Moominmama's Adventures

Wherein Moominmama communes with the world's tallest trees... Moominmama is camped in a shady grove called the Mill Creek Campground in the Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park. When I first arrived and strolled around the campgrounds, I was on the lookout for old growth redwoods, the impossibly tall trees for which this area is known. All I found were stumps, giant garage-sized stumps with younger redwoods growing right up next to them. They looked like little families gathered around their felled ancestor. Turns out that's not far from the truth. This part of the redwoods was once heavily logged, and Mill Creek is called that because it once held a mill. Because the redwood tree is incredibly dense at the base, loggers set up platforms attached further up the tree, 10-to-12 feet up, where they could more easily drill, saw and chop.  The cut-off stump responds to the insult by sending out basal sprouts, which grow into genetic copies of the original but still rely on the roots ...

Wherein Moominmama observes granite, trees and trails in Yosemite and compares them to the Granite State... The granite in Yosemite National Park appears to have been scoured clean. Trees may cluster in the valleys and in isolated spots on the top, but there are vast expanses of grey rock overlooking the valleys. Rough to the touch, it seems smooth from a distance, with no space to capture dirt for a wind-blown seed. These features share common factors with the granite in New Hampshire - a combination of underground forces that first formed the granite from magma then shoved it up toward the light of day. Wind and water tore off the other layers of dirt and stone until the granite remained. Then glaciers, like giant scouring pads, ground the sides even steeper and left a detritus of broken rock below. In New Hampshire's White Mountains, it appears the rock broke off in large chunks and left jagged cliffs and plenty of room for soil to collect, allowing plants and trees to grow. The...

In which Moominmama learns how much climate (and culture) can differ on one side of a mountain versus the other... Driving into Carson City on the western edge of Nevada, the snow capped peaks of the Sierra Nevada mountains are a stunning sight after miles of desert. Moominmama had only just settled in when she realized it was a short drive up and over the western hills to get to Lake Tahoe, the second deepest lake (after Crater Lake in Oregon) in the U.S. After hiking along part of the Rubicon trail on the southern rim of the lake, the brilliant colors compelled me to break out my folding kayak. I wanted to be closer to the glittering turquoise near the beaches and the saturated aquamarine further out. The photo at the top was taken from my kayak pointed at the beach. And this photo was taken from the Rubicon trail that runs high along the rocky cliffs. It still doesn't capture the colors! I'd gone from sagebrush to piney woods. I'd gone from the wild west to the wild weal...

In which Moominmama stands at the top of the world and appreciates geological time... Arches National Park has some unusual cliffs and stones even apart from the arches for which it is famous. In some cases, the sandstone looks like lumps of clay dropped on top of one another, a lumpy, goopy kind of landscape. In other cases, the long-ago presence of sea salt broke the red rock sandstone into giant fins since worn smooth by the years. Like a kindly elephant stretching out its trunk, some of the rocks bow down and allow you to climb to the top as I did above. From there you can see all the way to the La Sal Mountains in spots. The trick is not to get too distracted by the views since a misstep could lead to a precipitous drop!  But it's not unpleasant to look down either. The patterns in the sandstone can look like swirls of water or the grain of wood. And I arrived at a time when the prickly pear were opening up their beautiful buds.  There was nowhere to look without feasting...

Wherein Moominmama learns more about archeoastronomy, spends time at Mesa Verde and enjoys the company of a dear friend... The trail above is called Knife's Edge in Mesa Verde National Park. Believe it or not, this was the first route into the park for automobiles, a few of which apparently slid off the edge. There's a historic photo of a Model T at an undrivable tilt and two puzzled men standing at a safe distance. Now, even as a hiking trail, it reaches its end in a rockslide, and there's no way forward but back! The views, however, are glorious! The drive to Mesa Verde took Moominmama and her friend Liz up at least a thousand feet, sometimes higher depending on where we were exploring. We were fortunate to be able to visit Step House, the only cliff dwelling we could enter without special arrangements.  But it was spectacular even if it's difficult to show how the overhanging rock ceiling creates this protected niche high above the canyon floor. It makes one feel ver...

  Wherein Moominmama visits the home of Earthship Biotecture to see some creative, sustainable homes and admires the surprising flora and fauna of New Mexico... It was an unexpected blessing of the internet that Moominmama learned she was not far away from a fascinating experiment in sustainable construction near Taos. Having seen a video about the work of this community and its founder, Michael Reynolds,  I jumped on the chance to drive up for a tour. Reynolds came out to Taos shortly after graduating from college in 1969 and built himself a beer-can house, baling the then-steel cans together to make bricks. It was the first of many experiments in using garbage to build sustainably, and over the years he's refined his approach while also continuing to experiment with new iterations -- like the building above, under construction, that will provide five "apartments" with a shared kitchen and bathrooms. The fundamental principles of an Earthship home were clearly explained ...

  In which Moominmama visits Los Alamos to learn about the Manhattan Project, a contrast with an earlier journey to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park.... In 1932, we have the first recorded, successful splitting of an atom (a lithium atom). Less than a year later, Adolf Hitler became head of the German government. By 1939, the Germans forbid the sale of uranium from a mine in Czechoslovakia. There were good reasons to fear that Germany knew about the potential of fission and was exploring the development of an atom bomb. This was the background that led to Project Y, also known as the Manhattan Project, America's bid to build the most powerful weapons in the world and to get them first. Ironically, the war with Germany would end before the American effort was successful. Instead, the two slightly different atom bombs were used on Japan. Hiroshima was the first, and for its people, there was absolutely no warning.  If you recognize the picture above, you'll know it's not New...