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Falling

Posted on February 8, 2016 by Bill Leave a comment

I have fallen four times, fallen off the ladder twice, and bounced down the stairs twice in less than a year. OK, so I am 73 years old, left-handed, have ADD, and balance problems. This still should not be happening. I still think of myself as younger than 73, even though the DOF in the name of this site stands for Doddering Old Fart.

After our snowstorm I was out shoveling (I can still do that), came into the house in my wet boots, headed downstairs, and slipped on a stair. I bounced down about four steps thinking this should not be happening. I bruised my thigh and reinjured the ribs I broke last summer falling down the stairs.

The first night was rough, I couldn’t find a position that didn’t hurt. Now I am sleeping OK and am almost fully mobile, just sore. This has to stop. After the four falls I got a referral to physical therapy. That PT has made a big difference. It seems that as we age, we rely more on vision for balance than the proprioceptors in our feet and the inner ear for balance. That is not enough.

Inner Ear

I had a top notch PT. I did a lot of exercises to improve my balance that actually worked. There is a remaining problem. I have a significant hearing loss and wear hearing aids. I also have constant tinnitus. It seems that the Army likes to make loud noises. Often when noises damage the auditory nerve the vestibular nerve sending information from the semi-circular canals is also damaged. My balance is weak in the dark, especially when turning. I have an appointment with the ENT clinic at the VA to see if anything can be done.

This balance thing goes way back, probably because of the inner ear problem. I have always fallen more than most people, but I always attributed it to general clumsiness and ADD. I am somewhat skilled at falling because I do it so often, but the last year has not gone well.

I managed to avoid injury with the falls and the two events with the stepladder, but no luck with the stairs. The first time I was going down in the dark and missed the bottom step. I did my tuck and roll, but the stool was in the way. I broke two ribs in my back. OW OW OW. Don’t break ribs. It took about two months to heal. We now have two motion activated lights in the stairwell.

The fall the other day was entirely my fault. My boots were wet and my mind was elsewhere. I slipped on the front of the stair tread and went down. Bouncing down stairs is no fun. My thigh Is doing well, but those same ribs hurt. So what is going on?

Some of it is the aging process, and my refusal to acknowledge I am not the young whippersnapper I used to be. I am now restricted to the bottom two steps on the ladder. Some of it is obviously balance related. Some of it is my distractibility and inattention.

I think the real meaning goes deeper. Carol and I are in to Jungian Psychology, which pays a lot of attention to dream images and symbols to examine the unconscious part of the psyche. When a series of waking events occurs, our question is, ” If this was a dream, what would it mean?”. The Universe is trying to tell me something, and I am not paying attention.

When I don’t pay attention, things tend to escalate until I get the message. This happens to a lot of people. It sometimes takes a life-changing event before we pay attention. I am paying attention, but I am not sure of all the meaning. Part of it is Slow Down, Dude! Part of it is to stop trying to do it all, despite the risk. I am not very good at doing it all, and we can afford to have someone else do it.

There is a spiritual meaning here, and I am not clear what it is. I think some of it is to write more than three hours per week and spend less time looking at junk on the iPad. I also need to do more spiritual work. I have a block in this area, with times that are spiritual and other times, like now, when all I can do is pray and try to meditate. I get too distracted in meditation. I keep forgetting to go to my Sunday evening meeting. I do not get out in nature enough. Is there more? I’ll tell you when I know.

Posted in Stories

Riding in Cars

Posted on February 8, 2016 by Bill Leave a comment

Denver Rush Hour

Here in the big, rich USA we are slaves to the automobile. Cars give us the illusion of freedom. We can go where we want to, when we want to, without asking anyone but the banker. You pay for the privilege. In New York, cars are too expensive, so people use mass transit. It works well in New York, Boston, and Chicago. Other cities have transit systems, but they are not as comprehensive as the big three. A person can get around, but it is not very easy. Here in Denver it is getting better, but still a hassle. We are waiting for the rail line to open to DIA. Our light rail station is just a few blocks away.

What if you live in Denver and want to go to Dinosaur? Live in Fruita and want to go to Grand Junction? It means riding in cars. There used to be more public transit systems in our country. General Motors bought many of them and shut them down. The financial and environmental impact threatens to overwhelm the planet. What logic is there for millions of people to get into. Three thousand pound car with a life of about fifteen years to drive to work alone on streets clogged with hordes of other cars. The whole thing must change.

In the meantime, I am like most people in rich nations. I love cars. We are a two person household with three cars. One of them, a BMW with rear wheel drive is currently sitting in the garage because it is helpless in snow. In addition, if Carol rides in it for any distance the sexy leather covered seat with seven means of adjustment throws her back out and I am doing massage on her for weeks. What are we? Crazy? You bet.

