Wednesday, April 25, 2018

DON'T JUDGE A BOOK ....


A meteor struck Earth 50,000 years ago and left behind this crater

    Ever hear of Meteor Crater in northern Arizona? 
     Me neither. 
     The name alone sounds like a cheapy roadside attraction, right up there with the world’s largest catsup bottle,  Salvation Mountain  and the biggest ball of paint
     But when my brother-in-law suggested we visit, well, it was on our way, so we did and I am floored.
     This roadside attraction is perhaps one of the best in the country. 
     It’s a big hole in the ground, yes. But the Barringer family who owns it has invested millions into explaining what it it, how it got here and why we should care.
     And because of their dedication, the info center attached to it, called The Discovery Center, attracts the very generation it needs to survive: the tech-savvy generation.
    There are 24 exhibits inside the sprawling center, many of which employ various forms of whiz-bang technology to keep you interested, to bring you inside the project, to help you understand.
     And then the walk to the crater is an absolute WOW. A paved path goes up and down to several viewing platforms. With signage to ignite your curiosity. And telescopes, too. If the wind dies down, you’ll get a guided tour by a geologist.
    So, if you are ever in the neighborhood GO. It’s about 37 miles east of Flagstaff. If you can, go out of your way.
    This is a must-see slice of history bundled with science even the kids will enjoy.

Touch-screen technology encourages visitors to linger 

24 exhibits entice you to explore

Tuesday, April 24, 2018

PETRIFIED WOOD AND DINOSAURS


These guys lived 225 million years ago in what is now Petrified Forest

I am so easily wowed.

I’m walking where dinosaurs walked. Not the big guys. The human-sized guys. And I’m touching felled trees  they might have touched. Wow.
I'm on the Crystal Forest trail

We’re in Arizona, driving through Petrified Forest National Park on our way to see the Painted Desert.

 It’s a 30-mile ride through quite an unusual countryside: a semi-desert shrubby plains area that butts up against a subdued relative of the badlands. No trees. Yet it’s littered with large hewn logs.

There are so many, I imagine this is where Paul Bunyan whacked up thousands of trees on his journey to Storyland.

But 225 million years ago, this area was a lush river basin near the equator, home to dinosaurs, not Paul, and the 200-foot tall coniferous trees today’s logs came from.  They look like Paul was here because of gravity. And science. See, petrified wood is heavy. And for millions of years, it is hidden inside the Earth covered by earth. When the wind and the rain expose the logs, gravity versus weight causes them to break apart, like a piece chalk you drop to the ground. In 90-degree angles.
 

Colorful quartz
The mile-long trail I’m hiking winds through the Crystal Forest  which is littered with the logs. The colorful layers of quartz in the petrified wood twinkle in the morning sun.  (Go here for the science.)  

It’s a simple hike I’m taking back through time. And I am totally wowed.



Panorama of The Painted Desert

Friday, April 13, 2018

NEVER DOUBT THE POWER OF GOD OR WOMEN

Damaris owns the Western Motel and RV Park

I’ve learned to never underestimate senior women. To never doubt their strength. Especially ones I meet in New Mexico, the birthplace of the atomic bomb.

We’re staying in a tiny RV park behind the Western Motel in Magdalena, NM. It’s owned by a spritely woman named Damaris. (The name is in the Bible only once, she said. Acts 17. Last chapter.) 

She’s 62 and non-stop, this woman. She runs the motel and RV lot by herself.  I see her toting plumbing supplies, supervising repair of a water leak, directing two men doing odd jobs on her lot. 

I later learn these men are simple men who can’t hold jobs. So Damaris gives them worth. Lets them putter. She tends to them, out of faith. Like she does the community’s children with vacation Bible school every summer.

She’s a seriously faith-filled woman. Who invites me to church. So I go.

Inside the back door of the Magdalena Community Church I see five other older women and two older men engaged in conversation. It’s social hour. So I grab a bottle of water (we're in the desert) and sit down next to a woman named Marcia, who's in her 70s and enjoys creating non-denominational rosaries.  She shows me one and explains each bead in detail. 

She, too, is a faith-filled woman.

