A trek to the San Luis Valley in southern central Colorado over the first weekend in March yielded many surprises. The Greater Sandhill Cranes are majestic as they "swim" in air currents, legs dangling akimbo.
We observed the up to 1.25 meter tall birds on a particularly raw and windy day. You can see the cloud above looks like it is just about ready to land in the farmlands of the expansive, extensional basin.
We drove in large squares around and through the refuge and south of town. The squares of that day were in sharp (pun intended) contrast to the circular shapes of our rented dome house in the Baca area of Crestone, just south of the Baca NWR. Baca means "the topmost part of something or, literally, roof rack."
The dome house provided ethereal light from 1.5 meter diameter windows and majestic views of the Sangre de Cristo Mountain Range. It was created by popping a 10.35 meter in diameter balloon to create the distinctive dome shape. Waking up to see dark skies and myriad stars was magical.
Surrounding the stunning Stupa are several rock walls containing many pieces of CrestoneConglomerate. Conglomerate is made up of pieces of the rocks that pre-dated them; they are forged in midst of catastrophic geologic processes. The conglomerate here contains both rounded and angular pieces:
The sensation of people of different colors and religions coming together at the Surprise Stupa mirrors the conglomerate make-up.
And to bring things full circle {full square (?)}, I drove all way from home to school yesterday with my coffee cup on the baca of my car! It was still 2/3 full when I arrived in the snow.
More on the Crestone Conglomerate another time. . .
Have you been to Crestone?
With calm and surprising crest one vibrations,
Steph
Crestone Conglomerate is quite cool and mixes it up nicely, but nope, Jellybean Conglomerate is still my favorite.
ReplyDeleteAnd just down the road from the UFO Watchtower and the Colorado Gators Reptile Park! I suppose the UFOs are attracted to the view of the dome from above.
ReplyDeleteI thought a geodesic dome had to be based on a geodesic polyhedron, with triangular elements, as opposed to stuff sprayed on a balloon.
Those cranes look to me like they're flying backwards, but I guess I'm more used to looking at hawks.
jan, I'm sure you're right about the aliens!
DeleteAnd you are right about the dome. I will remove the geodesic part. I just discovered the tidbit about the balloon popping yesterday after we got home. We'd been calling it geodesic but it truly is not.
The way their feet dangle is so interesting.
Hawkeye you have there. . .
Here are a couple of descriptions of hiking to the northern end of the dunes from the Baca Grande Road out of Crestone and Liberty Gate. A return trek in the late spring is already in the works:
ReplyDeletehttps://crestoneeagle.com/the-mysteries-of-liberty-trail-on-hiking-to-the-dunes-2/
https://www.hikingproject.com/trail/7010961/liberty-road
The more times I go to the Great Sand Dunes, the more I realize how much more there is to explore.
One of my favorite things about Crestone is the lack of signage. In an age of GPS, it’s fun to not know what’s ahead. . .
ReplyDeleteEven the sign off Route 17 to Crestone is quite small. Nary a tourist in sight.
I’ve been checking out the new USGS Map Service topo map service where one can center a map on any spot, rather than needing 4 topo maps to cover the area of interest (as with Crestone environs). Groundhog Basin, Blueberry Peak, and Crestone Needle beckon!
But, is there cell service there? So frustrating when you know your latitude and longitude, but have no idea of the roads in the area.
DeleteNo cell service. Part of the mystery and the surprise, I suppose.
DeleteSometimes it's fun to find yourself GPS-less. Other times, not so much.
Delete[BTW, in the US, NOTAMs now means Notices To Air Missions.]
He's Putin' us all on again. Spoofing in this context is not amusing at all.
DeleteColony Baldy, the 143rd highest peak in Colorado, also caught my eye ~~
ReplyDeletehttps://www.summitpost.org/colony-baldy/844200
I discovered this
ReplyDeletelarge spiral gastropod-esque structure in Crestone on Google Earth.
There's also a large purple-roofed organic garden house and an orange-roofed Lego-looking structure. Today, 3/12, is an "Up on the Roof" kind of day!
"Up on the Roof"???
DeleteLooking at roofs on James Taylor’s birthday is fitting, eh?
DeleteAh... I was thinking about the old joke about the guy who went on vacation and left his cat in his brother's care.
