male and female together…and I don’t know whether the male in a pair has anything to do with protecting the nest anyway so it could even be a mother and it’s now fledged but not fully independent offspring. I guess I should have paid more attention in birding class and I would know (but I never went to birding class so that likely ain’t it).

Once these guys disappeared and we finished up our lunch and rest we headed down from the overlook; stopping to take some photos of the twin barns that the boardwalk is named after…these were built back in I think 1902 by the Seattle lawyer/farmer. I’ve included 4 different edits of the same photo…the first is almost straight out of the camera with only cropping and minor color correction, the second one got a light HDR treatment, and the last two have a stormy day and a slightly less stormy day using another Aperture filter set Neil has (Aperture is the photo library manager, editor, and touch-up-er that Neil uses).

I put in these 4 so you can see how a slightly different set of editing tools allows you to give photos an entirely different look even though they come from the same source. I guess this could lead to some sort of philosophical discussion about whether editing your photos is “right” or “wrong” vs whether one should only output exactly what the camera sees or whether the output should be what the eye saw or whether the photographer is allowed artistic license to make it a “better” photo. I guess it depends on your definition of better; most shots that are submitted for competitions you’re allowed to crop and color correct but not allowed to composite shots together to create something that wasn’t there originally…but you are allowed to alter the mood somewhat. Most photos you see in exhibits or for sale have been processed to make them better looking or evoke more of a particular mood. I like them all.

And finally, right around the corner from the barns (maybe 30 feet from where the barn pictures were taken from Neil grabbed a couple shots of some cat tails growing at the marsh edge.

We continued on around the path and found a small, algae covered pond with a bunch of ducks in it…they were located just 20 feet or so from the boardwalk so we got some really great shots of first a couple of immature Mallards

and then a couple of immature Wood Ducks.

Shortly after this we arrived back at the visitor center and parking lot…good thing as Neil was tired of walking by this point. We headed on home (had to turn on the A/C in the car as it had gotten warmer while we were hiking for a couple of hours) and made the trip home. Once here we had a shower and then Neil cooked some chicken that had been marinated in olive oil, lemon juice and fennel seeds for dinner…we found this recipe in Giada DeLaurentis twitter feed…we had never thought (and didn’t think so even the first time we tried it) that fennel seed would go good with sausage but despite being the principal distinct spice used in most sausages (it’s what gives it that ‘sausage’ flavor) it’s really tasty. We had rice with it…and Neil had a french roll while Connie had some smashed/buttered turnip (rutabaga for us southerners). We kept some leftover raw chicken un-marinated that Neil will do something with tonight…it’s rainy and wet so he’s thinking chicken and noodles.

Next week it’s Labor Day on Monday so we’re staying home and grilling outside unless it rains. Connie has her procedure on Thursday so we’re thinking that Tuesday or Wednesday we’ll head down to Mount St. Helens to the Volcano Memorial and get some more shots there. Neil goes for another checkup on his foot on Sep 12 and it’s really improving almost daily at this point…he is allowed to walk on it without the boot for showers and such and has almost no pain left so hopefully we’ll back to more frequent and longer hike fun stuff pretty soon.

God’s Team…the two time defending and three of the last four National Champion Alabama Crimson Tide…opens their season Saturday against Virginia Tech on ESPN. Roll Tide!!

Cyas.

This is the second part of the Columbia River Gorge day trip. Last post I left off with the photos from Shepperd Dell Falls. We met this couple from Arizona while at the Dell Falls and kept running into them pretty much the next 2 hours until we turned off of Historic Route 30 and onto the Mount Hood Scenic Drive.

Our next stop was the 120 foot tall Bridal Veil Falls. While not the highest one we saw on our trip it was clearly the highlight as far as view and flow rate was concerned. The only drawback was that it was a 0.6 mile round trip hike to get down to the base of the fall with about 120 or so feet of elevation change since the top of the falls passes about 5 feet under Route 30 and the viewpoint is at the base. The top portion of the hike is paved but the second half of the outbound hike is unpaved and naturally all of the elevation is on the unpaved portion. Despite this; it was really only a bad climb down for Neil in his hiking boot for a hundred yards or so over a rocky part, after that the remainder of the downhill was relatively smooth albeit downhill. Several folks we passed on the path noted that Neil must have really wanted to see this fall to go down there. While it was a decent climb down and back up…it was well worth it as the view was pretty spectacular.

