Part 2!!!!!!!!!
NIIIIIIIICE!!!!!!!
-Collared Boar
YOSEMITE!!!!!!!! Part 2!!!!!!!!! NIIIIIIIICE!!!!!!! And then we went to Bridal Veil Falls! The next day we went to the Hetch Hetchy side of the park and hiked to the Wapama Falls. The next day we went back to the Valley and hiked the Four mile trail, which is actually 4.8 miles. Talk about false advertising. -Collared Boar
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YOSEMITE!!! NIIIIIIICE!!! Ooo! Look! The rare California Collared Squirrel! After we set up the tents, we rode the shuttle bus around for a while. And then it started raining. I tried to get John Muir to pose with me, but he just kept staring off into the distance... While we were checking out Yosemite Falls, a little golden beetle thing landed on my nose. He said his name was Clint and he was a bit waterlogged, so he asked if he could stay on my nose for a bit while he dried off. And here's the other part of it... Next we decided to hike the Mist trail to the top of Vernal Falls. Apparently it’s a “must-do-at-some-point-in-your-lifetime” hike. Check. So that’s it for this post, but I think I’m going to have to break Yosemite into four posts, three at the least, so stay tuned! -Collared Boar Da, da da daaaaaa!!!!!!! Science time! Did you know that Giant Sequoia’s are the biggest trees in the world? Well, now you do! Let’s check ‘em out! So you're telling me, this little pine cone..... ...turns into that?! And here's a dead tree that somehow got up here and somehow didn't fall off of the rock when it died....witchcraft! Next we went to King's Canyon! But we couldn't find the King....maybe he went to find a bigger canyon. Come to think of it, I did see a guy with a crown while we were in the Grand Canyon a few weeks ago... Ooo look! Strange-red-flower-fungi-thing! Niiiiiiiice! -Collared Boar Wow! The Valley of Fire State Park in Nevada (not to be confused with the Valley of Fire in New Mexico) sure was fun! Lots of big rocks, little rocks, rocks that climb on kids! Whaaaaa? The rocks are great for climbing on! Here’s some pictures! I Wonder why they call it Valley of "Fire," cause I don't see any fire around here. Nice cave though, I should sleep up here tonight... Up we go! Whaaaa? We're going further up?! Niiiice view! We're not going across that are we? It looks like quite the drop-off, whoops! WHAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!! Ouch... After we ate some lunch (Prickly Pear sandwiches) we went to Arch Rock and followed the road to the White Domes! The sign said no climbing. Ahh-puh-taw! The next day, we did some more rock scrambling! Uh oh, dead end. I can see my house from here! Indian rock graffiti. Ho ho! And I just remembered a few things I didn’t tell you about myself in my previous post. I also often say: Ehhh (When I am confused) and Eeeee! (Another thing I say when angry or frustrated). And I often speak in Third Person. So sometimes I say, “Collared Boar no like it when people touch Collared Boar’s nose.” Make sense? Niiiiiiice! -Collared Boar Hallo! My name is Collared Boar and this is my new blog! Yay! To get started I’ll tell you a bit about myself. First, my name is pronounced Bo-AR. Second, I LOVE prickly pears. Third, I will often say “Niiiiiiiiice” (You just say “nice” but you drag out the “I”), “Ho ho,” and “Ahh-puh-taw!” “Ho ho” is what I say when I laugh. “Ahh-puh-taw” is what I say when I am angry or frustrated. I should explain to you what I am. I am known as Collared Boar, but I am a Collared Peccary, which is a Javelina, which is pronounced hah-vuh-lee-nuh, which is not a pig. If you would like to see more Javelinas, watch the video below! (I edited that myself)
What do you think? Javelinas nice? I will answer that for you. Yes they are. Stay tuned for more of me and where I go as I travel with my host family, the Keiters. Niiiiiiiice! P.S. I'm still working on my blog title, any suggestions? -Collared Boar We love javelinas! So does our little Ugandan warthog fellow. Before we left home, a good neighbor gave us a great tip: see the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum outside Tucson. Then once we hit the road every park ranger and fellow camper who heard we were bound for Arizona told us we needed to visit this place. They were right. Don't be put off by the word museum. It's almost all outdoors. You walk through various exhibit areas and see the native flora and fauna (I dig any chance to use those terms). You would think it's all cacti, lizards and snakes but the desert is full of critters you will have a tough time finding in the wild. They're experts at the camouflage and they stay hidden most of the time unless they are after food. Here at the museum you not only get to see many of them, but they are housed in areas that look like they wandered in and the zoologists simply put up a basic fence lickety-split (I love that word too). In other words, it's a very natural environment. With the exception of the bear and the larger cats, the animals are not housed in zoo-like enclosures. One of the coolest things to do here is see the Raptor Free Flight program. A docent talks about various birds of prey while several handlers set trained falcons, hawks and owls free to fly all over. They swoop over your head and perch on nearby saguaros. The Harris Hawks hunt in a group. It's tough to adequately describe, but having seen a few peregrine falcons in the wild I can honestly say this is the next best thing or maybe even better. El Diablo, a Gila monster. Like reptiles? The 95% of you who answered "No" should take a detour to one of the two aviaries. But if you dig lizards and snakes there is a great program with two herp specialists who show off a nice (did I just say that?) rattlesnake and a Gila monster. Don't tangle with these varmints (the reptiles, I mean -- their human handlers are quite pleasant). An adult Gila monster has a nasty bite and can hold onto it's victim for 20 minutes, even under water. The good news is, they don't strike like snakes and they move slowly. You could outrun one, even if like me, you only run when being chased by the Careers. So, those aviaries I mentioned...there is one full of just hummingbirds and another with other desert birds. Hummers are pretty fast and tough to photograph, but I got this shot of some kind of yellow dude that reminds me of the yellow Angry Bird. Here are a few other photos we captured. If it's a good photo of a bird or cat, all the credit goes to Kevin. He rocks the 70-200mm lens. A few are shots taken by Kristin. And remember, do not feed the coyotes chocolate chip cookies that you have already taken a bite out of. They find that annoying.
