Providence Canyon And Human Stupidity

When asked what interests us about any geologic area, or the specific features within a region, one tends to focus on sites formed by titanic forces such as plate tectonics, volcanism, or the unimaginably long-term erosive action of large-scale water movement. I knew intellectually that the activity (or inaction) of Homo Sapiens has, over centuries and increasingly in the modern era, caused significant change the to world in which we live, but I tend to think of that in terms of an abandoned junkyard or an EPA SuperFund site...

SO, it was with a fairly nonchalant, so-what attitude that we set off for a place about 60 miles east of Albany, right by the Alabama border, that the book calls 'the Grand Canyon of Georgia'. I was underwhelmed by the written description; this was a place didn't even EXIST until the 1800s. That's when settlers swarmed in, stripped the land bare of trees, and planted cotton and peanuts. What they didn't take into account, because they didn't know (or care!), was the effect of 1) removing the native vegetation, and 2) plowing their fields in a high-to-low pattern rather than terracing or contouring.

As I related in the previous post (and shame on you if you are reading out of order), under the 6-8 inches of topsoil is an ocean bed composed entirely of millions of years' worth of sand and kaolin (a claylike material often used in fine china). This stuff has absolutely no resistance to being moved about by water action; anybody who's ever spent any time by a beach knows how sandbars and shoals migrate day by day, appearing and vanishing seemingly at random.

The end result is what you see in the following photos. Within about 75 years the soil was gone, and the rain just washed the ground away, turning about a million acres of once-productive farmland into a blasted, alien landscape, a post-apocalyptic footnote to carelessness, ignorance and greed.

P.S. Congratulations to the U.S. Department of the Interior and Georgia State Forestry Service for their initiative in making the best of a bad situation. They have cooperatively turned the area into a wildlife sanctuary and a very well-run educational venue; the day we were there we saw two buses carrying students from schools as far away as Atlanta. THOSE WHO ARE UNABLE, OR UNWILLING, TO UNDERSTAND HISTORY, THEY ARE THEN DESTINED TO REPEAT IT.

P.P.S. Those who are interested in how human actions cause large-scale, sometimes-catastrophic regional changes should also Google 'The Desert of Maine'. We saw that place too last summer but, unfortunately, didn't take pictures so I didn't bother to post about it.

The View From The Rim:


Allison And Her Children, And Yes That IS A Creek They're Standing In:


RE The above photo: We hiked the entire park (about 11 miles) and virtually the only trails in the place are the actual canyon beds. They continuously run with ground water and seepage so we were VERY wet and muddy by the time we climbed out.

Sediment Layering; LOTS OF FOSSILS By The Way:


Remember, This Was A Cotton Field:


Another From Up Top; The Horizon Is In Alabama:


From Our Trip To Mars (OOPS, My Bad, Still Providence Canyon)


That's it for now. Remember, kiddies, everything you do, every step, every action, at some point you are will have to explain it, either to yourself or to your higher power (WHAT-EVER!). SO: I don't know about you, but I'm gonna try to make my footprints small and temporary.

Albany And This Weird Area

Southwest Georgia, southeast Alabama, and most of Florida were all ocean bottom until just a few thousand years ago (and may be again pretty soon, according to some estimates!); the whole area is still within about a hundred feet of sea level. That results in a number of odd and interesting geologic and sociological quirks that are new to us. One such phenomena is what's called a 'blue hole'. That's where the high water table and underground aquifers erode away soft sedimentary strata (limestone) just under the topsoil. Then the overlay collapses into the cavern, leaving a deep puncture that lotsa times just appears in the middle of streets, parking lots, and even under buildings. Whatever's above just falls in and is gone! Then, at the bottom sometimes dozens or even hundreds of feet down, there remains a spring that leads into caverns where the water flows. These underground courses have been followed by divers and seismological equipment for many miles, some even draining underground into the Gulf of Mexico or the Atlantic.

