MONTANA'S MISSION MOUNTAINS, NORTH OF MISSOULAWell, it's been far too long. And I'm far from Montana: this holiday season finds me thankfully resting at home with family, and able to spend time with old friends, getting ready for Texas and trying to get rid of some of the stuff that always seems to be in my car with me when I move but I don't know where it came from and never use it. Too much has happened since I last posted for me to hope to do everything justice here so there will be a short version and a long version.
Short Version:
My adventures seem to have me rolling around the lower 48 -- after leaving my job with the engineering firm last spring I flew to Montana and spent five weeks chasing rocks around the desert at field camp, flew back east and walked from one end of Vermont to the other which took a month and was the best thing I ever did, drove my butt back to Montana, saw Glacier National Park, moved into an apartment, caught a frickin' huge brown trout, made a batch of beer, got super busy with school, made new friends, got addicted to coffee, drank too much wine with my new friends, inherited a piranha, made a new batch of beer, took an job in Texas for the spring, drank all the first beer, stopped drinking coffee, ate apple cider donuts in a van in a desert in Idaho, spent a week drinking beer with friends and geologizing at the GSA conference in Denver, discovered I lost 25 pounds, applied for a bunch of grants, taught two sections of geo 101, got addicted to coffee again, took my finals, stopped drinking coffee again, drank all the new beer, gave the damn piranha away, moved out of that stupid apartment, drove my tired ass back to New York, saw family and old friends, got fat on holiday food, and had coffee this morning but just because I like it, not because I needed it to wake up (honest). I spent too much time thinking and not enough time doing of late. But that will change soon.
Long version, with all the reflection and thought and stuff:
There was a great field trip north through the Mission Valley and up to Flathead lake. There were teachers from all over the state with us, and it was great to be able to learn about teaching from them while they learned about geology from us. We were able to see some of the flathead river and sniff around some coarse-grained imbricated deposits. Mmmm, sediment (burp!) -- add the spot and the observation to the list in my brain. We were also able to see some gorgeous country on a perfect day.Field trips are like a a breath of fresh air: I went to Montana because I wanted to see it, and have succeeded... in seeing the inside of the geology building in Montana. It's difficult to tear myself away from classes and work, but field trips are an exception. For a geologist there's nothing more important than going out and seeing things. This is the food for our souls and the source of our power. Doing so with experienced faculty along to ask and answer questions is probably the single most educational thing that will happen to me as I work on my degree. I look forward field trips and will basically skip or postpone everything for the chance to get out on the land.
Later in October, as midterms approached, I got a chance to participate in a field trip to central Idaho's Snake River Plain (red dot on the Google Maps image at right). It's 75 miles across and hundreds long. It's dry and windy, and it's pretty much the only big flat thing anyplace near the northern Rockies. It's also unique because it's made of basalt: extruded volcanic rock. The gurus tell us that it's so flat because the basalt has filled in all the low spots, almost like a lake is flat even if the bottom is not. So where did it all come from? If you follow the plain to it's northeast terminus, you will find yourself at the source: Yellowstone National park in Wyoming's northwest corner (yellow dot), sits atop a geologic hotspot. While the origins and deep mechanics of these features are hotly contested (ding! geology pun), it is certain that they tend to produce a lot of volcanic activity at the surface. As the North American plate has been slowly creeping in a southwest direction, the hotspot has left an elongate scar on its surface: the Snake River Plain. We also visited Craters of The Moon National Monument, a volcanic site which has been active in geologically recent time.
