ICE FORMING ON LAKE ERIE

 At Christmas time I was able to go to the Cleveland Ohio area for a visit. I am originally from the area and still have a lot of family there. This is really rare for me since it is a busy time of year for my husbands work. This year was different for two reasons. The schools had off the week before Christmas and Christmas was on Saturday. We decided if we went the week before Christmas, my husband could still be there for the end of the year crunch.  So I drove up.
     When I go to Ohio, I like to stay at house my family owns that is on Lake Erie. Shortly before my dad got the illness, that he died from, he and my mom bought this duplex on Lake Erie in Madison Ohio for a retirement home.  My brother was to have the top part and my parents the bottom.  After my dad was gone my mom remarried and moved out, but still kept it in case she needed to move back since her new husband was in his 80's.  Since then my brother also got married and moved out too when he and his wife had children.  My mom rents out the top half to cover the expenses of it.  I come from a large family and it is hard for us to all be together at one time.  Having the extra room makes it easier for more of us to visit at the same time, thus another reason for keeping it.

I love looking at Lake Erie. The Lake is always so different every time I go and visit there.  I never know what to expect.  Sometimes it can be so still there is hardly a wave on it at all.  Then there are other times when there are constant waves like the ocean.  Sometimes they can get to be very big and nasty.  I always look forward to how the lake will be while I am there.

This is how it normally looks with some waves crashing on the shore.

Nov 15 2010 - looking to the east

But some days can be really calm and others can be really rough.
A calm day

Sunset on Lake Erie when the lake was calm and the waves small (June 2008)

vs a rough day

Sept. 30 2009 Sometimes the waves get rough

Sept 2009

This year it was so neat because while I was there it was below freezing the whole time.   I got to watch the ice form on the edges of it.  Each day I would go out and take pictures because it would change so much from day to day.  I would do it in the morning around 9-11 am so it would be around the same time each day.  This made sure I had something for everyday before I would go visit family and friends.

12-19-2010

12-20-2010 A nice thin layer has formed and no waves are noticeable

12-23-2010;  It only got above freezing for a couple of hours but
it amazed me how the ice seem to have broken up so quickly.
My brother says it always amazed him how 'ice rafts' would
break away and be gone the next day or float in on other days.

Dec 24, 2010

!2-25-2010
The first set is looking from in the same direction to the east.  But that wasn't as spectacular as the stuff when you just looked straight out but there were no reference points and it was hard to see things.  So I'm including a variety of angles so you can get a better feel of how spectacular this stuff really was to me.


I felt like there was so much more to comprehend than just viewing the east so here are some more looking straight out to the lake or slightly to the west and to the public boat launch. But first here is a map showing where the pictures are taken.  Follow Rt 528, Madison up to the lake to the public boat launch site, symbolized by the little boat.
(These photos are taken at about 41 50' 19.53"N & 81 02' 43.00"W at an ele 583')

Delmore Atlas & Gazetter - Ohio (2010) pg 26

Nov 15, 2010 Lake Eire - notice the level of the water

Nov 2008 - Note that the lake did not freeze this time.

12-19-10

12-19-10

12-20-10 Here you can see the ice raft has come in and new
ice is forming - joining the two together.

12-21-10

12-21-10

12-23-10

12-24-10

12-24-2010

12-24-2010

12-24-10

12-24-10
 
Dec. 25 2010


I'm having a lot of problems with this so its time to quit.  

MUSINGS ON SNOW - in 2010

 2010 - THE YEAR OF SNOW for me.
Last year I noticed some of the blogs did a year end review.  That got me thinking about this past year for me.
I live in the south but grew up north.  Most of the time I enjoy the weather of the south.  But every once in a while I do miss the snow of the north.  This year was a great year for me because I got to see snow not once but four different times, in four distinctly different places.


SUNDANCE, UTAH -JAN 21-25
It started out with me fulfilling one of my bucket list items of going to the Sundance film festival in Sundance Utah on Jan 21-25.  I had always wanted to see how the whole procedure was done. Of the ones that I saw ( and there were a lot that I didn't get to see) the two films that impressed me the most was 'The Profit' and 'Winter Bones'.  It was fun being able to cast a vote in favor of them. 

