In the best eKos tradition this is a recycled diary. I wrote it for Dawn Chorus last weekend but didn't actually use it. This is a virtual trip to Cumberland Island National Seashore, home to wild horses, armadillos, and the ever shifting boundary between the ocean and the firmament.
No Dawn Chorus this AM so I am going to fill in with some photos from my trip yesterday to Cumberland Island National Seashore in southeastern Georgia. As this is a last minute diary commentary will be minimal but I will be happy to answer questions.
American Indians have lived in and have utilized the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River for thousands of years. The Havasupai, whose farms are in the bottom of the canyon, were visited by the Spanish under the leadership of the missionary Francisco Garces in 1776. The Spanish followed a narrow trail into Cataract Canyon, a tributary to the Grand Canyon. The trail was narrow, steep, and perilous with a thousand foot drop-off. Some of Garces’ men finished the journey on their hands and knees as they were afraid to stand up. At the bottom of the canyon they encountered the Havasupai who were cultivating about 400 acres of land.
In case you didn't know, Solar, Wind, Geothermal Projects, are being "Fast Track" by the Obama Administration.
Fast Tracking attempts to minimize the red tape, in order to get the boots on the ground as soon as feasible.
They are OUR Public lands by the way. We should use them to secure our Energy Future while protecting our wonderful Natural Heritage.
Here are the highlights:
BLM> California> California Desert District> Alternative Energy> Fast-Track Projects
Fast-Track Renewable Energy Projects
SolarIvanpah BrightSource Solar Project
The 400-megwatt project would incorporate seven 459-foot tall power towers and 214,000 heliostats (each holding two flat mirrors).
The project’s power plants would share an administrative complex/construction logistics area on approximately 4,073 acres of public land.
Nearly a thousand years ago, Ancestral Puebloans (sometimes called Anasazi) began to construct pueblos in caves and under the rock hangings of the canyon cliffs in southern Colorado. Three hundred years later, these pueblos were abandoned because of a prolonged drought. Then in 1888, rancher Richard Wetherill and his brother-in-law Charlie Mason came across the ruins of an enormous village in the cliffs of Cliff Canyon. They named the village Cliff Palace. In exploring the area, they discovered two more large ruins which they named Spruce Tree House and Square Tower House.
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
~ Henry David Thoreau, 1854
Loneliness can be conquered only by those who can bear solitude.
Solitude ...
it's one of my prime motivators.
take a few moments to journey through some snapshots
from my own personal explorations,
in search of that elusive space,
otherwise known as Solitude ...
Valles Caldera, in New Mexico's high country, is a huge dormant field of volcanoes high in the Jemez Mountains west of Santa Fe. Within the collapsed supervolcano are sparkling streams, miles of hiking, unusual geological features, and herds of wild turkey and elk. Thanks to Senators Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and Tom Udall (D-NM), it may finally take its place among the crown jewels of the country as a national park. And it'll be a sharp poke in the eye to conservative, free market ideology.
Action alert! Please support S.3452 by July 6 -- link below.
