burning rage: stop throwing cigarettes out the window!

I worked from home today, which meant I gave more attention to news. I have a feed set up to receive headlines from a variety of sources in a variety of places, including but hardly limited to home in New Jersey. 

What kept coming up was disconcerting:
Berkeley residents watch as firefighters battle to save their homes
Downe Township brush blaze upgraded to forest fire, affecting 1,500 acres

plus countless updates from Jersey Shore Hurricane News and friends on facebook who are seeing and smelling brush fires. 

 
Photo courtesy Frank Hennessey, via Mike

While causes haven't been mentioned as of yet, every time I hear about fires in New Jersey, I think about a particular experience I had during my commute back to Toms River when I was teaching at William Paterson. It had been a dry string of weeks, and it was a sunny, breezy day. While sitting in traffic just before getting to Silverton, I watched firefighters respond to a brush fire in the stretch of pine trees along Brick Blvd. After traffic let up less than half a mile down the road, I watched as the driver in front of me tossed a cigarette out the window. 

and I was enraged.

Now, don't get me wrong. I absolutely appreciate the beauty and intricacy of the fire ecology of the Pine Barrens. We as humans are not doing ourselves any favors by letting the biomass pile up until a stray flare or something results in disaster (and it's my worst nightmare that the Pine Barrens will burn down for one reason or another and bracken fern will take over). Here we are, trying to save communities from destruction today. But I cannot believe how ignorant so many people seem to be about how incredibly risky it is to throw cigarettes out the window.

Cigarette butts going out windows of cars is not just a New Jersey problem. The annual cleanup of Bayou Lafourche, which I recently paddled, counted 3726 butts in 2012 and 1302 in 2013, picked up along the 100 or so mile stretch of the bayou that the crews focus on (source: BTNEP). That's just the ones they found and picked up. You know you see tons of them in high traffic areas (especially areas of high auto traffic, where jerks are throwing them out their windows). 

It's not just a fire risk, either. Cigarette filters are not biodegradable (source: Longwood University). Seriously. They're not made of paper, or cotton-- they're made of a kind of plastic. They will not break down for a very, very long time.

And what about the water? Perhaps there's only trace amounts of chemicals left at the end of a cigarette, but that adds up, just like everything else we pollute our waterways with. I think it's pretty common knowledge these days that nicotine and other carcinogens in cigarettes aren't good for us. It doesn't matter if you're consuming it via inhalation or your drinking water. And don't even try to tell me that you can just get bottled water, because it's in there too. These chemicals can kill small animals and sicken children who eat them, too.

Obviously, it would be best if people stopped smoking all together, but the least we can do is spread a little knowledge. Please, please, please stop throwing cigarettes out windows. Would you throw them on the floor in your home? I do not live in your ash tray, people.


Hang in there, my beloved pitch pines. Hang in there, Jersey.

busy weekend

ON FRIDAY, I planted trees for the first time in 2014! It was a cool morning but warmed up nicely, and it was so so wonderful to get outside after a chilly week that included two very cooped up "sneaux days". (Hint: it didn't actually snow.)

The site was as the back of my favorite park that I've found in Louisiana so far, one of the Jean Lafitte National Park sites (there are six in the state), the Barataria Preserve. We took a short boat ride to the site, way at the back of the park. The land is actually owned by the school districts of two parishes, Jefferson and St. Charles. The districts lease the land to hunters to raise money for the schools. We put over 300 bald cypress trees in the ground to help fight the invasive Chinese Tallow tree. After the cypress trees have a while to take hold, a team will go back and kill the tallow trees, which are disrupting the ecosystem there.


a hunting blind on the flotat; we planted along a ridge between the flotat and the bayou

ON SATURDAY, I took a few friends on an adventure to Baton Rouge to try on wedding dresses. There was a store there that also has a branch in New Jersey, which will make it much easier logistically if I found something I liked. Three of my housemates (Anna Leigh, Alyssa and Hannah) and my friend from the Episcopal version of YAV (Lindsey) all came along for the ride, promising snarky and silly commentary and help. I tried on a few ridiculous gowns that are nothing at all like me, just for laughs, but we did eventually narrow it down to a likely contender. Then we all tried on funny dresses just because.


Many thanks to Anna Leigh, Hannah, Alyssa and Lindsey for help and laughter

ON SUNDAY,  I woke up early and traveled to Bayou Blue for church, and then to Morgan City for another church service which I was leading. I preached about environmental justice. It went pretty well. The church has a Confederate fort on its grounds. I explored town a little bit afterward. It was very quiet and empty, and reminded me a lot of different rust belt towns I've visited before. There was a lot of truck traffic, which makes sense for it being a pretty busy port, but hardly anyone else walking or driving down the streets.

It was a very foggy, humid morning along the Atchafalaya River. My first time seeing it! And the little red lighthouse across the river in Berwick.

28: Gonna. be. GREAT.

I was born 28 years ago yesterday. I spent most of the day on Grand Isle, monitoring vegetation with NRCS. (In other words, took a long walk down a beach on the Gulf of Mexico looking at trees and sometimes dune grasses.)