After those shots we took the long hike (well, it was only long due to Neil’s boot) back up to the parking lot and headed on down to the 242 foot Wahkeena Fall but unfortunately the view from the road was pretty lousy and the hike to a decent view was straight up a path that was too steep to easily navigate in the boot since it keeps your ankle from flexing. This was the best shot we could get…and it only shows the bottom half or so of the fall itself.

Our next stop is the most famous fall in the gorge; the 611 foot drop Multnomah Fall. This is divided into a 542 foot upper drop over an overhanging cliff edge so it’s a straight vertical drop and a 69 foot lower fall drop located directly under the bridge. It’s only about 200 yards from the parking lot to the fall itself so this was an easy drop. The traffic here was terrible since it was about 1300 when we arrived; Connie dropped Neil off and waited for a spot in the parking lot; by the time she found one he was done with the falls photos so we just watched it for a bit then ate a hot dog for lunch at the visitor center. We didn’t hike up to the bridge as Neil had done about all the hiking he was up to for the day. The first shot shows both upper and lower falls and the second one is a closeup of just the lower one. Good thing Neil took the really wide angle lens when he got out of the car as he really needed it for these shots. I think this is the highest waterfall we’ve ever personally seen although it really isn’t all that large of an overall flow rate.

Our final waterfall for the day was the 176 foot Horsetail Falls about another 3 miles up the road from Multnomah Falls.

We had one final stop along the river before heading towards Mount Hood; we stopped by the Bonneville Dam so that we could investigate the fish ladders. Since the Columbia River drains a large portion of the Cascade Mountains it’s one of many spawning grounds for salmon in the Northwest. As such; the fish need a way to get around the dam on their way upstream from the ocean to their birth stream to spawn. The lake behind the dam is about 60 feet higher than the downstream level…so how do fish get up? Essentially there is a canal that leads in a U shape from upstream of the dam itself to a point well past the spillway and it’s more turbulent water flow. If the canal was dug with a constant slope then the water flow through it would be fast enough so that the fish cannot get upstream; so instead of a constant slope there are a series of box shaped sections of the channel  with each box being a foot or so higher than the lower box (think of stairs) Each individual box has a wall at upstream and downstream ends that is set so that the top of the wall at the lower end is about a foot underneath the water. The boxes are about 8 feet deep and there are holes in the walls so that the fish can swim from box to box.

The way the boxes are built…the technical term is that the walls form a series of weirs in the channel… most of the flow happens near the surface of the channel as the water flows past the weirs. Down in the middle and lower sections of each box the water flow (and hence the speed of the water flow) is greatly reduced. The fish make their way through the holes in the weirs from box to box and gradually climb up the channel from downstream to upstream and eventually into the lake behind the dam. They are then free to continue on upstream to the spawning grounds.

The first shot is of one of the turbine blades from the dam; there are about 20 of these each turning at 75 rpm and connected to a generator; the total electrical output of the dam is almost 1200 megawatts. The second shot is the dam itself with the spillways partially opened; they are used to maintain the depth of the lake behind the dam at about 60 feet. The third is the fish ladders; in this shot the dam is out of view to the right of the frame and the river is almost directly behind the portion of the fish ladder. The ladder continues past where the shot was taken from and then continues curving to the left and eventually back to the lake behind the dam. We also went inside the building and there are windows where you can look into the ladder…we watched various salmon species and lampreys (they’re sort of like eels) making their way upstream…but it was too dark and the windows were too blurry to get any decent photos of the fish themselves.

We said farewell to our friends from Arizona here and continued on east. Shortly after the dam Historic Route 30 ends so we hopped on I-84 another 20 lies or so until we arrived at Hood River then turned south around Mount Hood and then west around Mount Hood and back to Portland to rejoin I-5. Along the way we got some shots of Mount Hood…the first two are from the east side as we drove south past the mountain and the last one is from the south as we headed back toward Portland.

Our final stop was at the Timberline Lodge, the last photo above was taken on the way up to the lodge itself. While at the lodge Connie walked up and took a few photos of the views and lodge interiors. It was pretty much a tourist trap and Neil was too tired by this point to walk any more.

By this time we were getting tired and it was getting late so we headed home. The traffic was pretty light until we got back onto I-84 west and then I-5 north. We got stopped first by the afternoon rush hour in Portland and then by the remnants of a vehicle fire on the bridge over the Columbia River. One we eventually made it past the backups it was pretty smooth sailing all the way home…we stopped by an Italian restaurant in Yelm, WA about a half hour before we got home.

I think we’re going to head over to the beach one day next week…it won’t be warm enough to swim but we can at least sit on the beach and get a bit of sun as well as lunch somewhere with a view.

Cyas.