June 25, 2010

• “CO”ol start to summer

  

  I have a new goal in life: I want to see half the National Parks before I turn 30. So, I’ve seen 23… 6 to go in 3 months. Probably not going to happen, but my latest trip to Colorado confirmed my love for national parks. Shawn and I did our first whirlwind NP tour, seeing 2 parks and several other cool things.

  

  This was Onyx’s first road trip, and she was less than thrilled. The first day in the car was rough.

  

  Our first night was in Colorado NM, a cool bluff Wingate ss.

  

  It had many cool rock formations and vistas and impressive views of Grand Valley and the Grand Junction area.

  

  Onyx still was not impressed.

  

  Next stop was suburbia Denver. I think it is neat, but I’ll take the smaller SLC, thank you. We hung with Shawn’s friend Jeff and did all things Rover.

  

  Highlighted by XORRA buggy racing!

  

  Sure, it was hot, dusty, and loud, but worth seeing… Shawn and Jeff had a friend in the race, but he broke his car… I would have met him, but he was frantically welding it back together for the next race.

  

  Next was Florissant NM, a great fossil bed with lots of bugs, plants, and even coastal-type Redwoods, including the cloned three in the background of this pic.

  

  Onyx finally started to come around, thanks to friends like this Spitz/Chow mix at this really nice rock shop.

  

  No pics from our arrival to Rocky Mountain NP, because Shawn had to finish homework and we didn’t get there until 2 AM! You can see that we woke up to a beauty!

  

  Rocky Mountain NP was spectacular; full of meadows, flowers,

  

  tundra, cirques,

  

  critters,

  

  bigger critters,

  

  and even a friend for Onyx.

  

  By this point, she was really getting into the road trip thing.

  

  The next stop was the Black Canyon of the Gunnison NP.

  

  Maybe the best place on the trip.

  

  Especially the Painted Wall, a 1.7-1.4 Ga metamorphic complex cut by many pegmatite dikes.

  

  All and all, we did a lot in 4 days… I could have used a week more. Next up: a quick CA trip for Armando’s wedding. Oh, and if anyone wants to see if I make the next 6 parks in person, I got a 30th bday celebration: Wendover and Great Basin NP this Labor Day… be there or be square!

  P.S. Quick story to add: I was in a second rock shop near Black Canyon. We go in, and I see a big basket of blue/purple/red metallic shiny rocks labeled “Chalcopyrite”. Considering it is my new JOB to identify copper minerals, I new this was wrong. So a brief conversation started.

  Me: I hate to be a stickler, but that basket, over there, the one labeled ‘Chalcopyrite’, it is actually Bornite.
  Lady: Nope. A lot of people say that. It’s actually Chalcopyrite.
  (I made sure to grab a piece that actually had a vein of chalcopyrite)
  Me: No, this is chalcopyrite (yellow one), this is bornite (purple/blue).
  Lady: Nope, common mistake. That (referring to the yellow one) is iron pyrite.
  Me: You know, I do work for a copper mining company.
  Lady: Well, I’m not changing it.

  I should have left that moment… how ungrateful. I did wind up reluctantly patronizing her. Later, I saw Moqui Marbles (Fe concretions) labeled as clam fossils. I didn’t bring it up, but it reconfirmed how dumb this lady was.

  • 11:43 pm
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