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NRCS and the local conservation district planted about 100 Sand Live Oaks along the island about a year ago. Quercus geminata was native, but has mostly disappeared from Louisiana. With some acorns from Mississippi, a plant expert grew a whole bunch of them. Over 90 of the trees have survived the first year.



I learned a new tree (8): rattlebox, called such for the dried up seed pods that dangle from the branches well after the leaves have left for the year--



Here are 27 things I did when I was 27, in no particular order:

1. Completed/ survived my first semester as an adjunct professor.
2. Completed/ survived my first full year without a nerve block since 2000.
3. Moved to Arizona for the winter.
   
4. Pet a baby burro.
   
5. Visited at least nine national parks.
6. Earned a free national parks pass for racking up over 250 volunteer hours with the federal government.
7. Dealt with my breakup with Peace Corps.
8. Discovered a deep and abiding love for soil.
   
   (here I was discovering a wolf spider with my shovel, and exploring the free soil pit bestowed upon me when my favorite tree in the woods at Johnsonburg fell)
9. Met Josh Ritter and Austin Nevins.
   
10. Said goodbye to Uncle Fred.
11. Said hello again to my cat, Red (short for Red Oak, the state tree of NJ).
    
12. Returned to a job that I loved, to support people that I love.
    
13. Ran my fifth Muddy Buddy.
    
14. Signed up to move to New Orleans.
15. Discovered an allergy to anxiety.
16. Traveled to five new states (UT, WV, KY, AL, LA).
17. Tried satsumas for the first time.
18. Rode on an airboat for the first time.
19. Helped plant about 850 trees and 5000 plugs of grass.
20. Didn't get my dream job.
21. Went on a mission trip to Rhode Island, serving as the musician.
22. Went to quite a few major and minor league baseball games for the first time in many years.
23. Acquired a new basil plant, which has traveled from VA to NJ to NY to LA successfully, and is still growing.
    
24. Learned that NJ has a volcanic cone.
25. Had my nails painted for the first time since I was in middle school.
    
26. Celebrated the marriages of Jon and Janet, Matt and Robyn, and Lauren and Andy; was asked to be a bridesmaid for Hilary and Patrick and Amanda and Mike.
27. Promised to marry an awesome human being.
    

I laughed! I cried! I saw new places and learned new things!

Turning 28 also marks a solid decade of vegetarianism.

I know very little about what 28 will bring aside from lots of things having to do with Louisiana's wetlands and getting married, but I'm feeling pretty good about it. In the wise words of my favorite Katie Brendler Katie Katie Brendler, "GONNA. BE. GREAT."

cypress and tupelo planting

Today! I got to! plant! trees!!

(7. tupelo)

Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana and Lake Pontchartrain Foundation were hosting a planting event, mainly for visitors from Environmental Defense Fund and similar organizations who were in Louisiana for a conference. I tagged along because it was open to the public (and because I like trees).

We planted in Big Mar, a wetlands area that is growing thanks to the Caernarvon Diversion, a freshwater diversion that is bringing new silt. The area has grown over the past 10-15 years. Planting trees speeds up the ecosystem restoration a little bit by anchoring the new land and expanding wildlife habitat.


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I didn't take to many pictures of the actual work because I was too busy doing it, planting with another volunteer, Gertrude, a retiree who cheered on every baby tree as I dug each hole. Yes, she actually called them "baby trees". She also let me dig all of the holes while we cheered for the cypress and tupelo gum saplings together. We were obviously a perfect pair.


It was a beautiful day!


I went for my first air boat ride to get to the site!


I got to play in the mud!

All in all, the group planted 250 trees. Gertrude and I planted about 30 of them ourselves, setting up plastic shields on each one to protect them from nutria and other critters until they are a little more established (CRCL will return periodically to track the growth and success rates as well as to eventually remove the shields).

I like my work.

Sugar, Sugar

We're harvesting, please drive carefully! As if the billboards weren't enough, I lost count after two dozen sugarcane trucks driving toward the plant in Raceland on my way to Thibodaux today. The streets are littered with cane debris, and the town has a very different smell than it did when I was there last week, now that the plant is firing at full capacity for the harvest season.

I returned to Thibodaux to explore a dry swamp with Billy Taylor, the retired sawyer (please note, Bill Taylor Boat Launch Road is named after his father, not him, he insisted).


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While he's not an expert in ecology, he has a lot of knowledge about the trees and how they grow, and it's a lot easier for me to learn this stuff walking around with someone explaining it rather than just sticking to the books (no matter how much I love my very well worn copy of Trees of North America: a field identification guide). I can now add elm and tupelo gum to my list. I get the sense that he also appreciates being taken seriously for his knowledge. At the end of today's adventure, he gave me a hug and said, "I never thought I'd be this fond of a yankee."

So since I'd already driven out to Thibodaux, I decided I'd explore a little. Billy concluded my tour with a drive through Laurel Valley, an old abandoned sugarcane plantation just outside of town. There were dozens of dilapidated cypress board buildings, beautiful as deserted places often are.







 It was very peaceful and quiet.

