the trip

Left Seattle last Wensday, headed east into central Washington to look at Geology, the Dry Falls complex and the Grand Coolee complex just north. Really cool looking canyons through oodles of layers of basalt (anceint lava flows that covered most of eastern Washington). Then to Grand Coolee Dam. All the publicity photos de-emphasize that the dam, though huge, is dwarfed by the rugged rocky valley it is set in, so seeing it in person for the first time was a suprise. Doubly interesting is that the dam and the rock it is built into is older granite, in effect, the north shore of the lava flows. Some areas actually show the base rock/lava boundery.

Spent the Night in Omak, just south of the boarder.

The next day was on to Canada, through the Okannogan (sp?) Valley, full of fruit. Cherries, pears, peaches, apples. Yummy. That night we stopped in Jasper, deep in the Canadian Rockies. The mountains are particularly dramatic, mostly freshly honed by the last ice age, and showing off their 1.9B to 150M years of sedimentery glory. The oldest come from the old supercontinent of Rodinia.

Then on to Edmonton, oogling more rocks in the process, and sighting a herd of Elk just off the highway.

The West Edmonton Mall is big, and does have an ice rink and rollercaster and stuff in it, but the impression of any part of it was just another mall, only more of it. Kind of underwhelming once you've actually seen it. The Royal Alberta Museum was very nice for natural history and some local stuff. Got Harry Potter at one of the downtown bookstores (most of the Canadian book stores we visited seemed a bit thin, as though they don't keep much of a backstock on the shelves, even compared to American chain bookstores, though they do have Canadian and Commonwealth editions or titles we'd never see in the States)

Then on to Calgary via Drumheller and the dinosaur beds of central Alberta. Most of the land in that area is almost as flat as the central US, but abruptly, there is a canyon, exposing oodles of mostly Cretacious (sp?) strata, chock full of dinos and such. And a very nice museum full of stuff. While taking one of the walkways into the canyon badlands I even found a little fossily bit, a disarticulated cluster of little bones and such about the size of a small bird. Couldn't keep it, of course.

Calgary was to see Bev's family (she looks very much more like her Aunt than her Mother), but the little local Aerospace Museum had a WWII German V-1 "BuzzBomb" on display and I was all over it.

Then back to Jasper, this time via a road through the Rockies. More glorious rocks to see. And a Black Bear, eating something, just off the road, with gawking tourists not 50 feet away. We also saw Ravens. And having properly seen Ravens, we'll never confuse them with Crows. Very big, a bit "shaggier", proportionally heavier beak, and less rough or croaking vocalizations. And Deer we didn't hit, as well as all kinds of birds, including several Bald Eagles. I found more fossils, clam-like things, mysterious round things with spoaky interiours, and worm(?) burrows in dark shale. I would have looked further but was swarmed by killer mosquitoes.

Then home again, 2400 miles and eight days.