2006 BMW 326i

That stupid car is the coolest car I have ever driven. Driving it almost makes up for not having a motorcycle. It is fantastic in the mountains. It’s fast, handles like a Formula One car, and growls. It is even fun going from one red light to another at 10 mph on Colorado Boulevard, Denver’s busiest street.

My main ride is a four wheel drive Toyota pickup. I can go four wheeling and camping in it. It takes me to Lowe’s to get the stuff to replace the stuff I tore up or wore out. It is reliable, gets decent mileage, takes me most anywhere I want to go in the back country and has a seat one step removed from a church pew bench. A fella needs a truck. Carol’s car is a Toyota Matrix. Cheap to buy, plenty of room for big people, cheap to run, and doesn’t need fixing. Why can’t Chevrolet do that?

1955 Chevy

Cars became important to me at an early age. We had a 1939 Chevy I loved. I fell off the back and gashed my leg from my crotch to my knee on the license plate. I still liked it. Then, disaster. My father started buying Nashes. The horror. The first one was a bathtub Nash, named for its shape. Ugly, slow, outdated, and a laughing stock. He didn’t learn. The next one was just as ugly and stupid. My dad liked the salesman. He then went to Ramblers, still awful but a little better. Why not a Chevrolet? One of the prettiest girls in school rode in a yellow and black 1957 Chevy that made my knees shake.

The Infamous Bathtub Nash

One of the reasons I turned out the way I have is because I had to ride in Nashes. I even had to take girls on dates in a Nash. I didn’t date much. The only thing that salvaged my childhood was the 1953 Chevrolet pickup dad bought for hunting and fishing trips. In those days it was only two wheel drive, because 4×4’s were scarce. It was short, narrow, and with some rocks in the back, it would chug along into places that were supposed to be for Jeeps only. I learned to drive in it, and drove around town for more than a year before I had a driver’s license.

Later on when I had my own cars, Dad had a succession of International Scouts (same salesman) and Jeeps he used to explore the Colorado Mountains. By the time he died, he had been over almost every mountain pass in the state. He especially loved the San Juans and the Utah red rock country.

1963 VW

My cars? The first one was a 1957 Ford that wasn’t very cool, but got me around just fine. And, it was not a Nash. When in the Army in Germany I bought a new Volkswagen. $1389 in 1963. I paid for it with a paper bag of 20 Mark bills, the largest denomination American Express had. They were the equivalent of a five dollar bill. I brought it home and drove it all over. Boy, it was cold in the winter.

MGA Coupe

I then went through a sports car phase. Everyone I knew was into hot rods, so of course I had to have sports cars. The first one was an MG. Fun, but completely unreliable, made when the British car industry was in decline. The next one was a Sunbeam Tiger, another Brit, but with an American Ford V8 under the hood. That one was really fun and fast. I almost killed myself in Poudre Canyon rolling it. Drunk.

Back to a Volkswagen. Cool, but slow enough to lower the risk of killing myself. It was still too cold in winter. From then, it was a motley assortment of pickups. Nissan, Dodge, Toyota, both two wheel and four wheel drive. I prefer smaller trucks, going back to my sports car phase. My current Toyota is a midsize and too big. I have always wanted a Jeep, but you can’t haul stuff in them and they break. Toyotas just keep running.

The problem is what to do with that BMW. I feel like I am hot shit driving it. No Mercedes, Audi, or Japanese sports sedan has anywhere the panache of a BMW. Also Bavaria is my favorite German state. BMW does make all wheel drive cars and Carol’s car is getting old. Would a newer BMW not kill her back? Do we need to be that cool? The things are expensive. They are not as reliable. Parts cost a fortune. But, “Bayern Uber Alles”. We’ll see.

Posted in Stories

Armed Insurrection

Posted on February 1, 2016 by Bill Leave a comment

Ammon Bundy and the Boys

Currently we are following the occupation of a federal wildlife refuge by a group of men quoting the Constitution and claiming the land for incarcerated ranchers who do not support the occupation. The real reason for the occupation is to attempt to force the federal government to relinquish all the public lands in the west to private ownership.

The premise is that the land should be owned by the local residents for their benefit. For many years in the rural west, the local ranchers acted as if the land was theirs. They ran their livestock, built reservoirs and roads, and built fences.

At first, the policy of the government was to encourage settlement with the Homestead Act, land grants to railroads along their rights-of-way, and direct sales. As population increased, the policies began changing. The Grazing Service leased land for livestock grazing at very low rates, in effect subsidizing the industry. Many ranchers got rich. They would homestead the water and run their stock on government land. As their land ownership increased by various means, they became the major taxpayers in many rural counties. As the big landowners they tended to control the local governments.

In 1949, President Truman created the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) also known as the Bureau of Livestock and Mining. The Forest Service policies were similar, cheap timber sales and low cost grazing leases. In addition, anyone could stake a mining claim, prove it out, and own the land.