Driving back toward Thibodaux, I noticed a little museum affiliated with this old plantation. I was hoping to visit the local branch of Jean Lafitte National Park, but you might have heard the government is currently closed... (It's actually putting a cramp on my efforts here, as I can't access any NRCS resources online that I've been using, nor can I work with the employees to plan my next projects, nor can I use the national park as my classroom!). So I went to the museum, which had a lot of wonderful antique farm equipment as well as some livestock, including a litter of kittens that I miraculously managed to leave without kidnapping*.



But it's sugarcane season in southern Louisiana. I'm curious to see that progress after weeks of driving amongst fields full of tall canes. It will be interesting to see and hear about something other than seafood and oil for a little while.

*Instead, I give you an updated photos of sweet little Red, a cat that I did successfully kidnap as a kitten, who is doing very well with Mike out in Arizona. She even helps with the laundry!

another morning, another walk

I love morning walks.

Goal for self: learn at least 15 local trees this year. So far:

1. Live oak
2. Sand live oak (yes, that's different)
3. Magnolia
4. Cypress
5. Crepe myrtle

and 6. banana

and I would walk five miles

After working from home for the past few days, I was getting a little bored of these walls. I was still waiting for several people to return my phonecalls, so I decided to go for a walk. I love walking!

Aaand over five miles later, I'm back and sitting down with a cup of tea. Pleasant way to spend the morning.

I really love live oaks. New Orleans is full of them. These ones are in Audubon Park. Charismatic megaflora? Google just confirmed: that's a real term. Yessss.

Cactus League

If you're interested in the baseball itself, you might be more interested in what Mike has to say about this trip:
The 8 year old inside me screamed!

But even I, the very casual baseball fan, have plenty to say about visiting spring training in Phoenix.

First, Phoenix is ridiculous. When you consider that about 25% of the state's population lives in Phoenix, and about 50% of the state's population lives in the "metro area", it's no wonder that this was the first traffic I've seen since arriving in Arizona in early January. My dad lived here before he moved back to NJ and met my mom and lived happily ever after, but he was confident that the place I was describing was WAY built up since he lived there over 30 years ago. Still, despite the traffic, it was great to drive around all week and get to know the area a little. We also went and saw the house my dad lived in, which was pretty amusing for me.

Second, the drive from Bullhead City to Phoenix was really pretty. I've driven as far on that route as Wikieup, but after that stretch of huge ranches, Route 93 leads into saguaro cacti and Joshua tree "forest" before heading into the sprawl of Surprise, Sun City and all of the -dales outside of Phoenix.

Tree of the trip: Joshua trees! in bloom!

So, baseball. blah blah blah sports blah blah baseball. No, just kidding, I actually have things to say. I actually like sports. People forget that often, because I don't particularly care for watching TV.

Monday night: Reds @ Rockies, Salt River Fields at Talking Stick, Scottsdale. The park was pretty sweet, set up in a way that we were able to stand behind the bullpen all night and chat with the players. We chatted with Arroyo while he warmed up, and hoped Todd Frazier would come by so we could yell all sorts of Toms River love at him... but no such luck. I adored the organ pipe cacti around the park.

Tuesday: Cubs vs. Rangers, Hohokum, Mesa. I almost became a Cubs fan because they kept playing Blues Brothers songs between the innings over the loudspeakers. Actually, I was pretty excited about the ballpark music in general, as it seems Hohokum features an actual human being playing the organ. It was a great game, though lawn seats are intense in the Phoenix sun.

Tuesday night: Giants @ Mariners, Peoria. We were so exhausted from the long afternoon in the sun (the beers probably didn't help), so we only made it about halfway through the game.

Wedensday: Dodgers vs. Royals, Surprise Stadium. An increase in sunscreen and decrease in beer lead to us feeling a lot more awake, but we decided one game was enough. Not that I really had much a stake in any of these games, but man is it great just enjoying a game on a beautiful day and not really care who wins.

Thursday: White Sox vs. Brewers, Camelback Ranch, Glendale. Free parking! I think this was my favorite park. There was something aesthetically pleasing about the fact that the seats matched the sand. The lawn was particularly steep, so not only did we have a great view, but we also had the added entertainment of a bunch of small children repeatedly running up and rolling down the hill.

All right, all right. I didn't actually say much about the baseball games themselves, but I did really enjoy this. The last major league game I went to was a very, very rainy Mets @ Nationals game the day I finished my first year of college in 2005. Dad and I stopped and enjoyed watching a few innings of ball and a field crew tripping over themselves trying to get the tarp out before driving back to New Jersey.

Good trip. I do like a good ball game, live and in person, so five of those was a sweet way to wrap up spring break.

Bryce Canyon!

I like the Grand Canyon. I think everyone should see it. That being said, I was in just as much, if not more, awe when I walked up to the edge of Bryce Canyon for the first time. It's amazing to park the car and turn around and see a big blank spot beyond the immediate trees, and know something huge is waiting there for me to see. I think the Grand Canyon is almost too big to really appreciate in the same way that I appreciated Bryce (and Zion, but more on that later).