Anyway, here's one that was a park called Radium Springs (because of the radioactivity of the water) that has been a local curiosity here in Albany ever since this city was a winter escape for northerners in the 1800s. It is no longer used because in 1994 the Flint River flooded and destroyed the casino there; then FEMA condemned the property along the river and so it couldn't be rebuilt. It's weird because, behind the chain link fence, you can still see the gazebos and marble piazzas from the old park and, if you allow yourself, you can still see boys in knickers, small girls with parasols, men in seersucker with ladies in flowing gowns as it would have been in 1850. Interesting.


Another kind of cool site here is called the Flint RiverQuarium. It's a pretty pedestrian place except that, uniquely, is has a section where they have excavated to the bottom of one of the blue holes, and created a top-to-bottom viewing pit so you can 'be there'. This is fascinating because the aquifers forming these things have been more or less stable for a long time, resulting in evolutionary oddities like eyeless salamanders, albino trout, other familiar fish and mammals that never, ever see light, that spend their entire life cycles in the dark.

Here's a life form I found at the RiverQuarium that DOES have eyes:


This pose was NOT my idea, but this is a Blue Hole viewing port:


Anyway, this whole area is like the world's biggest sandbox; it's literally a beach (under a thin layer of topsoil) more than two hundred miles wide. See tomorrow's post for another regional oddity that couldn't have happened without that fact.

Bye for now!

If It's January, or February, This Must Be Georgia!

Okay, here we go. Seems like I'm on everyone's BAD BOY list for not keeping up, but one of the advantages of living this way is that there's not a rolled-up newspaper long enough for anyone to reach me with. I'll try to do a little of this every day, but since I'm a very busy guy with a lot on my schedule it may take a while (the Daily Show is on in about 10 minutes and then I gotta catch The Colbert Report; it is every American's civic duty to stay informed).

After staying in Texas for about a month and Christmas in Colorado, we hauled the RV from Dallas to Albany GA in two days with an overnight stop in Meridian, Mississippi. Lots of pretty country, but also some of the most discouraging, paralyzing, abject poverty you can imagine in a supposedly first-world country. This writer believes in capitalism, but some things cause reflection on the social services 'safety net' through which some of these people seem to plunge as though it were no more substantial than a rainbow-flavored illusion...

Anyway, we are now set up in a campground just south of Albany which, for those too lazy to Google it, is located in the southwest corner of the state. We are only about 60 miles north of Tallahassee here, so it is what they call a 'sub-tropical' zone which as far as I can tell just means palm trees grow and the bugs never die. Having said that, though, we have had weather that is largely comparable to Maine in the late summer, and which after all is the object of the exercise. Shirt sleeves almost every day in January, anyone? NOT BAD.

Allison's working the ER at Phoebe Putney Regional Hospital, a pretty big one that serves SW Georgia all the way to the Alabama line. She's NOT crazy about the place, says some of the people have a very poor work ethic that makes it hard on her and may even, at times, compromise patient care. She also allows, however, that the beauty of the Travel Nurse gig is that she can just arriva derci, hasta luego, bon soir and sayonara them in just over another month, so that's pretty cool.

That's about it for bringing y'all up to date on our circumstances. I'm gonna end this post here; see additional sections that'll be added today and tomorrow for the (several) side jaunts we've made since arriving here.

OK, OK..... I get it!

AND... I humbly apologize to the (obviously, see the comments for that last post) dedicated readers I left outta the 'exceptions' list (you guys I dissed: go see the [edited] previous post-your names have been added)!!!

ALSO: Forgot to mention, since I was just lookin' at Shelly's comment about how we'll be sorry leaving the boat in Maine:

WE ACTUALLY HAULED THAT THING BACK TO TEXAS! After we went to Nova Scotia, that next weekend we hauled booty to Dallas and back (about 4500 miles) in FOUR DAYS to get that miserable chunk-o-Fiberglass back home. Shoulda just sunk it in the Kennebec like all the other wrecks. Sentimentality can be a very expensive proposition. and there's no line item for it on a P&L report... my accountant thinks I belong on a funny farm.

