Friday, September 20th-More Random Pics




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Thursday, August 8th-Just WHERE is Seldovia, AK?

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I challenge you to describe to someone the city of Seldovia, AK! Actually it’s a very small village SSW of Homer. We had never heard of it either until a couple of days ago. Today we took a ferry there on the Alaska Marine Highway System. There were two main reasons that we took the ferry there today. First, we had heard from several people that the little village is like stepping back in time.  The main factor that makes it unique is that it is accessible only by water or air. Yes, you read that right-there are no roads connecting Seldovia, AK with any other place. The city has 4-5 paved roads and an interesting history. In 1900 it was bigger than Homer and was the main trading post in South Central Alaska. The commercial fishing industry grew and located in Homer so Seldovia became an almost forgotten city. The second major (!) factor was the Great Alaska Earthquake of 1964-the 9.2 Richter Scale monster I wrote about earlier. Anyway, Seldovia’s land mass subsided FOUR FEET and the do
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Monday, Oct 19, 2020-Biking Zion NP

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 Zion is a magnificent NP! The part of the park that is accessible by road is very limited. We drove the Mt Carmel-Zion road last Thursday to get a feel for the park and yesterday we rode our bikes on the other road into the park. It’s called the Zion Canyon Scenic Drive. It goes about nine miles from the Visitor Center to the end of the road at the Temple of Sinawava.  Here are a couple of pics of us along the road: The route is lined with almost vertical canyon walls Of different shapes that reach thousands of feet.  Here are more of these canyon walls: Did we like Zion? Of course! The scenery is out of this world and displays a number of different geological periods deposited over millions of years.  Is it our favorite NP? No, we preferred Bryce Canyon partially because of the crowds here. Zion is the closest NP in UT to the large population centers in Las Vegas, Phoenix, and even LA so it’s a super popular destination. Plus, Zion is close to Grand Canyon NP and the Grand Canyon is
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Tues, Dec 1, 2020-Petrified Forest National Park

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We expected to spend an hour or two at PFNP but we found it so unique we spent all day. We went there thinking there would see some hand sized pieces of petrified wood but were we wrong! We saw forests of petrified wood! Here’s a sample of some of the sizes of these trees now turned to crystal: The process of trees turning into rocks is a fascinating one. Several million years, when this area of NE Arizona was covered by a massive swamp, these giant trees fell into water. Over a few million more years, sediment covered the trees so they were preserved. Fast forward a few more million years and the atoms in the trees crystallized into petrified wood. The colors they crystallize into vary from red to orange to yellow to blue to gray to white to you name it. Here are a couple of pics of the colors of petrified trees: These two pics describes the large reddish polished sample above.  I set my wedding ring on this tree to give it some perspective Here’s a pic of my Bride with Dottie at the
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