Bryce is stunning. The recent snow left a lot of ice and mud on the trails, but a beautiful light blanket over the trees and hoodoos (weird rock spires). I've never seen rocks quite like this before. Katy, Mike and I bravely hiked down into the canyon, which was way more accessible than the Grand Canyon (we hiked to the bottom and back up in just a few hours, while they warn you to NOT do that in a single day at the Grand Canyon for fear of death by exhaustion). It was slippery and there was a lot of "surfing" downhill involved, but what a view. It was just as awesome to look up at the hoodoos as it was to look down. It was a beautiful clear day, so looking up had the added bonus of the bright blue sky behind the crazy rockforms and trees.

Tree of the day: limber pine, which is very complimentary to the hoodoos in its weird spindly appearance. They just grow out of the sides of canyon walls and on top of hoodoos and wherever they want, no matter how strange a place it is for a tree. So neat.

After an intense hike (that altitude will get to you!), we took it easy along the rim trail and then drove through the park, stopping at some of the viewing points. One was over 9000 feet. One had a pretty sweet natural bridge formation. The whole park was pretty incredible.

Mojave Desert

We've taken to adding a prefix to anything we (Mike, his fellow teachers and I) don't understand: "weird desert ______". It's fitting, especially given some of the crazy and beautiful things I saw in the Mojave Desert last weekend.

Last Saturday, a few of us went to Joshua Tree National Park. The drive there down CA-95 was nauseating, not in appearance, but in the up and down and up and down and up and down of the road. We're not even talking serious mountains here, just a road that dipped and rolled with a horizon that looks deceptively flat. I'm to blame for the route though. I picked it because Google Maps suggested it took the same amount of time as the bigger highway, and figured it'd be more scenic. It was actually really interesting to look at-- desert as far as you could see, which I'm learning includes a lot of weird desert plants, more than I ever would have guessed. The southwest is actually not like the Sahara, I've learned.

Something we thought was especially interesting was that as we paralleled the train tracks, was this intricate sort of graffiti made out of sticks and different colored rocks. People's initials, dates, names, images. I've never really seen that before.

California Route 62 drives along the edge of Joshua Tree National Park for a while, but not one Joshua Tree was spotted until we were well within the other side of the park near Twentynine Palms, CA. They are almost Dr. Seuss like. I can only imagine their weird shapes are a long-perfected adaptation to windthrow or something, knowing that root systems and branches have some balance to them. The weirder looking their crowns, perhaps the weirder looking and more anchored the roots? I don't know. They were really bizarre but very, very cool to stare at as we hiked and visited different parts of the park.

In addition to weird desert trees, the geology in the park was pretty weird looking. Everything was smooth and rounded and curved, as though a child was given some green, brown and grey crayons and told to invent a new planet. It was very beautiful, but kind of eery. I've never seen anything else like this place.

We stayed in Barstow, and the next day, Mike, Dustin, Hannah and I headed to Death Valley National Park. My ears rejoiced as we hit sea level, and despite how hot it was at -282 feet (close to 90 degrees till the sun began to decline), it was a really cool place. You can see snow capped Telescope Peak (part of the range that Mount Whitney, the highest peak in the continental US is in) from the salt flats in Badwater Basin (the lowest point in the US). There were mountains in every color, a stunning natural bridge, weird salt formations, and of course, weird desert plants. I was amazed at how much was growing in the park (not much, but more than nothing).

After a good rest in Pahrump, NV (another weird desert gambling town) we spent the next day meandering back to Bullhead City, with a stop at Red Rock Canyon just outside of Las Vegas. This place was really beautiful, and really unexpected. For one, the desert heading into Vegas seems so barren and empty (although we were proven wrong later, there are way more plants, including Joshua Trees, visible when you drive south from Vegas during daylight); the desert in this park had a lot of weird desert plants, and even some wild horses. Again, the rocks came in every color, and the wind erosion created some really great rock scrambles. We were able to sit pretty high on top of some red rocks and have a great view of the place.

The drive back to Bullhead City was pretty direct, but like I said, we saw way more plants than we knew were there. Having only flown into Vegas at night, I've seen some of the brush by the road, but it mostly looks like you're on the moon when you drive through the Mojave Desert. It turns out, the incredible darkness of the desert is hiding all sorts of yucca, Joshua trees, distant mountains, and other weird desert things. Really cool. Well, warm, it is February, and it is up over 60 degrees most days already...

Petrified Forest

Rocks! Trees that are rocks! Rocks that used to be trees!

!!!!!!!!!!!

We began the long weekend (thank you, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. for your good work for our world) at Petrified Forest National Park, a place that Mike mentioned he passed on his original drive west in July. He suggested maybe I'd be interested in going there sometime?

TREES THAT ARE ROCKS!

I really loved this park. The biggest impression Arizona has made on me so far is that everything is just so wide, so expansive, so vast-- Petrified Forest was no exception, but in a very different way than I've seen before. Grasslands as far as you could see, occasionally interrupted by a cluster of badland hills, with the Painted Desert around the northern edges. I think what made it feel so immense to me was the fact that I-40/old US-66 and the Santa Fe Railroad bisected the park, but you could watch a train with 100 cars go by and barely hear it. There was nothing for the sound to bounce off. It was sort of eerily quiet, but really peaceful.

We stopped and hiked a lot of the trails in the park. Most of them were reasonably short and accessible. The drives in between the trails were stunning, too, with amazing views of the badlands-- the stripes of sedimentation were really obviously and really cool colors. Grasslands as far as you could see with little specks of Painted Desert, badlands and petrified wood everywhere. So lovely.