Just outside of Tucson, Arizona lies the very first national park created for the sole purpose of protecting a species of plant. Saguaro National Park is home to the iconic desert image: towering cactuses with arms reaching skyward. When we were kids and had to draw a cactus, chances are this is the one we drew. It's what everyone thinks of when we think of the desert southwest, but in truth they are limited to a very small chunk of the Sonoran desert. Here are some of the fun saguaro facts we learned:
The Sonoran Desert is home to a huge variety of prickly and spiny plants. In life, those spines protect them from hungry animals (somewhat...javelinas have no trouble chewing and digesting prickly pear cactus pads, spines and all). In death, a cactus that has fallen to the desert floor will become a safe haven for scorpions, spiders, kangaroo rats, lizards or any anything else that finds it hospitable as the spines and flesh degrade and the woody core remains. Sometimes the arms of the saguaro do not grow straight upward. No one knows for sure what causes them to droop or point in other directions, but it makes for some interesting and sometimes human-like formations. The desert is my favorite place on earth. A harsh landscape that nonetheless brings forth a host of color and life. If you get the chance to see it, don't pass it up.
We were planning to be in Guadalupe National Park today, but when we got there yesterday and saw the wind forecast for today to be about 80 mph we decided it looked like a good day to head underground. Seven hundred fifty feet underground, to be exact. That's where the beauty of Carlsbad Caverns lies. Speleology is the study of caves, and a word we all have trouble pronouncing. On the recommendation of a fellow full-time RV family we met in Big Bend, we decided to take the natural entrance, which means we hiked down to the main room of the cavern. We stopped for plenty of pictures and a little GoPro video so it took us about 90 minutes to reach the bottom (the limit of where visitors may go anyway). We took note of many speleothems, or cave formations. Stalactites hang from the ceiling (think "hang tight") and stalagmites come up from below (think "might reach the ceiling someday"). We saw "draperies" which are stalactites that resemble curtains. "Soda straws" are very thin, hollow stalactites and "popcorn" forms on the walls as a result of cave sweat. The sides of the walls are pocked with vugs, which look like miniature caves. The vugs and the dead-end rooms gave scientists a clue to how Carlsbad Cavern formed. Most caves are formed by naturally carbonated water running underground and eroding the rock slowly. But Carlsbad was formed when sulfuric acid leaching upward from oil deposits below ate away at the limestone. This resulted in some very large rooms, much larger than most caves in the US. We took the guided tour into the room called the King's Chamber, which is another eighty feet down. The ranger took us to a room and turned out all the lights. It was completely dark. When there is no light at all your eyes do not adjust because there is nothing to adjust to. You simply cannot see a thing. It is also completely quiet. In that area of the cave there was no water dripping from the ceiling and all the visitors on the tour managed to stay silent. It was an eerie experience! Carlsbad Cavern is home to thousands of Mexican Free-tailed Bats from March to October. At dusk they leave the cave all at once to feed on mosquitos. Visitors enjoy watching them emerge, but we will have to make a return trip another time to enjoy this experience. Favorite part of the cave tour?
