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

Vancouver- May 2007

I didn't start this blog in 2007, but I am using it to store my pictures.  I want the pictures to be in a somewhat chronological order and so I have post date this to that time.  Most people come to my site via web searches anyway and so I thought it really wouldn't matter much where I put this.

Vancouver Canada, May 2007

 These were the pictures I took back in May 9-13, 2007.  My husband had a business meeting and we decided to go ahead and make a vacation of it too by taking a couple of extra days to do some sightseeing things.

The easiest way to see a place is to see if they have city tour buses and of course Vancouver does.  We took that and one of the first places they took us was to this city park- I think it may have been Stanley Park, but its been so long I'm not sure. 

 They drove around some and then proceeded up into the mountain's where we could get these incredible views.  We were fortunate that day because it was so clear.

 Finally we got to the point were we could not see the city anymore but just the majestic mountain views.  We stopped at a dam, and it was so long ago I can't remember names.   Its a good reason to go back and get better notes.

 We did go to this place too where there is a deep gorge and we got to walk across it on this bridge.
The Capilano Suspension Bridge.  (the only reason I remember this is because we got a t-shirt for my son.- So that wasn't a waste of money.)

Capilano Suspension Bridge, British Columbia, Canada - May 2007

Here's the Wikipedia link to it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capilano_Suspension_Bridge

The Capilano river as seen from the suspension bridge May 2007

 Then we were up in the mountains and saw all this snow.  Being from the southern United States we don't get to see snow like this very often and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Just look at how much snow there was. 

 We did see these bears but they were still pretty listless.  I was surprised they were moving around, I thought they would still be hibernating with all that snow.

 We took our lunch break at the ski resort and got to have views like this while we sat and ate.

 This is the same area but more to the left.

 and this was from a different balcony but still spectacular.

 The next day we decide we wanted to see Victoria.  We took a fairy over there and got these pictures.

Victoria- May 2007

 

Victoria

 The main thing we wanted to see was the Butchart Gardens.   Everyone told us they were just spectacular and they weren't wrong. (Wikipedia link - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butchart_Gardens  )

Butchart Gardens, Victoria  BC Canada- May 2007

Isn't this just lovely its been one of my favorite pictures for a long time.

Butchart Gardens, Victoria  BC Canada- May 2007

Butchart Gardens, Victoria  BC Canada- May 2007

Butchart Gardens, Victoria  BC Canada- May 2007

Butchart Gardens, Victoria  BC Canada- May 2007

Butchart Gardens, Victoria  BC Canada- May 2007

 Then the last thing of fun we did a whale watching tour.  We had to come back to Victoria to do that again.   Do to time constrains we ended up flying over to Victoria and then took a fairy back.

 They had us get into these wet suits that made you sweat even though it was cold out there.

 I just thought this was pretty.- I also was curious if this was volcanic rock.

 We were enjoying the scenery waiting for the whales when we saw this head off in the distance.

 It kept on flowing us or I should say we started to follow it.

 It was head to all of these birds.  They said that is where the fish were.

 I thought it so cute when he poked his head up through the birds and chased them away.

seal with sea gulls.

 Finally we was a whale

 It was so exciting to see it.  And it actually drove under our boat. 

 Then it met up with another one.

 We watched them frolic in the water for quite awhile.  It was sure fun and exciting to observe.

 Then it was back to the harbor and back to home. Oh What a trip that was and I will always have such fond memories of it.

Some day I plan to come back here and add some geology information.  I finally got a book or two on the area about it but haven't had the time to read it.