TROUBLEMAKERS AT CRATERS OF THE MOON
Later in October, as midterms approached, I got a chance to participate in a field trip to central Idaho's Snake River Plain (red dot on the Google Maps image at right). It's 75 miles across and hundreds long. It's dry and windy, and it's pretty much the only big flat thing anyplace near the northern Rockies. It's also unique because it's made of basalt: extruded volcanic rock. The gurus tell us that it's so flat because the basalt has filled in all the low spots, almost like a lake is flat even if the bottom is not. So where did it all come from? If you follow the plain to it's northeast terminus, you will find yourself at the source: Yellowstone National park in Wyoming's northwest corner (yellow dot), sits atop a geologic hotspot. While the origins and deep mechanics of these features are hotly contested (ding! geology pun), it is certain that they tend to produce a lot of volcanic activity at the surface. As the North American plate has been slowly creeping in a southwest direction, the hotspot has left an elongate scar on its surface: the Snake River Plain. We also visited Craters of The Moon National Monument, a volcanic site which has been active in geologically recent time.TROUBLEMAKERS AT CRATERS OF THE MOONUpon returning to Missoula after the Idaho trip, I found myself scrambling with research funding proposals and preparing for midterm exams. But before the exams could be dealt with, I left campus again. This time, I was headed to the Mile-High City for the Geological Society of America (GSA) national meeting. After a beautiful 15 hour drive south including a stop at Bozeman's Museaum of the Rockies, we found Denver full of geologists. The people running the conference knew their clientèle: there is a bar right in the main exhibit hall, and anyone attending gets a free beer there every day. It's about time. I ran into some old Williams friends as well, which is always a treat. They took me to Boulder and fed me more beer. The posters and the talks were all very interesting and educational, and it was good to see first-hand the way my science moves ahead. The only problem was that I had to share Denver with a bunch of happy Mass-holes: the stinking Red Socks were in town to win the World Series against the Rockies. And of course personalities began to grate on the trip back north, but that's to be expected.
I honestly don't really remember much of what happened between Denver and finals. I know there were midterms, and it got darker and colder and my bike got a flat, and even though I fixed it I eventually had to start driving to work because they don't plow anything in Missoula. There was a bunch of racquetball for a while but once finals really got swinging, sleeping and eating were basically my only recreation. Somewhere along the line I discovered that since embarking on the Long trail I had lost about 25 pounds. While somewhat alarming, this did not come as a particular surprise: the long trail was strenuous, and since then I had been maintaining a high energy level for long hours of work on not enough sleep and not really eating enough. So I started cooking pasta by the vat. Amen. Anyways finals showed up, and I worked hard on everything and did what thought was a pretty good job, and decided to make arrangements with the department to serve my internship in Texas this coming spring. The details took some working out, but we succeeded. And the grades from everything even came alright.
So I gave away my stupid inherited piranha, moved my furniture to my friends' basement, put my crap in my car, and hit the road. The first few hours headed east on I-90 were harrowed: did I leave anything behind? Did I forget some important task before leaving? My landlord called to ask me to mail him the keys. I was talking to my mom on the phone when I finally noticed what I was driving through: the highway was following the Clark Fork River up its course, winding through canyons with bedrock on both sides. . Little ranches occupied flat spots on the valley floor: behind split-rail fences, horses grazed through a dusting of fresh snow, with mountains behind and blue sky above. I started wondering how badly I would miss my new home in the west, and how the hell I had managed to spend three months out here doing mostly just a bunch of paperwork, and whether the good grades and strong references would be worth two years of missed fishing, and before I knew it I had blown past Butte with its giant hole in the ground and was climbing the continental divide. I called my dad as I drove over the pass, and I knew that from here out things would start to get flatter... and flatter.
I rolled down the east side of the divide and the last rays of sun came over my right shoulder and played on the Crazy Mountains ahead. Soon it was dark -- I called old friends and kept rolling. The bright lights of Billings came into view, and as I got closer I could smell something... Billings has refineries. I reminded myself that they are necessary to keep the economy from crashing and babies from starving. I knew that working for big oil in Houston this spring, I would be no closer to refining operations than I am now. I hope the people running those places are doing their best to keep things clean, at least. Anyways I jumped on I-94 and ran out of energy by Miles City where I crashed at a Motel 6. Still in Montana after 7 hours of driving. I got up in the morning and discovered I had found the friendliest city on earth. After learning that I was driving east for the holidays, one cashier actually and honestly told me to have a merry Christmas, just in case she didn't see me again. A long way to go to New York.
North Dakota is not a complicated place to drive through. Theodore Roosevelt National Park is beautiful (the hilly section near the interstate is like a northern little brother to the Badlands), and then things stay beautiful but they get flatter and flatter. The roads are straight and it's a long way between... everything. I noticed a few oil pumps here and there, and as the sun went down ESPN radio was interrupted to announce that people should watch out for a red angus steer that escaped from a stockyard, and report its whereabouts to local authorities. If you are driving there an you you are in a hurry (though I suppose you would have flown in that case...), skip Jamestown if you can. Once you are off the highway you need to drive around for fifteen minutes (past every business in town, I'm sure) before they let you back on. Nothing against Jamestown or it's people, it's just not fast is all.