November, December, And My Dereliction

Hey All,

I hereby submit my mea culpa for any of you that actually READ this thing. I have kinda gotten lax about posting because I become weary answering the same questions ad infinitum, queries from people (and you know who you are) that know full well where to find all this stuff but can't be bothered to actually go on line and LOOK at the thing. I think I have about 3 readers among the 70 or so folks that have repeatedly been given the Web address (and unending thanks to loyalists Shelly Parks, Anna and Jason, Ellyn Scholtz, Bob Shelton and Ken Burks, this vitriol is obviously not intended for you)...

Finally got outta Maine about Nov 16th, just TWO DAYS ahead of the 20 inches of snow they received there just before Thanksgiving. The snow caught up with us in the Poconos at Scranton PA, but it was light and we beat the weather by a you-know-what hair.

Spent the first night around Harrisburg, then one day with Bob and Patty Shelton at their home campground in Virginia (thanks guys, it was GREAT to see ya), one night in Tennessee, and the last road stop in a dump called Texarkana before arriving back in Dallas, two days before Thanksgiving.

We spent the holiday weekend with Chad and Michelle and the kids and stayed at a park right on Lake Lavon until leaving for Colorado for Christmas at the Broadmoor Hotel...

These are what it looked like there this year, we actually had a white Christmas...

A Peaceful Christmas Scene


Life Does NOT Suck


Coming next: We're off to south Georgia. Tired now from chastising slackers, more soon.

...And Then There Was Nova Scotia!

Latest news! We were on the road again (and the ocean!) this last weekend, 10/4-10/9. This time we drove our truck right up the pier and onto The Cat, which is a badass ferry that goes across the Bay of Fundy from Portland to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia and back to Bar Harbor. The boat is a hydrofoil, which means its hull actually skates ABOVE the water supported on underwater 'foils' that run just under the surface. This craft is about 300 feet long, accomodates vehicles as big as buses and does the 300-mile run from Portland in just over five hours! It has movie theaters, a small casino and bars and restaurants right on board.

After arriving in Nova Scotia (which is also called by the Canadians 'The Maritimes') we drove around the peninsula to our hotel on the east coast, the White Point Beach Resort. This place is amazing, it has been in continuous business since 1927, at which time the only way to get there was by rail from Yarmouth. Turns out the Rockefellers, the Kennedys, the John Astor family, and many other famous people have stayed there, as the place was a favorite summer destination from the United States east coast for many years. Lots of history there, many interesting and nostalgic photos hanging all over the place, and lots of atmosphere...

As is the standard on this site, see below for photos and captions. Click on any picture for a full-screen view; I recommend it, because some of these are really interesting.

On The Cat, And The Rooster Tails Are THIRTY FEET HIGH...


One Of The First Things We Saw Upon Arrival; Yes, He Is Wearing A Kilt...


This Was Taken Less Than 30 Feet From Our Cottage Door...


The Historic Lodge At Our Hotel...


Th Exterior Of The Lodge...


Us On The Beach...


Taken By St. Mary's Bay, And This Photo Has NOT Been Enhanced Or Edited...


Taken From Inside A Cave At 'The Ovens' (a weird and fantastic geologic formation on the Atlantic where the rocks have been 'folded' and uplifted over 300 million years, and where legend has it that the Native Americans figured out how to take a boat completely through the peninsula to the Bay of Fundy)...


The Cliffs At The Ovens, About 250 Feet Above The Water...


Looking Straight Down At The Folded Formations, About 250 Feet Above The Water...


This One Is For Kevin. 300-Million-Year-old Sediments Uplifted And Folded To Razors' Edges...