The BLM and the USFS were understaffed, with many of their employees second or third sons of ranching families who went to the Forestry Departments in the cow colleges. The net effect was to encourage rampant cheating, cutting more timber, running more stock, and damaging the ecosystems.

Delta – Grand Junction Colorado Desert

My father told of the lush grass growing between Grand Junction and Delta, Colorado when he was young. The grass is gone, the area is desolate. There is more sagebrush today than before the land was settled. Sagebrush is resistant to trampling. The deep, steep walled gullies all over the west are recent, caused by erosion caused by the loss of root systems that held the soil.

Today all that has changed. The BLM and the Forest Service actively manage the lands. The populations are much larger, with much of the rural west not so rural. Ranchers can no longer treat public lands as their own. Many of them refuse to accept the changes, and the Malheur occupation is the result.

The occupiers are the spear point of a movement of disenchanted mostly rural people who resent governmental control of land they tend to see as their birthright. The rural people are fiercely independent. They do not like cities, don’t want others telling them what to do, and want to use the grass and timber that surrounds them. They are usually very conservative politically.

There are not many ways to make a living in those areas. The land is either owned by a few ranchers or the government. There are government jobs with the BLM or the Forest Service, schools, county road maintenance, the state highway department, or low paying service and retail jobs in town. Most of the young people move away.

I am one of the ones who moved away. I was a town kid, but the same conditions applied to me. The best job I had before I left was with the National Park Service, and was seasonal, as many of the trade related jobs are. I worked for the Park Service, went to school and the army, returned to go to school at the local Junior College, transferred to a University in the city, and return only for visits. That is the story for much of my high school class, even with growing Grand Junction just down the road.

In the rural west that is the story. Locals who just scrape along, the ranchers, and all that beautiful government land surrounding them. They won’t or can’t make it in the city and feel trapped in a situation beyond their control. Some of them turn to hard line right-wing politics facilitated by online websites. In addition, almost every television set is tuned to sports or Fox News.

The Feds have yet to come up with a consistent policy to deal with militants

LaVoy Finicum Shot

like the Bundys and their allies. They must deal with the lawlessness, but do not want a situation like Ruby Ridge or Waco. Thus they do nothing, which encourages the militias, or precipitate a violent confrontation with loss of life. The dilemma is how to deal with an armed insurrection without gunfire. Many of the rebels are sworn to die fighting. Must that happen? Letting the nuts go is unacceptable. Letting them run loose while occupying government land and trying to arrest them when they leave has led to killing. My thought is to lay siege and starve them out. They failed at Waco when the Feds lost patience. Lots of innocent lives were lost. The problem is that the law enforcement agencies tend to lack patience.

Maybe the solution is to have an interagency federal siege team, trained to deal with armed standoffs. They have their government salaries while the insurrectionists can be isolated from their outside support. No power, no food, no water, they won’t last long. Outside militants may try to lift the siege, but the government has the resources to surround and isolate them as well. Will there be shooting? Probably, as many of the militants are glory seekers, willing to be martyrs. When the occupations all fail, the movements will lose their motivation. Maybe. As long as the militants are able to arm themselves, these occupations will probably continue. As we saw, road stops do not work.

Posted in Federal Land, Land Occupation, Malheur, Stories

Flint Water

Posted on January 26, 2016 by Bill One comment

Flint Water

After 30 years in the water industry, I thought I should give my take on the Flint, Michigan water crisis. There is a misconception that the water from the Flint River the state emergency manager switched to is poisonous. Not true. Properly treated, the Flint River water is fine, and would meet all safe drinking water standards.

The problem is that the water was not properly treated. As it comes from the river, the water is corrosive and attacks metals in the distribution system pipes. To be safe, it must be treated to make it less corrosive. There are chemical additives (phosphates) that coat the pipes and prevent lead and copper from leaching into the water. Here in Denver, lime or soda ash are added to raise the pH of the water, making it less corrosive. In addition, over time a thin film of calcium carbonate forms on the inside of the pipes, effectively sequestering the toxic metals. The phosphate chemicals do the same thing.

How can you tell if your water is safe? The corrosive water also attacks the rust that forms in an old system, such as in Denver or Flint. If your water is red, it has rust, but also lead and copper. The lead and copper come from the pipes, not the river. The rust won’t hurt you, just stain your fixtures. The lead comes from lead solder (now outlawed) used to join copper pipes and from lead pipes once used to bring water from the main into the house. The lead service lines are slowly going away, but many houses have galvanized steel pipes into the house. These are safe, but that steel pipe won’t bend to attach to the tap on the main, which is high on the pipe to keep sediment out of the service line. The solution, a flexible lead loop bending from the tap to the service line.