DeleteI remember visiting Bucky Fuller's (real) geodesic dome at the Montreal Expo in 1967. Impressive even to a kid. A friend 20 years my senior met Fuller in college, he (Fuller) went to a lot of universities as a guest lecturer and teacher.
ReplyDeleteThe structure you stayed in looks like shotcrete, which is simply high strength concrete sprayed over a form. It's very strong (we used it for a seismic upgrade on a 12 story building at UCSF), but the cement in the concrete is also very energy intensive.
It was very popular in the 70's, the Flintstone House in Hillsborough is a noted landmark just south of SF. Thanks to that I have to struggle with the town Design Review Board on a current project - should be fine, the owner isn't interested in outrage.
Several years ago I visited the late Nader Khalili, an Iranian architect in Hesperia, not too far from LA and San Diego. Among his many ideas were beautiful earthbag structures, basically sand bags, or tubes filled with sand, that were stacked or wound, often with barbed wire between courses for stability. They were then covered with earthen plasters and other decorative elements.
Khalili was driven to create earthquake safe and inexpensive homes for people without plant resources. The shapes (like an egg or turtle shell) are inherently strong, and mostly need labor to build, and low-skilled at that. Interestingly NASA was interested in this technique for structures on Mars - hauling 2x4's is expensive.
Not sure why I went down that route, but it ties together Fuller's domes and the ziggurat in Crestone - the winding sand-filled tubes are the same idea, though not as grand as Brueghel's Tower of Babel. Side bar: Frank Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim Museum is basically a ziggurat turned inside out.
Crestone seems like one of those unique communities, probably the highest density of strawbale homes in the country. No surprise there's a Tibetan community there, altitude is right. I just got a permit for a small house for a Tibetan couple near here, I wonder if they know about it.
Back to the start, Sandhill Cranes are pretty amazing; I've seen them in CA's central valley, they are definitely reminiscent of their dinosaur roots.
eco, ~ Expo 67 ~ I remember the geodesic dome there, too. I also remember the urban dwellings designed by Moshe Safdie who later designed Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Arkansas...and mom, 6.5 months pregnant with my brothers {She was asked more than once if she needed to go to the hospital to deliver my twin brothers; they arrived that summer weighing in at nearly 17 pounds together.}
DeleteThanks for the scoop on shot Crete. Autocorrect did that ~ shotcrete! I wondered about the material. It seemed quite sturdy and held up well to the San Luis Valley elements.
I like the earthbags design (lots of material available in the San Luis Valley!). On Mars will they be marsbags?
Crestone is quite a fascinating place; I hope your Tibetan clients enjoy the environs.
Back to Sandhill Cranes, my friend, Barbara, met someone on a walk who said they went to the San Luis Valley the next weekend and saw "millions of Sandhill Cranes." Considering there are about 500,000 cranes who migrate through the valley, that statement was most likely a bit of hybirdbole. ;-)
~ And the high density of straw bale structures in Crestone is hyperbale. Ok, I'll stop.
DeleteYes, I remember the domed USA pavilion and Habitat 67, but what I remember most from my visit to Expo was the incredibly muddy field we parked our rented trailer in, along with hundreds of others, and maybe a couple of bathrooms. Years later, when reading Shelby Foote's Civil War trilogy, his description of muddy corduroy roads triggered a flashback.
Delete"Muddy corduroy roads" ~~~ What a great description.
DeleteThat's the term used when logs are laid across a muddy road to make it passable by vehicles. The field in Montreal used 2x4s, but the idea was the same.
DeleteWhat is this (~) mark called?
ReplyDeleteI like the flowy look of it and have been calling it a flow mark ~ ~ ~
Btw, the kindergartners decided that the symbol for pi looks like a dinosaur, specifically an Apatasaurus.
I can also see a Sandhill Crane coming in for a landing. . .
How about you?
𝛑 𝛑 𝛑
DeleteI call it a tilde. So does Wikipedia. So does Will Shortz, today ("What a jalapeño has that a habanero lacks").
DeleteSo it is considered a tilde when it stands all on its own and not over a letter?
DeleteAnd that was today? Cosmic.
DeleteYes.
DeleteYes, to both.
DeleteAnd all along I've been pronouncing (and spelling?) "habanero" wrong, with a tilde. Wikipedia identifies that as a hyperforeignism. Great word!
