Newberry National Volcanic Monument
June 20, 2012
June 20, 2012
Have you ever needed a vacation after your vacation?
Even though we've been home for a week, I still haven't quite gotten back into the swing of normal routine yet. Blogging seems like such a foreign concept now. This is my 1000th entry on Nature ID with 59,640 site visits. It also happens to be my birthday today, and I am in a reflective mood.
We covered close to 2400 miles up through Oregon and Washington states and back. As a comparison, to get to Paulina Lake shown above (roughly halfway north) took us longer than our sister-in-law's sister took to go from her home in Switzerland down through Italy to pick up our sister-in-law from a conference and up to Slovenia to their parents' farm. I sometimes forget how big the United States is, let alone the 3 contiguous western states. The last time we did a road trip like this was almost 3 years ago. During this trip, we traveled through temperatures as high as 93.0°F (33.89°C) and as low as 33.8°F (0.99°C) in one day!
Our goal for this vacation was to see family and friends, so I have very few nature photos to share. The one thing that really struck me most was how children and the elderly appear to age much more quickly than the average adult. I was delighted to observe, play, and talk with the kids from age 4 to the first years in college. However, I was pensive about visiting with the older folks, one who still hikes like a mountain goat at the age of 80 and another a few years older in a hospital in the last days of his life. I am smack in the middle of these ages.
I will remember this trip particularly for the similarities and contrasts through time and distance.
Even though we've been home for a week, I still haven't quite gotten back into the swing of normal routine yet. Blogging seems like such a foreign concept now. This is my 1000th entry on Nature ID with 59,640 site visits. It also happens to be my birthday today, and I am in a reflective mood.
We covered close to 2400 miles up through Oregon and Washington states and back. As a comparison, to get to Paulina Lake shown above (roughly halfway north) took us longer than our sister-in-law's sister took to go from her home in Switzerland down through Italy to pick up our sister-in-law from a conference and up to Slovenia to their parents' farm. I sometimes forget how big the United States is, let alone the 3 contiguous western states. The last time we did a road trip like this was almost 3 years ago. During this trip, we traveled through temperatures as high as 93.0°F (33.89°C) and as low as 33.8°F (0.99°C) in one day!
Our goal for this vacation was to see family and friends, so I have very few nature photos to share. The one thing that really struck me most was how children and the elderly appear to age much more quickly than the average adult. I was delighted to observe, play, and talk with the kids from age 4 to the first years in college. However, I was pensive about visiting with the older folks, one who still hikes like a mountain goat at the age of 80 and another a few years older in a hospital in the last days of his life. I am smack in the middle of these ages.
I will remember this trip particularly for the similarities and contrasts through time and distance.