I crossed into Minnesota to be greeted by the first woodsmoke I'd smelled in a long time. Somehow I'm sure I smelled some in Missoula, but something was different as I drove the moonlit backroads towards Little Falls: the high plains' open vistas had been replaced by dense, dark northern forests that seemed to crowd the shoulders of the road with their evergreen shadows, extra thick in the freezing night. The smell of a fire in someone else's hearth conjured feelings of home. I reached little falls and after spending some time winding down and catching up with Melissa, whose hospitality was wonderful as always, I turned in. After an early breakfast I tanked up at a gas station where the snow piles were five feet high and hit the road again and drove into the rising sun and towards Minneapolis, the first of the big Midwest towns. The highway got wider and there were more and more cars, it seemed like ages since I'd seen so many cars though I knew it had only been a couple of days. Driving a long way you watch the landscape change, and feel the pavement under your tires, and this accentuates the passage of time.
In a gas station in Wisconsin I saw the first ice-fishing magazines. NPR was running a special on polkabilly, a strange type of local music, and how it "changed American folk music forever." Who knew. And people talking about how all the guys who played in those bands were pretty good guys because their fathers or grandfathers were from Norway, and why is it that kids these days are so excited to learn the electric guitar but not the accordion?
I have no idea where Illinois is, but you can't miss Chicago. All the maps tell you "three hours to Chicago," and your friends tell you "it's four hours from Chicago." Nobody reminds you that Chicago is not another dot on your map that you just drive past. All the highways come together to get around the south end of Lake Mighican, and it seems like everybody wants to be on one of them. The two hours of five lanes of stand-still, bumper-to-bumper traffic were draining and made me feel far from Missoula, and the sun was already down and I still had miles to go. I took a detour into Indiana to see a friend for some food at a rest stop, and then tore through the dark to arrive in Ann Arbor well after midnight. It was good to see old friends there, and they gave me some new sad cowboy music to keep me going.
I got a late start from there and don't remember much of the last day: there was Ohio, and a city to drive around and cheap gas, and then Erie PA, and then Buffalo, where a cashier at a rest stop laughed at me when I seemed startled at the two dollar price tag on a diet coke. Western New York passed easily, and though it was dark I could feel the land starting to close in on both sides: my heart raced at the first mountains in two days. I had reached my very own Adirondacks, the mountains from "The last of the Mohicans." Soon there were signs for Utica, and I knew that close by in one of my favorite trout streams there were big browns and feisty rainbows, hunkered down and waiting for spring, only stirring to eat the easiest meals until the snowmelt comes and the mayflies hatch. I got to Schenectady and drove through town on roads that I didn't need a map for.
DEFENDING MYSELF AGAINST A WAVE OF ATTACKING COUSINS
The holiday ritual of family and old friends was especially sweet this year, and I had good pictures for everyone. I have been able to get up the mountains twice (not to the high peaks, though): once with good friend Dan, and again to ski with the parents. Seeing my little sisters has been wonderful, they are both doing so well and making me proud. Today a dentist told me two things I already knew: I have a cavity (that's why I went in), and I drink too much diet coke (but the lime kind is so good...).
VIEW SOUTH OVER GREAT SACANDAGA LAKE FROM
HADLY MOUNTAIN FIRE TOWER
I rolled down the east side of the divide and the last rays of sun came over my right shoulder and played on the Crazy Mountains ahead. Soon it was dark -- I called old friends and kept rolling. The bright lights of Billings came into view, and as I got closer I could smell something... Billings has refineries. I reminded myself that they are necessary to keep the economy from crashing and babies from starving. I knew that working for big oil in Houston this spring, I would be no closer to refining operations than I am now. I hope the people running those places are doing their best to keep things clean, at least. Anyways I jumped on I-94 and ran out of energy by Miles City where I crashed at a Motel 6. Still in Montana after 7 hours of driving. I got up in the morning and discovered I had found the friendliest city on earth. After learning that I was driving east for the holidays, one cashier actually and honestly told me to have a merry Christmas, just in case she didn't see me again. A long way to go to New York.