DeleteHyperforeignism is a great word! I know habanero (sans tilde) from my summers selling produce at Farmer's Markets.
DeleteIf two typesetters wed, do they say "Til~de do us part?"
Interesting that the tilde comes from "title." It looks un-title-y to me. Like "go with the flow, man, who cares about titles" ~ ~ ~
The need for cognition
ReplyDeleteCall the Yellowstone Plumber
ReplyDeletehttps://www.clovegarden.com/ingred/mt_mints.html
ReplyDelete^^^Is there a connection between the physicality of square-stemmed, opposite-leaved members of the Mint Family (mint, basil, eucalyptus, teak, numerous other herbs) and their aromatic nature? A cursory search of the topic on ddg came up empty, NOT smelling like a rose.
DeleteWhat think ye, PEOTSians?
What do you call a deer with no eyes?
DeleteNo eye deer. . .but isn't it odd that this topic doesn't seem to have been studied much. I'm very curious to see if there's a connection between square stems/opposing leaves and strong odors.
DeleteNot sure I'd conclude that it hasn't been studied. Negative results don't tend to get widely distributed.
DeleteAh, true!
DeleteFor over 100 years one of the big mysteries in Death Valley was the moving rocks at the Racetrack Playa. Substantial boulders, weighing 100's of pounds, were mysteriously sliding across the very flat plain of a former lake, and no one could explain it.
ReplyDeleteSome folks found the answer a few years ago, shown in this video. The ice have it!
I've never gone to the Playa, it's a long rough road with no services or contact and a good chance of blowing a tire. Anyone else been there?
Also worth noting that you can see some of the tracks from the sailing rocks on Google Street View and Google Earth, a little better in the latter, and you have to zoom in all the way.
DeleteEco, I've been to Death Valley twice~~once on a dendrochronology field trip from the U of AZ and once on a road trip with my family.
DeleteThe rare desert blooms have eluded me, though ~~~>
https://www.nps.gov/deva/learn/nature/wildflower-seasons.htm
Did you ever make it to the Racetrack Playa? I've been to the Ubehebe Crater, about 25 miles north, but never had the guts/ vehicle to make it to the Playa. Now that the mystery's solved it doesn't have the same attraction....
DeleteYes. It looks quite similar to Burning Man Playa and most of the other playa in the Basin and Range. Flat. Dusty. Flat. Dusty. Flat. Catch my drift?
DeleteWhen you run short of the two most abundant elements in the universe, you know you're doing something wrong.
ReplyDeleteAnd Morgan the Munchkin may be lost forever.
DeleteH(e) He.
DeleteOne nice feature of my work (and self-employment) is on days without thinking (like drawing existing plans) I can run Youtube in the background. Here's the reputed first Jeopardy! show, though I don't know how a contestant can be a returning champion, and the uploader's explanation runs short.
ReplyDeleteWARNING: the poster writes this will only be available until today!
While in college during the Art Fleming years, I tried out for Jeopardy! at their Rockefeller Center office. Didn't have any more luck than I did in 3 interviews during the Trebek era.
Deleteeco, I watched part of the clip last night and then, poof, indeed, it was set to private this morning.
Deletejan, are you still trying to be a Jeopardy! contestant via the online test? Certainly makes it easier to take the first step.
I haven't taken the online test in the past year or so. I may try again, but am losing hope.
DeleteAll three of my modern-era interviews came after taking the test online, but they were before you could take the test at any time. I don't know whether the interviews have still been in-person since Covid, or whether they're now virtual.
Hmmm.... I just discovered that one of the times the two celebrities in this week's NPR Sunday Puzzle appeared together was in 1972, approximately when I tried out for Jeopardy! the first time. I might have been just downstairs from them!
DeleteWeird coincidences!
DeleteWhat's your first "cute" and short anecdote going to be when Mayim or Ken or whoever ask you?
Beats me. I don't think the contestants know which one of the five stories they're asked to submit will be chosen. At least, I assume that the one asked on-air is one of the stories you're asked for at the interview.
DeleteAnyway, at one of my interviews, I remember I was asked about the time I told a cab driver to "follow that plane".
DeleteOk, tell us your favorite anecdote that they ought to consider.
DeleteI'm trying to think what mine would be.
Yesterday, the "Buy Nothin Denver" armoire I had tried unsuccessfully to fit in my Subaru appeared in my driveway. The owner had her son bring it by with his truck! So kind.