"Walking through the parts of the passageway where the rocks were so close you had to duck your head." - Joel "I like seeing what the cave actually looked like when the ranger turned off the lights -- it was pitch black." - Kristin "I liked looking at the tiny little soda straws." - Emily What did you learn about preserving cave environments? "Stay on the path." and "Without even trying we harm the cave by dropping clothing lint and hair." - Joel "It's important to not touch the cave structures or I might damage them." - Kristin "Don't bring in food or drinks because it attracts animals that aren't supposed to live there." - Emily During our recent visit to Ft. Davis, Texas we went to the McDonald Observatory. Situated atop a mountain about thirty minutes outside of town, the observatory is home to four very large telescopes for use by astronomers and several more smaller scopes for use by visitors and students. We made our first visit on Tuesday night to attend a "Star Party." At a Star Party, you learn about constellations and their stories and also about astronomical navigation while in an outdoor amphitheater after dark. At the beginning of the program we were treated to a fly-over by the International Space Station. After the program, we looked through five different telescopes aimed at a variety of heavenly bodies: the Orion Nebula, Jupiter, a twin star cluster, Andromeda Galaxy, and another cluster of cool stars. The observatory was so great that we decided to go back for another visit, this time for a "Solar Tour." McDonald is also home to several solar telescopes, which as you may have guessed, are used for studying the Sun. Special filters have to be used to view the Sun and this time we were all seated indoors viewing the scene as it was relayed via computer to a movie screen. We were able to see the telescope spinning around to prepare for viewing. The Sun is more interesting to observe than you might think. Our educator demonstrated how large the Sun is compared to the Earth, as wide at the center as 109 Earths! He then showed us sun spots and solar prominences and explained how they form. Because the sun is not solid, but gaseous, it's equatorial area does not rotate at the same speed as the poles. This causes the magnetic field to warp and twist and collapse in places. Sun spots form and near these are prominences. A prominence is an arc of gas that extends out into space for up to 20,000 miles then after a few hours or days, collapses on itself. The picture shows our educator holding up a golf ball next to our view of the prominence to show the size of the Earth in comparison. One of the most important things we learned was how badly light pollution is getting to be for most of the country. Approximately two-thirds of the US population cannot see the Milky Way at night. Light pollution doesn't just spoil our stargazing abilities, it wastes money, harms the environment and is detrimental to our health. Since too many lights are poorly aimed they send light upward instead of downward where it's needed. This means almost 30 million barrels of oil and eight million tons of coal are wasted each year. This releases more than 14 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere which adds other pollution issues. What's more, the extra lighting at night is thought to interfere with our natural sleep patterns which is not good for our general health. (source: National Park Service visitor guide) Favorite part of the Observatory?
"Hearing about the lore of the different constellations." -Joel "Learning about the Sun through pictures and video." -Kristin "Looking through the telescope at Jupiter." -Emily Most interesting thing(s) you learned? "Hearing that the constellations aren't supposed to be an exact picture of what they are but rather the story behind it. " - Joel "How big the sun is compared to Earth." - Kristin "All the stories after the constellations." - Emily Favorite thing you saw through the telescopes? "The star cluster whose name we can't remember." - Joel "The Orion Nebula." - Kristin "Jupiter." - Emily If you would like to learn more about the McDonald Observatory, the Dark Skies Initiative, or astronomy in general, visit some of the websites below. McDonald Observatory & Department of Astronomy mcdonaldobservatory.org Stardate Online - McDonald Observatory Education Site stardate.org Main NASA site nasa.gov Satellite Visibility heavens-above.com Solar Activity and its effect on Earth spaceweather.com International Dark Sky Association darksky.org Located in west Texas, Ft. Davis is one of the most well-preserved cavalry forts in the country. You can tour the buildings, many of which are still standing with only minor modern enhancements to render them safe to enter. As a part of the National Park system, you can even earn a Jr. Park Ranger Badge here. Ft. Davis was an important outpost along the San Antonio-El Paso Road. Many Americans were moving westward and needed protection from raids by hostile Native American tribes. A large number of the troops stationed here were African Americans, also known as Buffalo Soldiers. As we toured the hospital we learned that most early American soldiers died not in combat but of disease. While army doctors were among the most well-trained physicians available, they still knew very little of how to cure disease. What's more, at the time virtually nothing was known of germs and blood borne pathogens so doctors and nurses did not sterilize instruments between patients (gack). Dysentery and tuberculosis were common ailments that killed many. Diptheria, a disease we regularly vaccinate against today, wiped out entire families at the fort. So many children succumbed to the disease before age five that it was known as the "killer of little angels." This barracks is furnished much as it would have been when Ft. Davis was active. Many of the beds and quilts are the same that soldiers would have been issued. An enlisted man had no privacy save for his own little space where he slept and kept his trunk of personal items. If you ever get to west Texas, we recommend making the trip to visit Ft. Davis. You can also learn more and participate in the Web Ranger program by visiting www.nps.gov/webrangers
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