The park sadly closes before sunset, but we got to stare at the Painted Desert in the northern end of the park as the sun got lower in the sky, and it was pretty awesome to see the colors just pop. Amazing reds and pinks and blues and greens, with the pale washed out grasses and the big, blue sky. Pretty awesome.

I just love petrified wood. I think it's really cool. Here are at least five reasons why:
1. They are trees and rocks at the same time! That right there is practically my top ten favorite things!
2. It's really pretty.
3. So many different colors from so many different minerals.
4. SCIENCE!
5. There are probably some good metaphors about living things that are somewhat frozen in time or things that are solid that also had life at one time or something. Very poetic, I tell you.
6. Did you know that it requires a diamond saw or dynamite to cut petrified wood? That stuff is serious business.
7. Petrified wood has so many interesting things to say about the geographic environment that it's in, and it's easy to see how that has changed, which is really cool (for example, a lot of the tree rocks we saw in the park were conifers. Conifers! It's all grasslands now with an occasional juniper and maybe another tree or two!).

Well, I got carried away with that. I would keep going on, except most of my reasons would probably just be me stuttering about how much I enjoy trees and rocks and trees that are rocks. It's true though.

Tree of the day: obviously, the ones that are now rocks

So, Petrified Forest? A raving success. That is a lovely park. It was a pretty beautiful day.

CHARISMATIC GEOMORPHOLOGY!

Today, we woke up early and watched the sun rise in the Grand Canyon. I don't even know how to begin to describe how incredible it was to stare into this giant, awesome hole in the ground all day.

We left Bullhead City a little after 2 AM to make it to the South Rim in plenty of time for sunrise. It was cool and rainy, but the weather stopped for a few minutes to enjoy the sun pouring through the clouds, lighting up the canyon brilliantly. Even overcast, it was just so beautiful. Mike will tell you his favorite stupid thing I said today was probably just after sunrise, as we took pictures of the stunning canyon. I turned to this lovely Utah Juniper next to me and said, "I love this tree." You know, while standing next to the Grand Canyon. I was just in awe of everything I could see.

We decided to hike about a mile and a half kind of southeast from Mather Point (a great overlook closest to the first visitors center in the park) to Pipe Creek Vista. It just rained the entire time, and was so chilly and windy. I enjoyed the biodiversity along the trail in addition to the changing view of the canyon itself. It was really nice to just have a walk by ourselves, without loud tourists and worrying about getting in the way of other people's photos. We were so cold and soaked by the end of it that we were thankful when a park shuttle pulled up to the vista just as we finished a timer photo of our sad, soggy selves. We weren't really that sad though, just in need of some hot tea.

After we warmed up and dried off a bit, the rain mostly stopped for the day, just occasional spitting. We packed some snacks and my tree book into a backpack and took off, hiking along the rim trail about four miles to the west of Mather Point, stopping often just to soak it all in. I felt so small all day, but it didn't make me feel lonely or pointless. It felt cozy. I'm such a small part of such a big world, but things are pretty great. I mean, come on, I spent my day at the Grand Canyon. Didn't expect that this summer!

We hiked down the Bright Angel trail a little bit, though we had a short night of sleep to make it out to the canyon in the first place, and had already hiked quite a bit at a way higher elevation than either of us are really used to having grown up at sea level. We sat for a while on one little outcropping. We were tired. It was glorious, but we decided to take the shuttle back to the main parking area mid-afternoon.

I'd been doing so well, but as soon as I sat down on that bus, I was just beat. Done. I kind of nodded off a bit as we took the trip back, until we passed one little road with a lot of cars and people stopped and crowded around this little gully. The bus driver announced that we might want to look out the left side of the bus-- a bull elk was feeding there.

!!!

Charismatic megafauna of the day: BULL ELK. That woke me up! We got off at that next stop and hurried over to get some pictures. The elk didn't really give a care that everyone was watching him, just kept munching on trees and grass and knocking down branches that got tangled in his enormous rack. It was incredible. It almost didn't seem real. He was huge! And very peaceful. We kept a safe distance to keep it that way.

While taking pictures of the elk, we spoke to a nice couple from Flagstaff, where we're staying tonight. They recommended a sweet brew pub downtown. We made the trip to Flag, through some really heavy rains and some really interesting national forests-- Arizona just keeps blowing my mind. Rain! Trees! FORESTS?! It's so green at 8000 feet. I was also amused that the part of the Kaibab Forest that we drove through on Route 180 didn't even really have trees, it was mostly just open rangeland. Still really beautiful, and just awesome to see storm clouds in the distance dumping rain on the mountains surrounding us.

So that brewpub in Flagstaff: Beaver Street Brewpub. Really great beer and food. Good end to a great day.

Beer of the day: R & R Stout, a really smooth, rich but not offensive stout that even Mike liked

Tree of the day: That Utah Juniper probably deserves it most, but I also enjoyed familiarizing myself with Pinyon Pines (they look vaguely sprucey), Ponderosa Pines (really cool looking red and black bark once they mature), and the Gambel Oak (just because I was sitting at the edge of the canyon with my tree book open at one point, with one of those in front of me)

Charismatic geomorphology of the day: Grand Canyon. And when the term "charismatic geomorphology" is a thing in the coming years, I want everyone to remember where they heard it first...

multiple trips, part 1

This was totally crazy, but I did two mission trips back to back this year.