Only trouble was he came about 2 hours early whilst I was in the shower and left it in the driveway right behind my garaged car, not on the porch.
So, imagine my surprise when I opened the garage door and there it was. Most novel reason for being late? "There was this armoire in my driveway..."
<<< Said armoire
"Follow that plane" and . . . .?
DeleteCute story about being stuck behind the armoire curtain. And an odd coincidence with He'eere's Janny!
DeleteI cautioned they might take the episode down. For fun I learned a new way to download Youtube videos, and tried it on the Jeopardy pilot. So if you really want to see the whole show I have it in .mp4 format - 146 MB.
The ending was a bit strange, the final Jeopardy question seems blatantly obvious, but none of the contestants got it. Also interesting that throughout the answers were not very specifically worded, and contestants had to sometimes create a word salad to get it correct.
But I loved the original Jeopardy graphic, and found it remarkable the music remains after 58 years.
(Apologies if I've told this previously.) Back before the DC Metro went out all the way to College Park, and before I was a brave enough pilot to fly into DCA, I flew to College Park and took a cab to the nearest Metro station for a train into the District. On the way back, the cabbie at the station had a rough idea where the small airport was, but was fuzzy on the details. Once in the general area, I spotted a plane in the traffic pattern, and said "Follow that plane!" He did, and we got there quickly.
DeleteEco, ICYMI, Merv Griffin wrote the "Think" theme music as a lullaby for his son.
Deleteeco, I would like to see the show in its entirety! I just ran out of steam last night and went to bed early.
DeleteThe daily double that I did see had a question behind the question. I question that.
Yes, the Jeopardy! tune was written by Merv Griffin in a ridiculously short period of time. . .and has stayed unchanged a ridiculously long period (by game show standards, not geologic ones). Merv knew the business, fun, and play of game shows well.
As to the armoire, now I need to get this large piece of furniture from the garage into the house (only a couple of steps but tricky steps). Thankfully, my son is coming for dinner Friday and is a helpful mover.
Plus, I just love the sound of "armoire" and have been saying it as often as possible since Sunday when the Armoire Capers began.
The Buy Nothing group has partially restored my faith in humanity. For Lucretia (who I just met through the group) to have her son bring me the armoire (there, I said it again!) at her suggestion, just because she wanted me to have it...well, it's just so kind, to both me and to the planet. She didn't need it any longer but could not bear to just take it to a trash heap.
I will use it happily and have a great Jeopardy! story to tell, to boot!
Maybe the anecdote is the actual key to Jeopardy! once you're in the mix?!
Is Jeopardy enough to forgive Wheel of Fortune? I've sent you both a link to the Dropbox location where I uploaded that pilot.
DeleteYes, the early version(s) had a regular question and then behind that the Daily Double question - one youtube commenter posited that was the root of "double". There is no questioning that was the format.
I've never considered trying out for the show; I would fail miserably at any of the popular culture categories. Not sure what I would use for an anecdote, perhaps the time I (unknowingly) hurled scathing insults at the director of NY's Whitney Museum - and he still asked if I wanted to go to a bar - never sure about his intent.
Hmmmm, remind you of anyone ?
DeleteI was unfamiliar with most of these (and I'm not sure why he decided to arrange them in a bracket), but this has always been my favorite Stroop effect example (I bike past frequently).
ReplyDeleteA place for Scanning Stars
ReplyDelete"That's no moon. It's a space station."
ReplyDeleteHappy belated Star Wars Day!
I learned about angular diameter turnaround from an xkcd cartoon today, and I'm really bugged by it. Things further away should appear smaller than the same size things closer up. Explaining that things really far away appear bigger because back when the light from them was emitted, the universe was smaller, so they were really closer, belongs in the same category as explaining how perpetual motion machines work.
ReplyDeleteAngular diameter turnaround is new to me. I don't get/trust it either.
DeleteLambda cosmology? Sounds dicey to me.
LIDAR TELLS THE TRUTH!
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of squares and circles, "here's a real bummer."
ReplyDeleteWorth noting that the lamestream media NEVER PROVES that they aren't extraterrestrials!
Steph, I'll send you a gift of the article. Jan, I can do the same for you if you don't subscribe to the NYT.
