Salt Study at the Spiral Jetty

Another trip to the Spiral Jetty. This time with a mission, this time to try to rescue some salt encrusted juvenile pelicans. The things you do when your friends are bird rehabilitators! The birds proves too distant and flighty to be rescued, hopefully they survived on their own.

After giving up on the birds we were able to wander and enjoy the mother nature's salty creations. Not a spectacular day for photography, but a wonderful day for salt crystals.

And why is the water pink you ask? As the lake lake level decreases due (it's very low right now!) the salt concentration increases, especially on the north end that is cordoned off from the rest of the lake by the Union Pacific Railroad dike. The halophilic bacteria in the lake make the pretty pink color. Click here for some cool drone footage of the lake

Eastern Sunsets!

The sun rises to the east, and the sun sets to west. We all know this,right? But tonight as I was leaving Bear Lake, where I spent my Labor Day weekend with a friend, I saw the most glorious eastern sunset. Beautiful pink rainbow sky, it truly looked like the sun had set on the east side of the lake. I sent the picture to my friend and joked about the sun setting to the east. Being a scientist he had to tell me that that the sun didn't set in the east (duh! LOL) and that I was really seeing a reflection. Besides being a scientist my friend is also Japanese, and he told my that the Japanese name for this phenomena is 'yuuyake'. Being a scientist type as well I had to do a little research, as I knew no simple English word that described this... what I found out was that the dark blue band just about the horizon, is the "Earth Shadow" , and the pinkish rainbow of reflected light is the "Belt of Venus". I found a nice explanation of the phenomenon here. Fun new knowledge for me tonight!

Moon Baby...

Last week I was able to experience a bucket list item... A lunar eclipse; the 'blood moon' lunar eclipse on April 15th. I watched from the warmth of my hot tub, while drinking a glass of wine... What an incredible experience! Of course being the photo ho I am I eventually felt the need to leave the comfort on my hot tub and round up my camera, tripod ans telephoto lens to try to get some sort of picture.

I have been wanting to see a lunar eclipse since I missed a big one in 1989. My son Matt, AKA my 'moon baby' was born, 5 weeks early, that night. I always blamed the moon for his early arrival, that is until my daughter was born 5.5 weeks early sans lunar event and I realized I must just have a microwave womb. But I love the moon and am jazzed about having had eclipse baby. Am super jazzed to have finally seen and taken a few pictures of an eclipse last night....

I wish my photo were a little better, a little crisper. Even with a tripod it was hard to get a good shot with a 5-10 second exposure and a long lens. I should have read up a little on how to get a good picture... But all in all, not too bad for a last minute idea at nearly 1:30 in the morning, dripping wet in my hot tub robe.. yes, I'm crazy like that. And for anyone who is curious.. this was my moon baby's eclipse... http://www.nytimes.com/1989/08/15/science/lunar-eclipse-for-four-continents.html

What I did on my summer vacation..

Clearly it wasn't blogging, LOL. Of course the reality is that as an old working person I don't really get a summer vacation... just more weeks of work and hot weather! But even without a really vacation I managed to get some local fun in, and mostly for the benefit of my daughter who reads this but doesn't see the pictures I post on facebook, I figure I'll share... even it it is a bit after the fact.

So one cool thing I did this summer... My friends and I hiked up to the Little Cloud Bowl at Snowbird to watch them fly in the towers for the new Little Cloud ski lift. It was pretty cool to watch the helicopters at work, those pilots appear to have mad skills. Hovering above the platform, tethered to the tower as it gets screwed down, pirouetting on the end of the cable. Pilot hanging his head out the window, watching what's happening on the ground, controlling the helicopter. Mad skills I'm sure! Besides watching the helicopters, the hike from the base to the top of the tram was incredible too. The wildflowers in Little Cloud Bowl were some of the most beautiful I've seen in my lifetime. Amazing!

Not too bugged!

One thing Antelope Island has is bugs. The brine flies along the lake shore can be found in big swarms, and at the right time of year the mosquitoes, biting flies and no-see-ums can be really obnoxious. Sunday was lovely day cool and breezy and we encountered none of the evil bugs. We did see lots of these funky little butterfly-ish things, as well as some big bumble bees enjoying the Indian Paintbrush. Clearly I need to do a little research as I do not know what the former really is. I did find some cool pages with links pictures of bugs and butterflies of Utah. When I have some time I will have to search for my mystery insect.

