Hospitality

Hospitality

This was a great weekend for hospitality of various forms. Friday morning, Gary Stradling and I headed up to Ghost Ranch. I had not been to the paleontology museum here in over eight years, and I don’t believe Gary has ever been to it. And my previous visit was for...Read more
Wanderlusting the Mitchell Trail

Wanderlusting the Mitchell Trail

It’s been eight years since I hiked the Mitchell Trail, and called it a wanderlust for the first time. I had a few errands at the office last Saturday (the bugs are ever with us) and, once I was as finished as I was going to get, I headed over...Read more
Wanderlusting Colorado, day 5

Wanderlusting Colorado, day 5

We awake to a frigid morning. However, we had slept well, in spite of the cold, and in spite of a camper not far away leaving his radio on all night. We make breakfast, dry my tent, and break camp. First stop: Tomichi Point. Alas, the sun is very low...Read more

Wanderlusting Colorado, day 4

It’s a chill morning, but not quite freezing. We eat breakfast, then break camp. I try the spray laquer on my Florissant fossils; alas, the one with the peeling leaf is destroyed in my attempts. The others did okay, as you saw in yesterday’s images. On the road to Canon...Read more
Wanderlusting Colorado, day 3

Wanderlusting Colorado, day 3

Dawn at Sand Gulch Campground. The cliff in the background is Ordovician in age, in the ballpark of 460 million years old. My map is not more detailed than that, but a good guess is that this is the Harding Sandstone. It’s apparently a very popular rock climbing area; the...Read more
Wanderlusting Colorado, day 2

Wanderlusting Colorado, day 2

We awake, eat breakfast, and break camp. Gary has a long conversation with a fellow named Gordon who has a rather nice trailer rig across the camping area, complete with solar panel. Gordon is nominally from Texas, is long retired from a successful career as a machinist, and has been...Read more
Wanderlusting Colorado, Day 1

Wanderlusting Colorado, Day 1

Because the New Mexico Geological Society Fall Field Conference was postponed this year (due to COVID), I decided to invite my friend, Gary Stradling, to join me for a week in Colorado to look at various geological sites. Why Colorado? Largely because I have been to Florrisant Fossil Beds National...Read more
Wanderlusting the Juana Lopez Member

Wanderlusting the Juana Lopez Member

Ninety million years ago, during the Cretaceous Period, the Farallon Plate was subducting under the western coast of North America. This threw up the great volcanic edifices of the Sierra Nevada, whose weight flexed the North American Plate downwards. This created a great waterway, the Western Interior Seaway, that stretched...Read more