ADDENDUM...FOR KEVIN (AND ANYBODY ELSE WHO'S INTERESTED) FROM SCOTTY: This guy at NCSU thinks that the zircon samples in these rocks imply that the currently-accepted model of the mini-continent encounter that created (?) the Appalachians is wrong, that the Nova Scotia-Newfoundland region was accreted in a separate event prior to the larger formation on the Central East Coast. See below link for his C.V. and what I believe is a summary of his hypothesis. Please comment on the blog!

www.meas.ncsu.edu/Curriculum_Vitae_07/HibbardPERS.RES.pdf

Upper Ordovician–Lower Devonian strata of the Meguma terrane in the Canadian Appalachians contain zircon populations, including an important Mesoproterozoic zircon population (1.0–1.4 Ga), similar to those in coeval strata of Avalonia, and strongly suggest contiguous rather than discrete histories for these terranes throughout the Paleozoic. That these terranes were juxtaposed throughout the early Paleozoic is indicated by the absence of a Cambrian–Ordovician accretionary event, the lack of intervening suture-zone ophio litic units, and the similarity of Avalonian and Meguma basement Nd isotope signatures in early Paleozoic igneous suites. As Avalonia had accreted to Laurentia-Baltica by the Early Silurian, these data suggest that the Meguma terrane, like Avalonia, resided along the same (northern) margin of the Rheic Ocean at that time. These conclusions have implications for reconstructions of the northern Gondwanan margin in the early Paleozoic and imply that the Silurian–Devonian Acadian orogeny in Maritime Canada occurred in an Andean-type setting and was not related to collision of the Meguma terrane with the Laurentian margin.


I got LOTS more, but gotta charge the battery now. Be back later.

OK, up and running.

The Fishing Town Called Lunenburg, And They Still Speak German Here...


Again, 30 Feet From Our Front Door On The Second Evening...


The Lighthouse At Fort Point, Liverpool, On The Mersey River...
(NOTE: The main industry here in the 1600s and 1700s was interesting; most of the town's revenue was made by legalized piracy. The ships built here were primarily used to cruise the American East Coast, when America was still an enemy of Britain. They would fire upon and and capture American ships and commandeer them, and their cargoes, to be sold to the highest bidder, with a portion of the proceeds being paid to the British Admiralty as 'Privateering Tax'. Thus, the honored and profitable profession of 'Privateer'.)


The Tidal Power Station At Annapolis Royal...
(ANOTHER NOTE: This generating facility is on St. Mary's Bay, which is an offshoot of the much-larger Bay of Fundy. It generates 20 megawatts of electricity by the simple, and completely pollution-free, expedient of placing turbines on the bay and drawing power from the totally insane tides here. These run four times a day in or out, and at this point raise and lower the bay level by 13 meters, or about FORTY-TWO FEET! They are the highest ocean tides in the world.)


My Favorite Pirate...


The Ferry We Took Across The River To Mahone Bay. It Runs By Winching Itself On A Submerged Cable...

The Great 2007 New Hampshire Journey

OK, Allison says I need to be more conscious of how I do this, i.e. to post more compartmentally so as to enhance readability, so here goes...

We went, over this last weekend 10/28-10/30, to the White Mountains on a 'Foliage Tour'. This author, having grown up in the Mountain West, has treasured a somewhat obnoxious and elitist perception of the Appalachians, the range that includes the area we visited this weekend, as being the old, worn-down, toothless has-beens of North America. I here and now officially apologize to New England for having relegated these ranges to 'peon' status, for assuming that the area was 'kind and gentle' when compared to the Rockies, Sangre de Cristos, etc. The peaks in this area are NOT SECOND-CLASS CITIZENS. There, I said it. The topography in the Whites is every bit as challenging, awe-inspiring and potentially hazardous as anything I have seen; the region's inclines, watercourses, and its proclivity for devasting weather and avalanches make it every bit as formidable as anything we have experienced, with the possible exception of the South American Andes.

Following you may see some photos, just like all previous posts with captions, of our latest adventure. As always, click on the photo for a larger view.