This all started because Katie, Mike and I were thinking about going to where the Sr. Highs would be and camping for a few days, visiting them on their half day off, because those all used to be our Jr. Highs and they asked us about a million times if we were going with them. If we went with them, who would go with the Jr. Highs? Well, it so happened that the organization we go on mission trips with needed volunteers for the Walpole Island, ON trip that our Sr. Highs were going on. Specifically, worship leader... and after a lot of thought, I auditioned. And got it. And talked them into taking on a few extra site coaches so I could drag my friends into this with me...

Week one: Jr. High trip to Irwin, PA. The Pennsylvania Turnpike was basically the same as always, and Irwin is a typical rust belt kind of town, just a little outside of Pittsburgh. My assignment for the week was to paint a shed and repair some porch steps and paint a porch and its ceiling for a very sweet elderly woman. My crew was super awesome and hard working, so we finished that project early and were able to talk the organization into letting us stain the neighbor's deck.

It was a good week. Our middle school group is a bunch of really good, hilarious kids. They attempted at one point to create some drama for themselves, but quit as soon as the adults called them on it. We had a lot of fun together. Our leadership team was pretty stellar, four men and then my dear friend Katie and me for the girls.

Week two: Sr. High trip to Walpole Island, Ontario. We had managed to keep it a secret from the high school group that we would be there, and really the only chance we had left of them finding out before their arrival was if their younger siblings on the Jr. High trip called/ sent a text when they got home. As the Jr. Highs prepared to depart on the bus, Katie and Mike and I did not board, explaining that Katie and I get too carsick to handle the bus, so would be riding with Mike. Didn't lie, just didn't tell the whole truth.

In fact, when they were dragging their feet getting packed up and on the bus, we started joking with them that they were being SO ridiculous, we should just drive to Canada instead. None of them noticed our jokes. It was 6 AM.

So to Canada we went. We drove through northern Ohio, stopping at a bird reserve and the Toledo Botanical Gardens, as well as a Waffle House (probably the best stop we made). Walpole Island is a First Nation Reservation just across the river from Algonac, Michigan, just a little north of Detroit. We took a short ferry ride to get there, across some very blue water.

I unfortunately didn't get out and about as much as I'd have liked, but did get to see a bit of the island and meet some of the residents. Interesting people, and a good range of people who were happy to welcome visitors and share their culture and history, and people who think that all people who are different from them are only on this planet to screw them over. It was very sad to talk to them. One of my favorite people I met was a woman who wanted to tell me about her trees. She was very proud of the Crimson King she had planted on the property before she could even afford to build a house there. Crimson Kings have very dense foliage and make wonderful shade trees. It was pretty glorious. Tree of the day, for sure.

post dated

This post is not actually being posted when it happened (4-6 June). Right now, I am secretly in Reno, Nevada.

"Ne-vă-da! Short A!" -Mike

I don't even know where to start with this. Mike had an interview in Reno and decided to fly into San Francisco and make a trip of it, and talk me into joining him, mostly by promising me redwood trees. Twist my arm, will you. It worked.

EPIC.

We landed in San Francisco and got on the road about 10AM local time. We'd already been awake for 11 hours at this point, with all of the adventures ahead of us still. Excellent. We wandered around Fisherman's Wharf and Pier 39, acquiring caffeine and Ranier cherries and checking out the sea lions.

Drove up and down Lombard Street. Drove across the Golden Gate Bridge. Glorious.

At my dad's good recommendation, we stopped in Golden Gate National Recreation Area and drove up the windy, windy (one of those was weather and one of those was the adjective describing the not straight roads) road to an awesome vista of the bridge, the bay and the Pacific Ocean. The clouds even lifted for about thirty seconds of ridiculous scrambling to take pictures.

Next on the docket was an important, life-altering, beautiful thing. Tree of the day: Muir Woods. Because I was secretly on this trip, I couldn't tell anyone that this was happening AND IT WAS KILLING ME. I offered this on facebook in hopes that the few people in the loop would share my joy, but... REDWOOD TREES... and I couldn't tell anyone. It's like nothing I've ever seen. They're just so tall, and... tall. So tall. My mind was blown by one that was measured and determined to be as old as the United States. This 236 year old tree just seemed so tiny, because others around it were hundreds more years old. Just stunning.

Sadly, I had to leave that place because we did need to eventually make it to Reno. Driving on I-80 in this part of the country is very different than at home in NJ. We drove through Tahoe National Forest and into the Sierras after a brief stop for lunch in the Napa Valley. We noticed it was getting chillier as we drove up, and were shocked/ amused by the signs we passed announcing the elevation (for two kids who grew up at sea level, one of whom had not left the time zone before in his life? It was kind of awesome.)