Corroded Pipe

In Denver some older houses have lead service lines, but the lead loops are more common. My entire neighborhood in South Denver with houses dating from the Victorian era to the 1940’s has lead loops. Most of them are replaced when the old galvanized pipes rust out and there is a leak. Our house has a copper service line now. Several houses on the block have had their old service lines replaced since we have lived there. Look where the water line comes into your house. If it is copper, you are OK. Flint has the same situation.

Aggressive water leaches lead and copper out of the pipes and renders the water toxic. Lead is the most dangerous, as it is a neurotoxin especially dangerous for developing fetuses and young children. Copper is also toxic, but copper pipes are more resistant to corrosion than lead.

If you have red water in your house, it is possibly dangerous and needs to be tested. The Flint water is not just red, it’s red mud. Before the Safe Drinking Water Act, many small water systems had aggressive water. As a kid, I watched red water flow into our bathtub, especially in the spring, when the water was mostly runoff. Maybe that is why I am nuts, as well as the rest of us from Fruita.

How did this happen in Flint? Flint has a treatment plant, but was using water from Detroit which has good corrosion control. Flint has plans to switch from the Flint River to Lake Huron as their water source. Lake Huron water is higher quality than river water, making it less expensive to treat. Detroit water is from Lake Huron. The Michigan emergency manager for Flint ordered the switch to river water to save money.

Flint is broke. The demise of much of the U.S. Auto industry hit Flint hard, a General Motors town. The result, white flight, leaving a population mostly poor and black. The city couldn’t pay its bills and the state took over with a team appointed by the Governor. Here is the root of the problem. The federal Safe Drinking Water Act establishes standards for drinking water. The law gives the states the option to administer the law, usually by the Health Department or the Environmental Quality Department.

So, the State government is running the Flint government and water treatment process and is also charged with insuring the water is safe, a clear conflict of interest. A wild card? Racism. Those poor black people did not have much political clout and were essentially ignored and belittled when they complained about their water. It took a brave pediatrician seeing high lead levels in her patients to finally get action.

Four governmental entities are involved. The Flint city government was rendered superfluous when the state assumed control. The federal EPA was passing the buck to the Michigan Environmental Quality Department and not doing due diligence in making sure the department was doing its job (the EPA administrator lost his job). The state environmental quality regulators knew there was a problem, but were influenced by the Governor’s emergency management. The result, a perfect bureaucratic storm, with the people of Flint as victims.

The cost? A public health crisis that will cost millions to fix. It takes a long time for the calcium carbonate or phosphate coating to form in the pipes. In the meantime the water is unsafe. The people of Flint will have to be provided with bottled water for some time. Lots of bureaucratic fingers are being pointed. There is plenty of blame to go around. Will anyone go to jail? Probably not, even though there is now a special prosecutor. If the local Flint city government had been simply subsidized by the state until it got its house in order, the whole thing could probably been avoided. Instead the emergency managers put money ahead of the public health.

Many conservatives want to reduce the size of government, and return to the nineteenth century, before there was water treatment and people died of waterborne disease. Government built a system to protect public health. If government does not have the money do do its job, the public health will suffer. Do you want safe water? Don’t move to Flint.

Posted in Environment, Flint Water, Health Issues, Lead Poisoning, Money, Politics, Stories, Water Treatment

Fantasy Football

Posted on January 22, 2016 by Bill Leave a comment

Andrew Luck, no luck for us.

This year Carol and I played fantasy football with some friends and family members. High rollers, the entry fee was ten bucks. Our team was The Front Range Fogies. We are not big football fans. Here in Denver it is necessary to follow the Broncos out of self defense and Carol lived in Green Bay for a while. I don’t think I could tell you the names of all the latest expansion teams.

I was resistant to the idea at first, remembering the guys at work spending hours poring over injury reports in order to come up with a team each week. The big change since then is the software. We used ESPN’s program. It does the record keeping and scoring for you, provides team rosters and available players, and informed information on players. We also got a good app that is great at comparing prospective players.

Given all that we lost big. We just didn’t quite know what we were doing and the results showed. The season was quite a process, however.

First, the draft. The usual strategy is to choose running backs and wide receivers because they are the point producers and the high injury turnover. We didn’t know that and picked Andrew Luck, theoretically the best quarterback in the league. Not so this year. We also had Peyton Manning for a while. Wrong. I don’t even know who we ended up with. We picked the Bronco defense and kicker, fairly good choices. We were weak in running backs and wide receivers out of ignorance and inexperience. We stayed weak there.

Injured

I came away from the season with two insights. One, fantasy football is fun, and we watched a lot of football. It is a great way to stay in touch with others without having to talk about who is sick or did something stupid.

Two, the injuries. NFL Football has a one hundred percent injury rate. The injury rate for the wide receivers and running backs is just appalling. We spent a lot of time searching for uninjured players we could pick up. The durable players were already on the other team’s rosters. Of course we also lost Luck and Manning. There is a lot of press about head injuries, but they are just on the top of the list. Modern gladiators, those players, sacrificing their bodies and brains for money.

