Six degrees of seperation: Coctail dress to Sark

Now that I'm finally finished telling the Spring Break Adventure, I can go back to my regularly scheduled life stories.
No big news on my end. The semester ends in a about a month, so of course, I should be working on homework or projects instead of writing uninteresting things into my blog. Whatever. It's Sunday evening.
On the upside the weather's been warm. I'm not completely convinced spring has sprung, but it looks good so far. ::Knock on wood:: Grad ball was a couple weeks ago. Entirely unlike me, I wore a black cocktail dress. Season 4 of Battlestar has started. I'm not sure how I feel about some of the plot developments. Baltar a Jesus-figure? Really?
Taxes..grr. Aaron's coming to visit this week...ya!.

A good friend of mine has been doing the world a service by posting all Obama's failings. I thought I'd be my part and let the NYTimes editorialist Frank Rich explain why, even if Clinton wins the nomination, I'm still going to grind my teach and vote for her over McCain.

Tet Happened, and No One Cared

I also went to Wikipedia to look up something, which I have long forgotten because I was distracted by Sark. Sark is a Channel Island (as in the English Channel), has an area of about 2.5 miles, and a population of 600. There are no cars on the island (my kind of place), and it is one of the last places in Europe to abolish feudalism. Let's set aside of one moment the fact that it's "one of the last", implying here are others that haven't, and ponder that there exists places in Europe that are still governed by the feudal system. This whole life thing never ceases to astonish me.
And on that note, I'm calling it a night.

Desert Spring Break - Thursday and Friday

Finally we have reached the last day of this adventure. Thursday morning we wake refreshed, grab omelets from a cute diner in downtown Flagstaff, and hit the road for the Grand Canyon.
We stop at two places of interest along the way. The first is Sunset crater, which is one of many volcanic craters in this area. The reader may find it surprising that there are extinct volcanoes in northern Arizona, but in fact there are many along the edge of the Colorado Plateau. Sunset crater last erupted fairly recently (~1100 AD) and is still surrounded by hardened lava. All in all really interesting. Here's a picture of the San Francisco Mountains, also volcanic, with a lava flow from Sunset Crater in the foreground.



Next we stopped at Wupatki National Monument. It's the ruins (somewhat reconstructed) of ancient Pueblo people. It's a complex and beautifully built structure. I'm not sure how I feel about it being partially reconstructed.



Finally we were off to the Grand Canyon, which is indeed quite grand. It is actually quite surreal. The shear size of it completely defies comprehension. Your brain simply can not grasp it. I can't tell you how many times I stared into it and thought, "I'm looking a mile into the Earth." Then, being the physicist that I am, I started to calculate how long it would take for a rock to hit the bottom. It was something like 30 seconds to a minute. I mean really. That's damn big hole. The colors are also astounding. The first photo taken at Desert View, and the river at the bottom is the Colorado.



And just for fun, here I am squinting into the Sun.




My forehead's about as red as the Redwall rock.

Eventually it was time to head back to Vegas to catch a redeye back East. We ended up cutting it pretty close driving back. This was rather unpleasant part of the trip, so I'm just going to say that we made our flight in time, I managed to sleep on the plane (gasp), and the drive back to Ithaca from Rochester was uneventful until....
we got a call from a certain former roommate saying that she and her boyfriend *finally* got engaged. Yah! Congrats!

Das Ende

Desert Spring Break - Wednesday

Wednesday morning was our last morning in Joshua Tree. Although the weather had finally turned nice and the Joshua Trees had grown on me, I was ready to stop sleeping on the ground and looking forward to staying in a motel later that night. But there are a lot of miles we had to cover before we got to that point. Here's our backcountry campsite:



After eating breakfast we struck camp, filled up our packs and hiked back to the trail head. Back at the cars we sorted out our stuff, repacked the cars and said departed from Mel and Briony for Andy, Ginger and I were off to Flagstaff, AZ. We drove back north through the park, fill up the gas tank, and headed east on highway 29, again passing by the random, one-room abodes made of cinder blocks whose existence again creeped me out.
Highway 29 renormalized my definition of "middle-of-no where". Here's a photo taken through the windshield:



That is until we ran across a random biker off on the side of the road. We decided to pull off to make sure that he was ok. He was. Except for the part where he had only brought one standard bike water bottle full of water for the 30-something mile trip through the middle of no where in the desert, where there is, of course, no water. Californians are nice people but a bit crazy.
Eventually we reached the Arizona border and stopped at a diner in Palmer, AZ (Population maybe 200). The place embodied all that is lacking from chain restaurants: character. They also served iced tea in the *biggest* cups I've ever seen, which at that point, was exactly what I wanted.
Continuing on from Palmer we headed up north along the AZ-CA border until around sunset when we met I-40. Then it was straight east and up (we climbed several thousand feet). This brought us back into cold and snow, but that's how it goes.
Finally we reached Flagstaff and checked into a hotel with Wifi and a shower. It was my first shower in about six days, and I enjoyed every minute of it. Even more though, I enjoyed sleeping in a bed inside where there's heat and no wind.

Desert Spring Break - Tuesday

Tuesday turned into our "back country" day. Our goal for the day was Lost Palms Oasis. We loaded up a night's food, our tents and sleeping bags and lots of water into our backpacks and headed out. All of the day-trippers from LA looked at us like we were crazy.
Tuesday was warm. I'd even go so far as to say hot. Especially when you're carrying 20 pounds on your back. About three miles in we found an area with enough flat space to put up our tents. Had lunch. Applied more sunscreen and continued on to the Palm Oasis.
After so many days in the desert it's odd to see water effectively coming out of rocks, but it in fact happens. Here's a Palm Tree I sat under:



I also apparently take fewer picture when I'm carrying a lot on my back.
After we finished relaxing under the Palm Trees, Mel and I decided to try and find Victory Palms, reported to be about a mile beyond Lost Palms Oasis. By this point though the trail turned rocky, and there was some scrambling over rocks. In the end the impending sunset kept us from actually finding the second oasis, but it was a fun little adventure.
We returned to camp and cooked by moon and flashlight. Chatted about life the universe and everything and fell asleep.

Desert Spring Break - Monday

Monday turned into do-a-bunch of short hikes day.
We started off the morning, like every morning out in the desert, with the best oatmeal ever cooked over a campfire.
The first hike of the day took us up Ryan Mountain. Those of you who know me well know that hiking up mountains is one of my favorite activities and hiking up desert mountains in particular. I like that there's an obvious goal. I like being able to see big-picture vistas unhindered by things like trees. Here's a picture from the summit looking to the west to the San Bernardino mountains.



After descending from the mountain, we found a nice spot for lunch next to a large rock perfectly shaped for basking in the sun. Monday was the first day we could actually call warm, and this was the first time I could sit around in a tank top and soak in the warmth. It was, let me tell you, very exciting. I could feel myself burning, but that's ok. That was exactly why flew to the Southwest.

We occupied our afternoon visiting several of the mines and mills that litter this area. Back in the day, that is to say the first half of the 20th century, people flocked to the area in search of gold. Personally, I didn't really care about mines or mills, but these particular trails ended up have some of the prettiest Joshua Trees we came across. This is a tree we found on our way to the Wall Street mill.



Here's an old piece of machinery we found while exploring Desert Queen mine:



Finally we drove up to Key's View, which offers a fantastic view of the West.



From here you can actually see the San Andreas Fault, but it's not particularly clear in this picture.

Dinner was awesome. The wind was calm. All was good.