The View Out The Windshield Entering The White Mountains...


Us In The Middle Of Glacial Debris, Swift River...


This Is Really How It Looks, No Kidding...


The Quintessential Sybarite...


The Train We Took To The Top Of Mount Washington (which, by the way, has 'the worst weather on the North American Continent', with a top recorded wind speed of TWO HUNDRED THIRTY ONE MILES PER HOUR, and has a specially-constructed weather station atop the summit with three-inch-thick chains holding it down to keep it from blowing away!). The train uses a ton of coal and 500 gallons of water to get to the top (only a short 3.5 miles) from the base station. Some areas of the track are inclined by as much as 37 degrees (which is REALLY STEEP). This is the FIRST cog railroad ever to go into service anywhere... invented by a New Englander that nearly died of exposure attempting to get to the top of this mountain...


On The Train, And It's Getting Cold...


We Enter The Clouds...


You Don't Need My Help With This One...


At The Top; Wind Speed 78 MPH, Tempurature 26F, Wind Chill -17F, Allison Couldn't Stand Up, And My White-Knuckle Grip On That Rail Is Not Merely To Appear Debonaire...

(Geophysical curiosity: this mountain actually extends INTO THE JETSTREAM, the primary mechanism driving climate in the Northern Hemisphere, as it descends off North America to the Atlantic. This explains the totally insane conditions which include an AVERAGE wind speed of 60 MPH. The highest recorded temperature EVER on this mountain is 74F, and it routinely drops to -40F in the winter. Record low: -84F. Not even the North Pole has worse weather.)


Getting low on battery, but we have lots more pictures, some REALLY cool, from NH. Be back later. Bye.

September 2007

OK, time to change months. We've been here for about six weeks now and still haven't more than scratched the surface of the region, been spending lots of time becoming familiar with the area. We went to Portland yesterday to go to Wal-Mart and Home Depot (that darned boat is becoming kind of an obsession, gotta do some fiberglass repairs now on the inner deck). We forgot the camera (Marion has gotta be disappointed in our continuity) but the port there is just as picturesque and scenic as you might expect. All of you should look up DeMillo's Restaurant (it's actually on a floating 19th-century steamer that has quite a history, and the family owns the pier, the marina and the yacht sales business there); we had lunch on the water and it was really good. We are becoming New England-style clam chowder fanatics, and we have a lot of fun comparing the various versions; everyone does it differently, and all the recipes are espionage/microfilm/cyanide, cloak-and-dagger secrets...

Allison has really settled in at the hospital, and they keep asking her what it would take to get her to stay here, but we are adamant about our travel agenda and we don't wanna be here when it gets to be full winter anyway. These people are very hardy and tough customers, and we are still shirt-sleeve-in-January Texans...

We have a date for Thanksgiving with some RVers we met at the KOA in Gardiner; they are from the D.C. area and have a favorite campground in the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia, so we are going there on the 17th of November for about 10 days to meet up with them. Then we are gonna leave the rig and the truck there for about a month (the lady has a storage area and is very nice) and spend the first part of December at Michelle and Chad's, see the kids, and then head to Colorado for Christmas at the Broadmoor, as has become our tradition.

About a week ago we moved to the campground in Freeport where we will be until it's time to go to Virginia. It's a small, privately-managed place with lots of tall trees and is closer to Lewiston, cuts about 10-15 minutes off the drive to work.

This ia a wide view of our site at Freeport...


...and here is Allison contemplating her S'More...


Our latest adventure: last Friday we launched from Yarmouth at the public ramp (about 10 minutes from the park) into the channel on the Royal River. That channel takes you directly into Casco Bay and the Atlantic. We motored around Cousin's Island all the way to the ocean side of Chebeague Island; from there the nearest land to the east is Newfoundland and, beyond that, Great Britain. We anchored off the island (after banging across 4-foot ocean swells for about 15 miles) and ate our lunch.