While I was there we did get quite a bit of snow and of course I had to take pictures to show the people back home. Here are a few of my favorite ones:
 

 

Here are some links to Sundance. Mount_Timpanogos , Sundance_Resort, and Sundance_Film_Festival



SHREVEPORT, LOUISIANA
NEXT IT ACTUALLY SNOWED IN LOUISIANA ON FEB. 12, 2010
my backyard

WHISTLER - CANADA
I got to go to Whistler, British Columbia - Canada on July 18-22, 2010, for a business trip with my husband's business.  Since the Olympic had been there earlier in the year there were plenty of hotel rooms available in the summer which made it a good business designation place since they were set up for large groups.  I was amazed at all the stuff there was still to do in the summer, like white water rafting, biking, horse riding, golfing, zip lines, and hiking.  I had always thought of it as a winter spot to go to and didn't realize they would have so much to offer in the off season.  Its still a great place to go to in the summer.  We were not expecting to see snow, but there was still snow there left over from the winter.  People were still snowboarding and skiing. So here's some of my snow pictures of Blackcomb Mountain:

Here are some links to Whistler
  Whistler_Blackcomb,Whistler_Mountain -geology

MADISON OHIO - DECEMBER 22,
Every year I try to make it up north to the Cleveland, Ohio area at least once to visit my family that still lives up there.  This year was no exception.  Normally I go in November but this year I couldn't go until Christmas time.  While I was there, it snowed the whole time.  My youngest son thought this was great and loved playing in it.  Since there was such a good amount, I took him and my nephew sledding at River View Park, Lake county on the Grand River.  It was my son's first time to go sledding on a hill of substance and he had a blast.
Here are the pictures of that:

Here's Links to Lake_County,_Ohio, Grand River, Oh

 

 

Great_Lakes, 
Lake_Erie-Geology

Grand River, Riverview park, Lake county Ohio

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MY BACKYARD IN THE WINTER

MY BACKYARD IN THE Winter
                                                                                                                                                          I've been wanting to have some other pictures of the seasons of my back yard.  Here's what my yard looks like in the Winter.  If you want to see more pictures of my back yard go to my AW-29, and AW -28 posts..

Hot air balloon ride 10-31-10

On Halloween weather conditions and such were finally favorable to go hot air ballooning.  I live in the south and the weather gets hot -- 100+ degree for days on end.  When its hot like that-guess what the balloon can't take off  because the air is too light (hot air rises).  So we had to wait until temperatures came back to more favorable values. 

We had a date set for the week before and got up before sunrise to do the trip.  Everything looked a go until they sent up the test helium balloon.  The winds were too strong.  We could not land safely at those speeds so the trip had to be canceled. Finally on Halloween at 7:00 a.m. it was a go.  .  . and Oh what a trip it was.

In this picture, I am standing with balloon owner/operator/pilot.  We are on the inside of the balloon just to give you an idea of how big the inside is.

Here they are heating the balloon up - the balloon glow

When we took off we were able to see the sunrise.  It was truly an amazing sunrise to see.  Words cannot describe how beautiful it was.

Some of the first things we saw and recognize were Oil/Gas rigs in the distance.  The target zone is the Haynesville shale.  The Haynesville shale is a tight gas play.  Usually the pad where the rigs are located are on about 5 acres.  Believe it or not there are all sorts of wells out there that you don't see.  You just happen to see these because they are in the process of drilling them. The spacing for the wells is normally about  640 acres (1 mile).  From each one of these rigs they will drill a number of horizontal offshoots and then acid fracture the rocks.  The Haynesville gas is very desirable since it is such a clean gas. 

 This is I-49 intersecting Bert Kouns highway.  Facing north toward downtown Shreveport, LA.

This is the Red River to the East.  We were flying about 30 knots at an altitude of 1200 ft.

An Oxbow lake from the Red River.

In the center of this picture is where my house is located,  I know where it is because of the buildings I see.  But the trees on our street and in my yard keep it pretty well hidden.

This was one of my favorite shots, seeing the balloon being reflect in the water as we flew over it.

Another shot of the Red River.  It was so amazing to see the mist rise from it.  There was something so mystical about it. 

Seeing the balloon's shadow as we flew over an area that is called Dixie Garden

The pilot was in the process of training another balloonist so he could go solo.  One of the things they have to be able to do is touch down on water safely and then get up again.  It was pretty awesome to land on water like that.  This is a body of water called Champion Lake.