We soon usher ourselves into the sanctuary and I notice it is just us. The social-hour gang. No others have come to worship. Where’s the pastor? 

Soon, Marcia lights the altar candle then sits at the piano and leads us in hymns. She then toddles to the lectern and leads us in prayer.

Marcia wears many hats at church.
Then, Marcia, the rosary-making, prayerful pianist, presents the sermon, engaging us in a powerful message on Doubting Thomas. 

I later learn Marcia is also a retired nuclear physicist. Damaris is a political scientist. Another 60-someting woman I met is a physical therapist.

As I said, I’ll never underestimate the power of an older woman. Or the lengths to which faith takes us.



These people keep the church vibrant in Magdalena, NM. The lap quilts come in handy on cold windy days.


Thursday, April 12, 2018

REIGNITING A PASSION FOR SMOKEY


Few people can't identify this icon of forest management.

     Someone needs to rescue Smokey the Bear.  Again.
     Someone with political clout. With money. And a vision for fun, education and young people. Not just the kiddies. Pre-teens. Teens. Even 20somethings. 
     I’m visiting Capitan, NM, a middle-of-New Mexico place where Smokey was born in 1950, rescued and eventually buried. But there’s so much more to this 75-year-old story.  Unfortunately, it unfolds yawningly inside in a museum designed for baby boomers.  
     The small Smokey Bear Historical Park houses a ton of historic fire-prevention posters (some I recognize), pictures of Hollywood icons from back in the day (I LOVE seeing Timmy and Lassie!) and a video of the now aged game warden talking about how he tended to the baby bear’s badly burned feet and bottom, then got him rebranded as the living embodiment of Smokey. 
     One room, for kids I guess, has baskets of crayons and coloring pages.
     There’s not much here to do.
     The extraordinary legend of Smokey is fading. Even the town has given up. It cancelled its annual  Smokey Bear Appreciation event this year. Couldn’t get enough volunteers.
     But Smokey is ageless and tireless. He’s still featured in fire prevention pubic service announcements. His likeness is still at national parks and wild places warning  about the day’s forest-fire threat.
     Smokey needs his own phoenix. 

What can be done? Some thoughts:
  1.     Introduce a virtual reality room. (Beg Disney to pitch in. The two have history.)
  2.     Hire contemporary cinematographers to retool videos. (Maybe start a Go Fund Me page.)
  3.     Turn the two-acre outdoor park into a learnland/playland, with a geocache at Smokey’s gravesite and a  phone-based scavenger hunt.
  4.     And please.  Get rid of the crayons. Or update it to include adult coloring kiosks.

     I’ll share these thoughts with the Smokey Bear Hometown Association members.  They’re the ones who cancelled the annual appreciation event. They say they're focusing instead on next year’s 75th anniversary birthday bash for the much-loved environmental icon. 
     Would’t it be nice if the party partnered with a makeover reveal?


An early Smokey poster. He's dreaming of his own rescue.
 
Inside, the museum looks lovely. Lots to read.





Sunday, April 8, 2018

SCIENCE FICTION LOVERS TAKE NOTE

The guy with the cowboy hat is Allen, taking pictures
The VLA. The Very Large Array. A noted astronomical observatory. A science fiction lover’s dream. 

It’s a collection of 27 giant dish antennas, each with a dish face  82 feet in diameter. They are trained in unison skyward from the Plains of San Augustin, an ancient seabed 7,000 feet above sea level in New Mexico near nowhere.

They look into the universe and map it, one moon-sized piece at a time.

And we’re here. For an open house tour. Looking at them.
I read this: "Since the first observation in 1975, the Very Large Array has scanned the skies to learn cosmic secrets invisible to even the most powerful telescope. The VLA shows us the chaos caused by black holes, maps ice on the scorched planet Mercury, watches suns from inside their dusty gas cocoons, and even found a hole in the Universe billion light years around."

And it thrilled movie lovers in 1997 when “Contact” used the field of antennas as a backdrop for a message from space. All from the amazing mind of Carl Sagan.

Like I said. Science fiction. One truth at a time. My nerdy techno hubby Al Fasoldt thrills to be here.