Change in that area will be slow, because the violence is what appeals to a lot of the fans, and the fan’s money is what drives this huge industry. Fifty dollars per seat, 80,000 seats, you do the math. TV also provides a huge amount to the teams, and the networks sell lots of ads. The players are just raw material.

Of course, the players make lots of money but the price is the damage to their bodies and brains. Seldom does a player go all season without an injury. Seldom does a player last more than three or four years. We hear about the Mannings and Bradys, but they are the exceptions. The players with the press are survivors. The rest are the victims.

So, will we do fantasy football again? Probably, it gives us contact with friends and family in a low key competition. Are we as fans part of the problem with football? Our money certainly is.

February 8, the Broncos won the Super Bowl. We are happy. The whole NFL business is still crazy. $28.00 for a t-shirt?

Posted in Fantasy Football, Stories

Radicals

Posted on January 13, 2016 by Bill Leave a comment

Radicalism seems to be common among Republican Presidential candidates. Radicals want to make sweeping changes in government rapidly rather than progressive change.

The most radical is Donald Trump. He seems to want to create a warring dictatorship, with no room for dissent. The word for that is fascism, accompanied with the lowest form of demagoguery. There is precedent for those people in American politics. George Wallace, Joe McCarthy, Father Coughlin, David Duke, and Huey Long are examples.

Trump

The current crop of radicals have a different agenda. They are fundamentalist Christians who are believers in a doctrine common for over two thousand years. They see the turmoil of human affairs as signs that we are in the end times. The turmoil will escalate into the battle of Armageddon, followed by the rapture and the second coming.

Apocalyptic literature has always been with us, but The Judeo-Christian literature is especially rife with dire prophesies. Today’s Christian radicals take most of their inspiration from the books of Revelation and Matthew, written around the end of the first century predicting the fall of the Roman Empire. There is a lot of ancient apocalyptic literature, the Bible is not unique in this. There is also a lot of allegory not exclusive to the Bible.

When I was engaged in extensive Bible study, I also watched televangelists talking about the end times, and how biblical prophesy is about to be fulfilled. People have been talking about the end times since the latter part of the first century, when the New Testament was written. Rome destroyed the Temple in 70 AD. That catastrophe was the beginning of the Jewish diaspora, and turmoil continued in Palestine. The prophesies were written then, and referred to Rome.

Biblical Battle of Armageddon

My view is that attempting to apply those prophesies to today is repeating the mistake Christians have been making since the New Testament was written. There was end time hysteria in the first and second centuries, around 1000 AD, and beginning in the nineteenth century when mostly American writers began looking into biblical prophesy. Many dates chosen for the rapture, Armageddon, and the Second Coming have come and gone. Christ continues to tarry. The establishment of the State of Israel was seen as the biggest portent, and that it would all happen within a generation. Nope.

Now it is the continuing conflict in the Middle East which will culminate in a climactic battle between the U.S. and Russia at Megiddo. This is the reason for fundamentalist support for Israel. They see Israel as the flash point for a general war and then Armageddon.

Michelle Bachmann, Oral Roberts University Law School Graduate

Most of the Republican candidates subscribe to this view. Michelle Bachmann and Sarah Palin have spoken explicitly about this view. Most of the current candidates who call themselves evangelicals believe in the end times, but don’t talk about explicitly, remembering what happened to Bachmann and Palin.

Radicalism dominates Republican Presidential nomination campaigning. The idea is as radical as forming European Christian armies to take Jerusalem in 1099 AD. The enemy is the same, Islam. The goal is the same, establishing Christian rule. A secondary goal is establishing a Christian theocracy in the U.S. We don’t hear a lot of talk about these overall strategies, but the specific policy statements point in that direction. Abortion, gay marriage, invading Iraq and Syria to destroy ISIS and confront Putin, increasing defense spending, and defunding the opposition (Working People), are the real goals. Oh, and making rich people richer.

Watch out, folks, read between the lines, and watch Trump confound everyone with his flag waving racism. Be especially aware of the prophesy believers. They want to impose their religious beliefs on the world.

Posted in Apocalyptic Prophesies, Politics, Radicalism, Stories

Perspective

Posted on December 27, 2015 by Bill Leave a comment

Roman Empire

As I moved along in my history studies I heard a lot about developing a historical perspective. It means acquiring a long view about historical processes. For example, how the civilizations on the Italian peninsula evolved from Etruscan influences to Greek colonies to the start of the Roman city state with a political system somewhat modeled on Greek city-states to a republic, evolving with the growth of the empire and the need to defend the borders which tended to generate a more autocratic government which became increasingly corrupt and unable to check the invasions of Germanic tribes which led to collapse and the Dark Ages. How is that for a synopsis?

