Nature ZOMG!
I'm back from my awesometastic four-day trip to Yosemite, and you know what word best sums up the whole trip? WOAH. I lost track of how many "Woah!"s and "Wow!"s I let loose this weekend. We were visiting our friend and former-boss Sarah, whose husband Greg is the park geologist. The scenery is spectacular, but it's even cooler with a knowledgeable geologist pointing out the joints in the massive cliff faces where rockfalls have occurred/are likely to occur. A lot of his job consists of studying rockfalls to find out how & why they happen and how to predict them. Basically he gets to climb around on big piles of rocks all day, occasionally nearly missing getting crushed by falling boulders. You know...the usual. Sarah, being a brilliant ornithologist, was the perfect bird nerd tour guide, though sadly we didn't spot any White-headed Woodpeckers (my target bird for the trip). We spent a lot of time hiking around in the rain (first day), snow(!) (second and third days), and rain again (fourth day). It was such a pleasant surprise to fall asleep to rain and wake up to several inches of snow. Most people visit Yosemite in the summer, and don't get to see the mountains draped in white, and all the waterfalls rushing and raging with winter precipitation. Of course, the downside is that most of the higher elevation trails were still closed due to snow & ice, but it was a fair trade.
We also spent a LOT of time hanging out with their daughter, who's 18 months old. She's not even two and she already knows bird calls! Sarah taught her Acorn Woodpecker ("wokka-wokka!"), Raven ("caw! caw!"), Brown Creeper ("see-see-see!"), and the more generic owl ("hoo-hoo-hoo!") She can also correctly identify bark, pine cones, pine needles, sticks, leaves, puddles, rivers, rocks, mountains, deer, frogs (by sight and sound), turtles, and newts. There are adults out there who don't know what a newt is. After I was consistently amazed by her abilities during our outings (sidenote: there is NOTHING cuter than a tiny kid bundled up in one of those hiking backpack child-carrier thingies), Greg admitted that they were a bit skewed in what they were teaching her. But he thinks she knows enough bird calls and wants to teach her about cosmogenic isotopes. You know what they say: you're never too young to learn about cosmogenic isotopes!
Anyway, it was very amazing and left me in awe of nature's majesty, as incredible rock formations and towering, thundering waterfalls are wont to do. Now I want to go back in the summer and see it in the sun!
And when I got back, I discovered that hj1 had filled my inbox with delightful treasures, like a magpie hoarding shiny objects. She also pointed the way to the LJ community the world didn't even know it was missing until it was created...snakes_in_a_fic. The best one hands down so far is the Harry Potter one: Snakes? On a train? Featuring Hogwarts' newest and baddest professor. I laughed until I cried. I am eagerly awaiting the (hopefully) inevitable Snakes in Atlantis fic. (Come on, you crack-addled SGA fangirls!)
We also spent a LOT of time hanging out with their daughter, who's 18 months old. She's not even two and she already knows bird calls! Sarah taught her Acorn Woodpecker ("wokka-wokka!"), Raven ("caw! caw!"), Brown Creeper ("see-see-see!"), and the more generic owl ("hoo-hoo-hoo!") She can also correctly identify bark, pine cones, pine needles, sticks, leaves, puddles, rivers, rocks, mountains, deer, frogs (by sight and sound), turtles, and newts. There are adults out there who don't know what a newt is. After I was consistently amazed by her abilities during our outings (sidenote: there is NOTHING cuter than a tiny kid bundled up in one of those hiking backpack child-carrier thingies), Greg admitted that they were a bit skewed in what they were teaching her. But he thinks she knows enough bird calls and wants to teach her about cosmogenic isotopes. You know what they say: you're never too young to learn about cosmogenic isotopes!
Anyway, it was very amazing and left me in awe of nature's majesty, as incredible rock formations and towering, thundering waterfalls are wont to do. Now I want to go back in the summer and see it in the sun!
And when I got back, I discovered that hj1 had filled my inbox with delightful treasures, like a magpie hoarding shiny objects. She also pointed the way to the LJ community the world didn't even know it was missing until it was created...snakes_in_a_fic. The best one hands down so far is the Harry Potter one: Snakes? On a train? Featuring Hogwarts' newest and baddest professor. I laughed until I cried. I am eagerly awaiting the (hopefully) inevitable Snakes in Atlantis fic. (Come on, you crack-addled SGA fangirls!)