Edited to add... I love my world. It is so cool that when I want to know something I always have a great source.. the "beady people", my fellow beadmaking friends that I have 'met' through the lampworking forum. I 'know' beady people from all over the world with all sorts of different backgrounds, they truly are a great resource. This time I have to thank Ricky, AKA "bugnerd", lampworker in Arkansas, who is also an entomologist. I sent him a picture and he responded that my mystery bug was indeed a butterfly, a skipper butterfly. Problem is there are more than 50 images to click through to further identify my little flier. Enter comments from my friend Rose, a "beady" friend from Ohio, that I've been lucky enough to meet several times in real life. She sent me to a cool link, Bug Guide where you can actually upload a picture and ask for help identifying a bug! What a perfect resource for a nerd like me. I'm now registered and submitted, we'll see if I get a response. Thanks so much Ricky and Rose!

White Pine Lake

This weekend's addition to the places I'd never been collection... White Pine Lake. About 9 miles round trip and 2400 ft up to the lake. So a long hike and up hill for sure, but for the most part not horribly, hatefully steep. This winter's record snow fall was still evident as we got above treeline and a good section of trail was snow packed. Climbing up the snowfield and then picking our way through a boulder field added to the adventure. Of course what goes up, must come down, and it is the gingerly trek down the snow field on the way back that I find a bit unnerving. I was amused by the spider I found walking across the snow, for the life of me I can not figure out why a spider would be out traversing the snow.

Utah is a desert, so even in the mountain trails tend to be fairly dry, except at sporadic steam crossings. This trail surprised me by crossing numerous, presumably spring fed, boggy areas. So we were treated to moss, ferns elephant head flowers and even some liverworts. You all my think I'm crazy but I was thrilled to see liverworts. I studied botany in college, so of course I had a class where I had to learn all about these primitive, non vascular plants. It felt good to reach back into my botanical knowledge, kind of like going back to my roots (pun intended). Yes I am a nerd, but I thought it was nice to get to do little bonding with some bryophytes!

And while I am on a botanical bend I have to mention something about the Indian Paintbrush plants that I am so enamored with. The pretty colored "flowers" aren't really flowers, they are bracts, specialized leaves, that in this case are colored. Colored in beautiful shade of pinks, oranges, magentas and reds! But on today's hike the paintbrush was really in flower. See the yellow petals nestled among the orange? Those are the actual flowers. Thanks for enrolling in Botany 101!

Oh, and while we are in botany class.... yes, it's called White Pine Lake, but the "pine trees" are actually firs! (Same is true at Red Pine Lake)






It sure is hard to get a picture that really gives a feel for these steep snowy spots.

Indian Paintbrush



Elephanthead - another favorite of mine.... genus Pedicularis, just had to say that because I like how it sounds, almost as much as I like how the flowers look!




Liverworts!!!


Perhaps it's easier to traverse the snow if you have 8 legs!

B is for Bulb!

Not bulb as in the myriad of light bulbs on all the carnival rides, but bulb as in the the 'bulb' setting of my camera, which allows the manual control of the shutter. Meaning, press the button and the shutter stays open as long as the button in pressed. The term 'bulb' harkens back to the days when an air bulb was used to control the shutter speed.

I'm glad that my light bulb came on reminding me that my camera has this setting. Time exposure shots are great way to capture the movement of the carnival rides. These would have been even better had I used a tripod, although I thought they were pretty decent for long hand held exposures. Maybe next year I'll bring a tripod!

More Minn.....

One highlight of our trip was stumbled upon by accident. After driving through downtown (or is it uptown?) Minneapolis, we found our way to a parkway along the Mississipi that my brother had yet to discover. We spied a sign for Lock and Dam No 1, and turned down the drive to investigate. It was the first of 29 locks on the Missippi River. The cool thing was is that it had on observation deck with a little self guided tour. None of us had ever seen a lock in action, so we stayed and watched the lock operate in both the upstream and downstream direction. I guess we're all a little nerdy because we all thought it was pretty cool. I liked seeing the kayaks come through the lock; they seemed so dwarfed by the operation, I think I would have felt a little intimidated by the big walls ang giant gates of the lock.

Nerd Humor

One of the guys in my lab has spent most of the summer in a lab in Australia learning new research techniques. He finally sent us postcard this week. I love his quirky sense of humor, sending us a little of his research in the mail. I guess laboratories don't sell post cards to send to your friends back home.... maybe there is an entrepreneurial opportunity there. LOL. Oh, the horizontal white "lines" in the picture in the middle... that's DNA!!!

My Daisies

I admit it, my garden has too many daisys. This is a hard time for me, as I know I should dig a bunch out because they are crowding my other perennials, and I should be planting some annuals were the daisys are, but I can't bear to thin them out when they are flowering so divinely.

A cool thing about daisys that the non botanist may not know - each daisy flower is actually a an inflorescence, a cluster of flowers on a stem. Small yellow disc flowers in the middle, surrounded by ray flowers, each sporting a single long white petal. If you look close the disc flowers are arranged in very precise mathematical order. I've always wondered how many of these tiny flowers make up what we call a daisy flower, but I've sure been too lazy count them.