Just about every statement I made about Rome has been debated, supported, refuted, and revised for centuries. It is my perspective, however, and provides a framework, however tenuous, for my thinking about the development of European civilization. Many of the conflicts in what was once the Roman Empire and it’s fringes have roots over two thousand years old. I draw on my views of ancient empires in thinking about current developments in our world.

Geology also requires developing perspective; probably more than history because of the vast expanse of time. We think of two thousand years as a long time historically, but it is less than a blink in geologic time. The earth is over four billion years old. What we can think of as written geologic history, the evolution of life forms leaving a fossil record, is 600 million years old. The

2013 Colorado Flooding

2013 Colorado floods, viewed as a rare catastrophe, is only one of many thousands of similar events that carved canyons, moved rivers, filled basins that continue to subside, and provided habitats for ever-changing life forms. Bring back the mastodon and the Sabre-Toothed Tiger!

Geologists think that Colorado was formed by island arcs similar to those archipelagos south of Asia colliding with the Eurasian continent. Here, island arcs from the south docked on the Wyoming Craton, some of the oldest rocks in North America. This happened a very long time ago, before life emerged. If you want to see this transition I recommend the

Wyoming Stromatolite

Snowy Range road in Wyoming. You can find stromatolites, fossilized algae. These fossils predate the Paleozoic, and are older than anything in Colorado. Yes, geologists use the word docked, if you can imagine India docking on Eurasia. The transition between the Wyoming Craton and the younger stuff is called the Cheyenne Belt.

Now here is some serious history. Since Colorado became one land mass, mountain ranges have come and gone, oceans have advanced and retreated, new life has evolved and gone extinct, and the whole deal has skidded around on the earth. All the skidding has moved at about the rate your toenails grow. That is not very fast, but after a few million years it begins to add up.

Trail Ruts at Guernsey WY

One of the problems of moving in next to Wyoming is that Yellowstone is there. 200 miles north of Denver is Guernsey, Wyoming, home of some interesting human history. Guernsey is on the Platte River and the Oregon-California Trail. Hundreds of thousands of people traveled the trail seeking new opportunity. The trail stays close to the river in most places, but at one point the banks narrow and the trail climbs up about 20 feet through what looks like soft sandstone. The Rock is so soft the wagon wheels formed axle deep ruts.

Yellowstone Volcanic Caldera

The rock is not sandstone. It is volcanic tuff, deposited by ash clouds from the last time the Yellowstone Supervolcano blew, about 640,000 years ago. On the highway it is about 380 miles. Four feet of hot ash from 380 miles away. It must have gotten pretty nasty here in Denver. That volcano is going to erupt again. We don’t know when, but the magma continues to bulge and recede in the area around Yellowstone Lake, which formed in the caldera. Now that is historical perspective. I live in a place that is going to be cooked and buried some day.

For those of you in coastal lowlands, along the West Coast, near St. Louis, Salt Lake, or anywhere between Tibet and Australia, there will probably be cataclysms occurring sooner than Yellowstone erupting, but nobody knows for sure.

Posted in Geology, History, Stories, volcanoes

Boise Road Trip Part Two

Posted on December 17, 2015 by Bill 2 comments

In the first installment I got us as far as the Wasatch Front, and warned of the future apocalypse-earthquake waiting to happen there. I was on the way to Boise, and needed gas. I took an exit and pumped gas, moved the Tacoma to a parking spot, and went inside.

Pried Open Sliding Window

When I came out I saw my keys on the seat. Oops. No spare key. I have done this before, and it usually means breaking a window. The Tacoma has a sliding rear window, useful for ventilation in good weather. I borrowed a screwdriver from the guys parked next to me. I figured that was the cheapest window to replace if I had to break it.

The window has a plastic latch and I pried between the panes there. The glass bent and the latch popped open. I have tried those magnetic key holders and they always disappear. I’ll figure out a stash spot sometime.

On the road again, I drove through some arid hilly country-cow country, in the wind. I have always thought that Wyoming is the wind capital, but the wind has to come from somewhere, I guess it is northern Utah and Idaho.

Driving on north, near the Snake River it is irrigated farmland, reminding me of home. I was getting tired and stayed in Twin Falls. It’s not that far to Boise, but when I am tired I lose concentration, not good at 70 mph.

Oregon Trail Ruts

The Oregon-California Trail parallels the Snake in that region, so I went rut hunting. The Snake runs through a gorge in the Snake River Plain, so the trail left the river if there were alternate water sources. Those hills Idaho people call mountains also run parallel to the Snake a few miles north, and the trail ran there away from the river. Water was available from springs and creeks at the base of the hills. The water is gone now, victim of all the groundwater pumping by farmers.

The ruts are there, as well as the ruins of an attempt at a resort in the early part of the 20th century. I like following the trail, thinking about what it was like for the emigrants, traveling 8 to 10 miles per day, hoping for a better life at trail’s end. Many found the better life, many did not, and many died on the way.