Thanks, eco! Doug and Dave, huh?!
Delete"Where'd the damn sand come from?!" ~~ Forensic Geology
ReplyDeleteSchool's over, and camp hasn't started, so we've had the grandkids full time this week, so I was reading my beer can over dinner (Lagunitas IPA), and was surprised to find, circling the top:
ReplyDelete"...finally, after digging through alluvial fans of unconsolidated boulders from late Pleistocene gravels, sand & silt, there it was..."
A Google search turned up nothing. Is this somehow meaningful?
Hmmm. Quite the mystery. The meaning is lost on me as well. Though, I am a fan of a good alluvial fan.
DeleteCongrats on surviving what must have been a longish week.
And I'd vote for not circling but triangulating for an alluvial fan...
DeleteFrank Monte, my middle-school earth science teacher whom I often cite, would variously refer to himself as an alluvial fan or a tidal bore.
Delete27.5 million year "pulse" of the earth
ReplyDeleteThat pulse never had to contend with us before. Extinctions and "major ocean-anoxic events" have a new boss now.
DeleteSadly so.
DeleteHere's a book recommendation that's especially appropriate for this week of January 6 committee hearings and newly-released James Webb Space Telescope images: Bewilderment, a novel by Richard Powers.
ReplyDeleteThanks, jan. An intriguing pick.
DeleteDot Dash, Sorry. Dot Dot Dash, Sorry. ~ ReMorse Code.
ReplyDeleteThey're fixing a hole in the ocean. Actually, they're trying to figure out what's causing the holes in the ocean.
ReplyDeleteMy guess is there's a big undergravel filter at the bottom of the ocean to keep the ocean clean. Like most undergravel filters, it's not doing a great job. The question is, who's the cheap aquarist who put it there, and why won't they spring for a decent power filter?
So, someone I follow on Twitter retweeted a tweet about tardigrades, and a reply to that original tweet included a picture of a cat with a plush stuffed tardigrade, so I searched Amazon and found several of those, but I also found this. I have no idea what it means, but I'm a big fan of both ramen and tardigrades, so I ordered one.
ReplyDeletejan, that's awesome! I will order one as well.
DeleteI ordered one in Royal Blue. Who knew there were so many funny tardigrade t-shirts? Moreover, so many tardigrade AND ramen t-shirts?!
DeleteTrouble is, it's a meme, and I have no idea what it means, or who has adopted it. What if it shows support for the Proud Boys?
DeleteI took it to mean tardigrades can survive anything, including eating ramen regularly.
DeleteI'm not gonna be happy if Proud Boys are involved. Seems a bit too erudite, perhaps? Hopefully anyway. . .
Nah, it's eating ramen that makes tardigrades so strong and tough!
DeleteI think it's all about kawaii, the culture of cuteness in Japan. I'd rather have a ramen-eating tardigrade than a Hello Kitty or Pikachu shirt.
Kawaii~~a cute angle, for sure.
DeleteWhen NASA finds the dune buggy that's been leaving tracks on Europa, they're gonna have some 'splainin' to do.
ReplyDeleteWhose fault is that?!
DeleteI'm getting tired of learning about scientific discoveries on The Onion!
ReplyDeleteMe, too!
DeleteTardigrade art. On display at the MIT Visual Arts Lab. By Claire Pentecost, of the Art Institute of Chicago.
ReplyDeleteI like it! Did you go see it on display at MIT?
DeleteNo, my sister-in-law and brother-in-law did. We plan to.
DeleteU.S.D.A. Approves First Vaccine for Honeybees. This is pretty cool. I like how it's incorporated into the queen candy, which is a pretty cool concept in itself. (It's the sugary plug that beekeepers use to plug the opening in the little cages that they ship queen bees in. The queen and her attendants in the cage and the workers in the hive outside eat the candy and free the queen.) (Speaking of which, I got to Queen Bee in the NY Times Spelling Bee yesterday.)
ReplyDeleteMy wife says incorporating the vaccine into the queen candy reminds her of getting the Sabin polio vaccine on a sugar cube when we were kids.
DeleteWhat a honey of an idea!
DeleteStill working on ice-nine....
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting the article, jan. It is surprising how much more there is to learn about good, old H2O!
DeleteA new post is up today, March 8, 2023, despite the date/time stamp! Welcome back!
ReplyDelete