North Dakota is not a complicated place to drive through. Theodore Roosevelt National Park is beautiful (the hilly section near the interstate is like a northern little brother to the Badlands), and then things stay beautiful but they get flatter and flatter. The roads are straight and it's a long way between... everything. I noticed a few oil pumps here and there, and as the sun went down ESPN radio was interrupted to announce that people should watch out for a red angus steer that escaped from a stockyard, and report its whereabouts to local authorities. If you are driving there an you you are in a hurry (though I suppose you would have flown in that case...), skip Jamestown if you can. Once you are off the highway you need to drive around for fifteen minutes (past every business in town, I'm sure) before they let you back on. Nothing against Jamestown or it's people, it's just not fast is all.I crossed into Minnesota to be greeted by the first woodsmoke I'd smelled in a long time. Somehow I'm sure I smelled some in Missoula, but something was different as I drove the moonlit backroads towards Little Falls: the high plains' open vistas had been replaced by dense, dark northern forests that seemed to crowd the shoulders of the road with their evergreen shadows, extra thick in the freezing night. The smell of a fire in someone else's hearth conjured feelings of home. I reached little falls and after spending some time winding down and catching up with Melissa, whose hospitality was wonderful as always, I turned in. After an early breakfast I tanked up at a gas station where the snow piles were five feet high and hit the road again and drove into the rising sun and towards Minneapolis, the first of the big Midwest towns. The highway got wider and there were more and more cars, it seemed like ages since I'd seen so many cars though I knew it had only been a couple of days. Driving a long way you watch the landscape change, and feel the pavement under your tires, and this accentuates the passage of time.In a gas station in Wisconsin I saw the first ice-fishing magazines. NPR was running a special on polkabilly, a strange type of local music, and how it "changed American folk music forever." Who knew. And people talking about how all the guys who played in those bands were pretty good guys because their fathers or grandfathers were from Norway, and why is it that kids these days are so excited to learn the electric guitar but not the accordion?
I have no idea where Illinois is, but you can't miss Chicago. All the maps tell you "three hours to Chicago," and your friends tell you "it's four hours from Chicago." Nobody reminds you that Chicago is not another dot on your map that you just drive past. All the highways come together to get around the south end of Lake Mighican, and it seems like everybody wants to be on one of them. The two hours of five lanes of stand-still, bumper-to-bumper traffic were draining and made me feel far from Missoula, and the sun was already down and I still had miles to go. I took a detour into Indiana to see a friend for some food at a rest stop, and then tore through the dark to arrive in Ann Arbor well after midnight. It was good to see old friends there, and they gave me some new sad cowboy music to keep me going.
I got a late start from there and don't remember much of the last day: there was Ohio, and a city to drive around and cheap gas, and then Erie PA, and then Buffalo, where a cashier at a rest stop laughed at me when I seemed startled at the two dollar price tag on a diet coke. Western New York passed easily, and though it was dark I could feel the land starting to close in on both sides: my heart raced at the first mountains in two days. I had reached my very own Adirondacks, the mountains from "The last of the Mohicans." Soon there were signs for Utica, and I knew that close by in one of my favorite trout streams there were big browns and feisty rainbows, hunkered down and waiting for spring, only stirring to eat the easiest meals until the snowmelt comes and the mayflies hatch. I got to Schenectady and drove through town on roads that I didn't need a map for.
DEFENDING MYSELF AGAINST A WAVE OF ATTACKING COUSINSThe holiday ritual of family and old friends was especially sweet this year, and I had good pictures for everyone. I have been able to get up the mountains twice (not to the high peaks, though): once with good friend Dan, and again to ski with the parents. Seeing my little sisters has been wonderful, they are both doing so well and making me proud. Today a dentist told me two things I already knew: I have a cavity (that's why I went in), and I drink too much diet coke (but the lime kind is so good...).
VIEW SOUTH OVER GREAT SACANDAGA LAKE FROMHADLY MOUNTAIN FIRE TOWER
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