On to Boise, seeing people I care about, and searching for Basque food. Headed home it was back to the Wasatch, then U.S. 40 east. I had never been west of Vernal, so it was new country for me. The highway rises through the Wasatch to Heber City, a nice town that reminded me of our Eagle River valley, with all the businesses supporting the ski resorts. The Wasatch Mountains are rhe easternmost range of the Basin and Range Province. The Basin and Range is being stretched as the Pacific Plate scrapes northward along the North American plate.

Uintah Mountains From US40

Leaving the Wasatch Mountains, we are back on the Colorado Plateau, with its northern boundary, the Uintah Mountains. The Uintahs are unique among North American mountain ranges, as they run east-west. They were uplifted at the same time as the Rockies, but I can’t find a good explanation of why they run east-west. There they are, and I drove east with mountains on the left and desert on the right. Come to think of it, the Book Cliffs and the Tavaputs Plateau also run east-west, but they aren’t called mountains because they are only 8000 feet high. The Uintahs have two thirteeners.

Highway 40 runs between the Uintahs and the Tavaputs. The Uintahs are important to the Salt Lake area, providing water for the growing population.They are also pristine, mostly roadless. The glaciers are gone, but they left dramatic peaks and broad mountain valleys. The core is the High Uintahs Wilderness,the rest Forest Service land providing summer range for sheep and cattle.

Next, Vernal. It reminds me of Cortez, Colorado and not in a good way. It is, however, a good jumping off spot for a lot of interesting country.

Green River Campground, Dinosaur National Monument

The eastern end of the Uintahs have Dinosaur National Monument, with its fossils and the amazing canyon of the Green River. I was camping down on the river one time a few years ago. My neighbors in the campground had some dogs they were letting run loose. I warned them about the skunk I had seen. Early next morning they learned about skunks and dogs and I got to hear some morning howls. I am glad I wasn’t in their car on the way out.

Maybell, Colorado is next, a ranching town isolated enough that the natives retain the western drawl, a dying accent. On to Craig with its coal controversy, then Steamboat on the Yampa. Pretty country. Then, drive over Rabbit Ears and Berthoud Passes, down to I-70 and a traffic jam. That meant I was close to home.

Posted in Green River, Oregon Trail, Road Trips, Stories, Utah

Road Trips, Denver to Boise Part One

Posted on November 12, 2015 by Bill 2 comments

It is road trip time. I went to my 55th high school reunion in Fruita, then went to Boise on family business. Good reunion with old friends, and a good hike to Devil’s kitchen in the Colorado National Monument.

La Sal Mountains and Arches

From the reunion it was west and north to Boise. Many people find the drive from Fruita boring. The highway is fairly flat and on the Mancos Shale, ancient sea floor mud made rock, sort of. Poor soil, it is mostly sagebrush and cheat grass. South is the red rock country and the La Sal Mountains. The La Sals are weathermakers for Fruita during the August thunderstorm season.

North of the highway it’s the Book Cliffs, more shale with sandstone rims. Don’t go there after a lot of moisture. Some of the slipperiest roads anywhere are up there. Good cow country, though. Oil, gas, and oil

Book Cliffs

shale make the country vulnerable to destruction.

Price and Helper signal the end of the Mancos, but not without a lot of coal. The shoreline of the ancient sea was here. The highway goes up through a canyon to higher country. Cow country again, until it turns to city.

It is urban sprawl from outside Provo to where the highway branches off into Idaho. This is the Wasatch Front, Brigham’s Place. Good land, water, and a place to build. Built it is. Big City. It is much like Colorado’s Front Range. The difference, the Rocky Mountains are mostly finished rising. The Wasatch Range is not.

The Wasatch Front

All along the Wasatch, one can see the scarp formed by the Wasatch Fault. The mountains are on the way up, and they jerk upward along the fault. The fault is overdue to jerk upward again. When it does, Salt Lake and the other cities are in trouble. There are four major earthquake zones in the U.S. Everyone knows about the San Andreas in California; the Cascades are another, with Portland and Seattle overdue for a big quake.

Bonneville Shoreline Terraces

Another feature of the Salt Lake Valley is the Lake Bonneville shoreline. When the ice age glaciers melted, a huge lake formed in that basin. It was so big that it overflowed into the Snake River in Idaho. The ancient shoreline terrace is visible all long the Wasatch front.

There was a wet period in the 1980’s when the Great Salt Lake grew, attempting to relive past glory. Fortunately for the city it receded. but, another problem. The Wasatch mountains are still rising. The fault at the base, the eastern edge of the city, is locked. It hasn’t shaken in a long time in human terms.