We continued to ascend until we reached Donner Pass, which was kind of mind blowing to see in real life when I'd mostly only known it through the Oregon Trail computer game. I can imagine how one would get stranded there in the spring or fall, given that we were there in JUNE and there had been several inches of snow that morning. Out of the ordinary, for sure, but it still happened. In fact, it was so unusual that a news team was parked at the rest area where Mike and I stopped to have a snowball fight... and then they interviewed us for the evening news.

Reno itself was very interesting, just a big empty town in the middle of mountains and desert. We stayed at a casino just a few miles from his interview, just absolutely passing out after a full day (and a half, when you consider travel time and time change!) of adventures. The next morning we drove around town a little bit to kill time before Mike's interview, which went really, really well.

We celebrated at Great Basin Brewpub in Sparks (which is basically just the other, slightly-nicer half of Reno). Great food-- jalapeno wonton poppers? We need to figure out how to make those at home. But the beer was also really good. We tried samples of just about everything they had on tap, some better than others. The Cerveza Chilebeso (chili kiss beer) was pretty awesomely done, but we were most impressed with the Ichthyosaur IPA, also known as Icky. In fact, we brought a six pack home with which to celebrate whenever he would eventually get his first full time teaching job.

The rest of the trip was kind of hurry-- we didn't really leave much time for wandering off the beaten path, but we woke up early enough to see dawn in the Sierras (gorgeous, and now we more fully understand what "purple mountain majesties" means) and head back to San Francisco via Lake Tahoe, which was REALLY chilly for it being June. Beautiful though.

Cool trip. I loved seeing a part of the country that I had never seen anything like before. Also cool was finding out when we landed in Philly that he passed the first round interview and was eligible for hire in Washoe County, NV... except, we now know what would come of that... but it gives me a new place to visit in less than two weeks!

Things That Have Happened Since the Last Post

After Alma, we began our trip to Halifax, stopping first at Hopewell Rocks in The Rocks Provincial Park. So cool. We hiked down to the beach and wandered around during low, low tide. I spent the whole time staring at the rocks, trying to figure out the patterns of weathering and how high the tide goes without consulting any of the signs in the visitors center.

I'm a nerd.

We drove into Nova Scotia and made it to Halifax by late afternoon. Our hostel was an old building, conveniently located across the street from another old building that housed a restaurant and bar. We had some really great food and Amanda and I had some really great beer from New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Quebec.

Meanwhile, Mike had an interview for a teaching job in Arizona.

After dinner we decided to walk around the city, which really resulted in us wandering down the waterfront, taking pictures and acting ridiculous (surprise, surprise). There were a few large sculptures and anchors that we thought it was necessary to climb on, and the sunset was gorgeous. We went back to the same place for dessert and beer before unloading the car and turning in. We had left our wet shoes on the hood of the car to dry a little more (and stop making the car smell awful) as a social experiment, figuring if someone stole our worn out, soaking wet, nasty smelling shoes, they really, REALLY needed them more than we did. Well, apparently no one in Halifax was that desperate for shoes.

Around midnight Mari-time (11PM Eastern time, 8PM Pacific time), we received word: Mike got the job. Yay! Except that means he has to leave on Friday, at least two and a half days before I get home from Canada. While that is excessively unfortunate, let's focus on the yay job part! Congratulations, Mike.

This morning, we visited the Citadel in Halifax, a historic naval base. It was interesting to read a bit about the War of 1812 from another perspective... beautiful structure, interesting to wander through some of the creepy passages and look over the ramparts.

We took a creative route to Prince Edward Island, stopping in Stewiacke for a picnic lunch and a picture with a huge statue of a mastadon. The ferry was huuuuuuuuge. Thankfully, despite 50% of us being the carsickest people I've ever met, we didn't have too much trouble on the boat. It was a gorgeous day for a ride across the Northumberland Strait.

The drive into Prince Edward Island was interesting. Guess I should have review my Eastern North America notes, because somehow I was surprised by the myriad of agriculture happening around us. It may also just have been seeing things that I just associate with much different scenery-- corn, soy, wheat, other things that I see growing at home, or associate with the midwest, where the windbreaks are not spruce trees and they don't grow right next to the beach. Very pretty and peaceful here though, and I always enjoy a nice drive through farm country.

We watched the sun set on Brackley Beach in Prince Edward Island National Park, where I would learn what sand fleas are.

...

We are now settled into our enormous lighthouse suite. Seriously, there are multiple rooms and floors. If you are logged into facebook, and friends with me, you should be able to view our tour video:



And, in case you were wondering what the dancing was about, we did seriously spend our evening learning this (although we improvised some of the crazy foot work, especially at the end).

Tree of the day: Red Oak, the provincial tree of Prince Edward Island, as well as the state tree of New Jersey (more specifically the Northern Red Oak, one of many red oak varieties in NJ but the only one that grows this far north, according to my tree book and eyes)

Next up: Fredericton, New Brunswick, via Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island and the Confederation Bridge, and giant lobster, rooster and magnet statues

Mari-time travel

I always knew that Newfoundland is half an hour ahead, in its own time zone... I just didn't know that it was half an hour ahead of the hour ahead that the rest of Maritime Canada is... meaning, it's 10:30 here while our brains are on 9:30. We didn't notice this till after dinner.