This was taken from our anchorage off Chebeague Island. The boats are lobstermen at a floating service dock, offloading their catch and taking on supplies...


This is the same trip, as I study the depth charts in a concerted effort to a) make sure we can find our way back to the Royal, and b) make it at least [somewhat] likely that we won't become another statistic in the seemingly-unending history of Maine seafaring disasters (I don't fancy the idea of swimming three miles with two dogs attached to my back)...


Side note: we celebrated our first anniversary last week; we went to a hotel called the Harraseeket Inn in Freeport and had a killer Sunday brunch. We didn't know it when we chose the place, but apparently this hotel is quite the very-very and too-too for the cream of New England society. They have a 10 X 10-foot wall completely covered with 4-Diamond awards from Mobile Travel and the place is quite attractive. See below for some photos of that day if you want.

Allison in the back garden at the Harraseeket Inn...


The tRaVelers in the garden at the Harraseeket...


And, last but most definitely not least, a closeup of the Harraseeket garden. Note the the monarch butterfly in the flowers. The day we were celebrating our anniversary, and totally unplanned because we didn't know about it, the garden there was full of THOUSANDS of monarchs. Those of you that blessed us with your presence at our wedding in California last year, as well as those who heard about it, will immediately grasp the significance (for us at least). It turns out that the monarchs show up here every year, for about three days, on their way south from where they hatch in spring in northern Canada. They are on their way to a specific forest in Mexico where they winter. Their presence in such numbers at this place, on this day, was quite magical, verging upon mystical, for us...


I will post more as soon as we have some news or more photos. Bye for now...

OK, I'm back, and it is September 22nd. Allison thinks I should post some observations about living in an RV.

As far as they go, we are fortunate regarding the setup we have. Our 5th wheel is relatively well-equipped and comfortable; we lack for very little compared to a typical sticks-and-bricks structure. In contrast, we have seen some folks taking long-term trips in vans, small campers and one older (mid-60's?) couple TENT-CAMPNG ACROSS THE UNITED STATES! In our humble and hedonistic opinion, such monkish self-denial quite obviously crosses the threshold of certifiability.

Our Living Room...


One dynamic requiring substantial adaptation is the actual lack of space, living and storage. Of necessity, we are obliged to engage in a number of quite innovative solutions to consume every cubic inch available. For instance, if your cabinets are not filled to the upper boundary vertically, you aren't doing it right! You never realize how much space you waste in a typical stationary house till you try to fit life's necessities into 300 square feet.

Our Bedroom...


I have never in my life actually wished I were shorter, and I guess I still don't; however, temporily-collapsible shins would be most welcome adaptations to mitigate the epidemic of scraped knuckles and elbows caused by drying my head in the 6'6" high, 5-foot by 3-foot coffin that comprises the shower area. Ah, well...

The Dreaded Bathroom Area...


More RV Living observations to come; they will be posted as they arrive in my limited consciousness!

Yesterday we journeyed to the only still-active Shaker village in North America (IF, that is, you consider a 'community' consisting of four elderly women and one man a viable entity). They are (were) an offshoot of the Quakers that arrived in New England shortly after the Pilgrims, leaving England and the Netherlands to escape persecution; after reading the statement that describes their creed, one is bound to consider that they may have just been tired of being made fun of (SEE BELOW).

In the museum at the site, there is a strange display comprising a) a list of approximately 30 no-longer-active Shaker communities and each one's date of abandonment, and b) the Shaker guidelines of behavior that INCLUDE CELIBACY AND A PROHIBITION OF MARRIAGE by any practicing member of the sect! One is led, inevitably, to consider the logic involved in such policy, as it would seem self-evident that the sustainability of a culture based upon the above would be in some jeopardy.

The Shaker Village in photos below.

Their Barn...


The Common Buildings...


Their School And Church...


Their Land (when they all croak the can leave it to ME!!)...


I Don't Wanna Play With The Sheep Anyway...


Yes, We Were Both There...