Uplifting mountains don’t rise in a steady fashion. It happens in jumps and jerks. called earthquakes. The Wahsatch has had hundreds of earthquakes in the last few million years. It is not a matter of if, but when. There are hundreds of houses built on the loose stuff that has washed out of the mountains. Shaking is amplified on that material rather than solid rock. The destruction will be staggering in impact. The prediction is the quake will be about 6.5 in magnitude.

Posted in Stories

Road Trips, New York

Posted on November 12, 2015 by Bill Leave a comment

It seems to be travel time. I did a round trip to Boise to see relatives. For an old guy, a two day drive. I saw new country and got a road trip in; I like road trips, preferably alone. The next trip was the big one. Fly to New York and drive a car back to Denver.

My stepdaughter has a high zoot job and a high zoot apartment in Manhattan. She is now a confirmed New Yorker and decided to go without a car. New York is one of the few places in the country where or makes sense to be carless.

2006 BMW 356i

So, we cashed a bunch of points for a first class ticket to LaGuardia. I took a cab to her place, we had aa pizza across the street from her building, slept, and got on the road by 9:00 AM. She gave us a great deal on her 2006 BMW with 60000 miles on it. What a machine. I drive a base model Toyota pickup that is so base it doesn’t have a passenger side door lock. The BMW has most every option they put on them that year. I can now operate about twenty percent of the features.

I drove north up the Roosevelt Parkway, went across the George Washington Bridge to I-80, and rolled west. The portion of New Jersey I crossed is truly the Garden State. There were lots of trees displaying their fall colors, a nice rural area. Soon, I was in

Pretty Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania. I like that state. Hilly, wooded, nice farms, and striking fall colors. Green, gold, red, gold, brown, and a lovely Crimson. Pennsylvania has lots of wildlife, and the traffic takes its toll. There are solutions for the road kill problem, but they are expensive, so change is slow.

Next is Ohio, and I-80 swarming with cops. I saw many more patrol cars in Ohio than the rest of the route. The state is flat, with the American monoculture: corn. The truck traffic on I-80 is dense and fast moving. Everyone scoots along at 5mph over the limit until a truck decides to pass another and it is time to slow down.

I stayed in a hotel outside Sandusky, one of the cities on Lake Erie. Next day, the rest of Ohio, then Indiana. I liked Indiana, farms, hills, and colorful woods. Then, the flat tire alarm came on. The Beemer has run flat tires and no spare. I tried airing the tire with no luck, so I turned off to Lake Station, a town just east of Hammond.

Lake Station, Indiana

What a place. I stopped at the first repair shop and they confirmed the tire was so worn it would not hold air. They didn’t have a replacement; the BMW has rare low profile sporty tires. They sent me into town where there were several tire shops. Wow, what a place. The town is not at the top of the economic ladder; in fact it is on the bottom rung. The newest buildings on the Main Street were the dollar store and the big, new county library.

I went to four tire shops , none of them sold new tires. In one shop I had to yell into the back to get someone to come out. The guy was a meth head, with sores all over his face and an empty look in his eyes. Another didn’t have the size I needed. I finally went to a busy shop with a Hispanic staff and the tire I needed. Nice guys working there and the right tire. They got me going again for less than sixty bucks.

I then entered Chicagoland. There seems to be a trend to do construction work on highways in any metropolitan area. Miles of cones closing a lane with nothing going on, then a short distance where the work is happening. I got through the mess OK, and stayed at a hotel just west of the Quad Cities.

Mississippi River Bridge

I got to cross the Mississippi. It is big there, even above the Ohio and the Missouri. The Missouri was narrow and looked deep. The Platte was a real contrast, wide and shallow with lots of islands and sand bars.

I like Iowa, probably because I am from farm country. I stayed in a nice hotel and had a real dinner instead of drive-up junk. There was a big AA-AlAnon conference going on, so not many drunks. Iowa has less trucking, and the road kill animals are smaller than in Pennsylvania.

That BMW is a great road car. When my back started hurting, I would sit up straight until my butt started hurting. No amount of padding helps either condition. My lower spine is a mess, and my butt is skinny-can’t keep my pants up. The cruise control is easy to use and was a big help. Cruise in the rural areas, alert and careful in the cities.

It was a long day across Iowa and Nebraska. In my younger days I would have gone on to Denver, but the old guy stayed in North Platte. We have two Cabelas here so there was no temptation to go to Sidney. I-76 goes right to Denver. Home just after noon.

Now, Carol and I are learning how to use all the features on the car. Our next task is deciding what to do with three cars. What to keep, what to sell? The BMW is high maintenance, the Matrix is getting old, and my 4×4 Tacoma is so cheap it doesn’t have an outside lock on the passenger side, the seat is hard, and the only amenities are air conditioning and a decent sound system.

We have more road trips coming up, and the BMW is great, but rear wheel drive. The Matrix is still decent, and the Taco sucks for long distances. What to do?

Posted in BMW, Stories, travel

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