Aside from time travel, it's been a pretty laid back day. We drove almost exclusively on Route 1 from Portland, Maine to Saint Stephen, New Brunswick. Long drive, but really lovely. Maine this time of year can pretty much be summer up as blueberries, antiques and trees. Lots of adorable towns, lots of pretty views of bays, lots of seagulls.

No moose. YET.

We have arrived safely in Saint John, New Brunswick after a very exciting border crossing at Saint Stephen. I mean, mostly it was me just being really excited to be back in Canada, because I think this country is great and could see nothing but trees past the border station. Also, the border patrolman was very nice and stamped our passports, which was not the case traveling back and forth between Walpole Island, Ontario and Algonac, Michigan (which I have yet to tell you about, but aside from those being neat places, it was very disappointing that the border patrol REFUSED to stamp our passports, claiming that they don't do that for land crossings anymore. More on this another time, right now I'm excited that I did get a nice new stamp today).

We just returned from dinner at this great brewpub in the Uptown district of Saint John called Big Tide Brewing Company. We took a short stroll and saw some beautiful old buildings, and took a short drive and spent some time staring at the Reversing Falls, where the Saint John Harbour/Bay of Fundy meet the Saint John and Kennebecasis Rivers/Grand Bay and it's just madness.

Tree of the day: For lunch we stopped at a delicious Mexican restaurant on Route 1 somewhere near Northport, Maine. We ate on the deck out back, and enjoyed the gorgeous weather and the glorious shade provided by a very nice White Ash tree.
Beer of the day: Seaworthy IPA from Big Tide Brewing

Tomorrow: more time wandering around Saint John, and ultimately ending up camping in Fundy National Park.

counting the cars on the New Jersey turnpike but not with that song

Last night, I drove my dear friend and former office mate Irene to the airport. She's heading home to Venezuela for the holidays. I know it's strange, but I enjoy airport runs, especially at odd hours. Hardly anyone was on the road, and I had a very peaceful drive.

I know there's a section of Turnpike that smells terrible followed immediately by a section of the Turnpike that looks pretty terrible, and I often complain that this is a large part of why so many people hate New Jersey. However, once past the smell tonight heading northbound, I kind of enjoyed the lit up skyline and the shadows of Newark Airport and Elizabeth Seaport. I don't necessarily find it beautiful, but it's what I see when I fly home.

The jazz station in Newark kept me company for most of the way (good range in the overnight!) and then I was fortunate enough that my CD player was warmed up and in a good mood for the drive back to Toms River. Since my CD player only works when it feels like it, my Tag Out mix was still in and I enjoyed it immensely on my drive back south.

1. Bon Iver: Woods- appropriately peaceful and interesting
2. DeVotchka: All the Sand in All the Sea- The part that always gets me? Leaving my Walden, or whatever other amazing places I've found myself in life.
3. Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes: 40 Day Dream- "Yeah, I know I'm sleeping, 'cause this dream's too amazing."
4. Dawes: When My Time Comes- I've thought about it for hours but still don't know what to say about this song. It needed to be here.
5. Donovan Frankenreiter: Heading Home- Yes I was. Am. I like to think I'm on a constant journey for home.
6. Talking Heads: Once in a Lifetime- "You may ask yourself, where does that highway go to?" Yes, yes I do. All the time.
7. OK Go: This Too Shall Pass- such a positive, hopeful song.
8. Bill Withers: Let it Be- I'm picky about my Beatles covers, but this one passes the test and takes a lovely song and puts it in a very positive, upbeat setting
9. Josh Ritter: Long Shadows- I'm not afraid of the dark, we've been here before... just as figurative as it is literal for me.
10. Eels: Fresh Feeling- reminding me it's time for something fresh
11. Florence + the Machine: Cosmic Love- I missed this during staff training, but it meant so much to everyone around me, especially someone in particular who means so much to me (that little sister I acquired, Abi)
12. Old Crow Medicine Show: Wagon Wheel- the opening line "Headin' down south to the land of the pines" was geographically correct for the journey this was intended for (and many of my mini-roadtrips), plus was reminiscent of Noah and Diana singing it all summer, most notably during Licepocalypse
13. Loudon Wainwright III: The Swimming Song- Noah's choice, the opening song for the summer 2011 slideshow, and a very nice illustration of much that I do
14. Bruno Mars: Count on Me- Courtney's choice for the staff slideshow, which I initially whined about (come ON, Bruno Mars?) but was really happy with how perfectly it fit the situation
15. Josh Ritter: Lantern- my choice for the slideshow, a song I absolutely love for its positive words and sound, and how it uses a lantern as a love symbol when a lantern is a symbol of so many other wonderful things in my life
16. Dispatch: Out Loud- except I have the original Bang Bang acoustic version which I can't seem to find online... this closed the slideshow
17. The Low Anthem: The Horizon is a Beltway- It is a beltway, or some other road to somewhere... hopefully with better traffic than the Beltway I frequent the most (the one around D.C.)

I arrived home just in time for sunrise, but I decided to enjoy dawn from the bay in Island Heights, instead of by the ocean, just for something different.

Tree of the day: the pretty little holly tree growing next to the post office that I sat next to for the sunrise. It seems seasonally appropriate.



Good morning from the Jersey shore.