Here's the reflection of the balloon getting off of the water

This is the swamp waters known as Meyers lake.

Looking north a view of downtown Shreveport, to the right is Bossier City. The two cities/parishes are separated by the Red River.

Another beautiful view of Meyers lake.  The white building is the elks club.

Meyer's swamp area is beautiful this time of year with all the fall foliage.

I just really liked this picture.  Its a tree on Champion Links golf course.

Going over more swamp area.

and more swamps

More beautiful fall foliage.

I couldn't believe it when we actually flew over the first place I lived at when I moved to Shreveport back in 1981. The odds of that were incredible, because we were just going with the wind and they were able to steer it a little bit but it was like steering a boat where you have to start maneuvering well in advance trying to get it to go where you want it too.

My place was the top apartment.  I liked it because I thought it was so secluded looking - Well I guess it wasn't as private as I thought.

Here's the Social Security building.  I have a couple of friends that work there and I thought that they might get a kick out seeing the building that way. 

Here we are coming in for the landing near the Shreveport-Barksdale bridge.

Here's my son getting out of the balloon.  I couldn't believe the rid was finally over.  

All I can say is if you ever get a chance to go hot air ballooning go for it.  It will be one of the most incredible things you my do in your life. 
What a ride, what a day.  I couldn't have planned things to be any more perfect than the day I got.  We had to wait a month for the conditions to be right, but it was well worth the wait.

1-11-11
I finally got a map of the route we took.  The trouble was with all my city maps the place where we took off from was not on it and a good part of the trip could not be seen.  When I would go to the state maps it would look so small.  So now I found a condensed version of the geologic maps where I was able to splice two of the maps together.

Louisiana Atlas & Gazetteer 1st ed. DeLorme, 1998 pg 14 & 20

Hi

Hi - I'm new to Blogging and this is my 1st attempt at it. WELCOME to my  humble ABODE.  Please bear with me until I get this stuff figured out. The reason I created this blog is because I was informed (very nicely I might add)  that it would be appropriate for me to have a blog in order to participate in the Accretionary Wedge, since it is a carnival of geology blogs. So here it is.

About me:  I LOVE to READ, I STRUGGLE with WRITING.  I'll be the first to admit I'm not the best at writing. I love reading the blogs in the geology blog world, and for the most part I'm very content just reading them.  I think you all do a great job.  But occasionally I do want to make a comment or add a bit of wisdom to some other blog. To follow the rules I am attempting to create this blog. Who knows if I get the hang of blogging I might even add some other bits of wisdom here and there on other things non geology related but I still care about. 

Right now I'm a stay at home mom, and have been out of the geology world for a long long time. I have a BS (78) and MS in geology (81) from Ohio U. Geology has always been a passion of mine.  And quite frankly I miss it.  That's why I was so thrilled to find the geology blogs sphere.  

I live in Louisiana, and by the shear fact that I live here, admit to being slightly crazy at times. The other thing that convinced me I maybe crazy was the fact that I went into geology. The one thing I observed at Cleveland State University (where I did some undergrad studying) and Ohio U was that in both places the Geology departments were in the same building as the psych departments, and not the chemistry, physics or biology buildings. The psych majors were always coming and getting us geology majors to do research on. I once asked 'why' and the researcher said it was because we were crazy and would do most things asked of us. Here I was thinking it was because we were conveniently located there next to them and they didn't have to go far to get us. Oh well, I may be slightly crazy but I consider myself harmless because I love people and would never intentionally hurt anyone and I love living in this world. The one thing about me is I do like to have fun. That's why I live in LA - it has the reputation of being one of the happiest places to live in the United States.  From what I can tell it is a well justified reputation to have.  
That's enough for now, since this is just my first attempt.

 (11-4-10) I'm now trying to see if I can add video to my blog.  I picked this one so you can see some of the crazy things I do.  Most of it is pretty fun stuff.  I'm only in one of the slides because I took a lot of these pictures.  It's kinda hard to be in the picture and take an action shot at the same time. Its on YouTube @ St. Lukes Youth UMC  Summer 09. Well lets see if it works.



St. Lukes 

Eureka!! I finally figured it out. 
Here's the other one too
  Owl Retreat