Dinosaur Stew

This is a continuation of my trip to Colorado and Utah from last October. This particular day was mostly a travel day, getting myself from Grand Junction, Colorado, over to Salt Lake City, Utah where I would spend several days. When I worked out the itinerary of this trip, I realized that I was close enough to Dinosaur National Monument that it wouldn't make sense not to stop and at least whet my appetite on the fossils there, and so this particular spot also made the list of must sees. And as always, I usually bite off more than I can chew when I'm on trips like this, but it just gives me an excuse to come back at a later time.

I think if I were to do this monument up right, I'd spend several days here, probably camping. The monument has lots to offer including whitewater rafting, something that I'm not into, but I do know other people are and so I've mentioned it. For me, I was most interested in seeing the quarry of dinosaur fossils. I did not come away disappointed.

The park straddles the Utah/Colorado border and so is sort of broken up into two different unique areas. Since the quarry where the dinosaur bones can be seen close up is in the Utah side, I chose to head there. As I approached the monument border, I noticed a geocache outside the park boundary, so I decided to stop and find that one. It's very rare to find a physical geocache inside a national park area, because the National Park Service views it as litter. There are a couple of exceptions as there are several hidden in Petrified Forest National Park but they are maintained by a ranger in the park. Most geocaches you'll see in national park area would be either earth caches (geology based) or virtual caches which I've written about previously. In this case, the quarry area of the park had one of each that I was interested in finding.

I spent a good amount of time in the quarry area taking in all there was to see. The earth cache I working on asked me to examine the fossils along the wall of the quarry. It's estimated there are over 1500 fossils still embedded in the wall. I talked with a ranger and he told me that it's really more of a Dinosaur stew than anything else. The herbivores would be killed by the carnivores and the bones would be left after the carnivores had their fill. Eventually, the bones would be carried downstream where they were caught in this area by a large sand bar. Over time the bones were buried and eventually fossilized, hence the jumble of different kinds of dinosaurs all in the same area. 

The two bones you're looking at in the second photo are the femurs of a diplodocus and an apatosaurus (what we would call the brontosaurus back in the day). The photos don't really tell the tale, but both of those bones are about 6 feet in length and 18 inches in diameter.

The third photo gives more of a scale size to it. One of the tourist there was from Germany who was slightly taller than me, probably close to 6 feet tall. I asked him if he would stand near the fossil so I could get a size comparison, which he obviously obliged. This particular dinosaur, a camarasaurus, was the most common fossil found in the quarry area. This was one of the most complete camarasaurus ever found anywhere. The camarasaurus is part of the long necked dinosaurs commonly referred to as sauropods.

After taking in the quarry and finishing up the earthcache, I decided to drive further down the road to a virtual cache. I did a small hike out there to get what I needed to get and then headed back to the car and the exit so I could get to Salt Lake City in a timely fashion. I caught a little bit of rain on the drive there, but that was about all of the inclement weather that I got on this particular trip. All in all, I was very glad I stopped as this was one of those "new" places that I promised myself that I wasn't going to miss if I was in the area. It's not new anymore, but that doesn't mean I won't come back again sometime in the future.

When is Graffiti not Graffiti?

Every now and then I stumble across things that make me go "Hmmmmm." I'm sure most people have a working definition of graffiti, but I thought, why not write about it anyway. I'm sure most people would recognize the artwork on this truck which was parked on a street in San Francisco as graffiti.

According to most sources, "graffiti is a form of visual communication, usually illegal, involving the unauthorized marking of public space by an individual or group." In each of the three examples I'm posting with this, I'm pretty sure that the image makers were not given permission to create what they created, although some will argue, and I think rightfully so, that the middle example probably didn't need permission before creating what they did. But are we sure that the first example of the truck isn't a piece of art that's on display on the streets? I did not research who created the artwork on the truck. I didn't feel like I had to.

What I wanted to do was examine each piece and try and figure out if it's art, graffiti, or something else entirely. I think I would argue that all three pieces are art and graffiti. The phrase, "One person's trash is another person's treasure" comes to mind immediately. I think most people would say that the first piece is graffiti, but some graffiti is wonderful art at the same time. If you don't believe me, then look at the last photo I've attached to this. Those images, on the last four columns, are original graffiti that was placed on the Berlin Wall during the Cold War era.

The second one is the most interesting, I believe. If we look at the definition that I wrote earlier we can makes some judgements about it. Visual Communication?  I would say so. Illegal? Hard to say, but probably not. Unauthorized marking of a public space? Probably, but then again, the Ancients of Utah and Colorado probably didn't have the concept of ownership of land, so it was all public space and who's to say they didn't have permission to create those symbols on that rock outcropping? Today, I know that almost everyone who sees this would view it as artwork, not to be disturbed. I mean, the state of Colorado has viewing points set up alongside the road where you can look at these pieces of art from afar. There are also posted signs stating that the defacement of the art is considered a crime. 

So I guess, time plays an element in all of this. Even the National Park Service has weighed in on this issue. While they don't condone graffiti, they actually preserve graffiti in some of the areas they are set up to protect. I know of at least one instance in Great Basin National Park where writing inside of Lehman Caves inside the park have been preserved as part of the history of the park and cave. The writings (mostly signatures and dates) were done by employees of the National Forest Service over a hundred years ago. Time heals all wounds?

What it boils down to I guess is the public's perception of it or maybe the authority's perception of it. The Berlin Wall, when it was all in Berlin was a striking example of this. The western side contained all of the graffiti. The eastern side was pretty much pristine. Different forms of authority obviously made this a reality. People in West Berlin let their feelings known about the wall in the one way they could at the time and that was by drawing on it. People on the east side didn't not have that kind of freedom since there were barriers in place that prevented people from even getting close enough to it to place graffiti on it.

And while I don't like the gang related graffiti that is so pervasive in some areas, I'm not going to deny that some of it is amazing artwork. What's your take on this? Graffiti? Art? A combination of both? As always, comments are welcome.

Black Canyon of the Gunnison

 

It's been awhile since I've written in here, but as I look back over the calendar of blog entries, I missed a couple of other months last year too, so now I don't feel so bad. This is a continuation of the series that I started back in October for my road trip I took in the middle of October to Colorado and Utah. 

Back in October, I wrote about my first full day in Colorado and my visit to Colorado National Monument. I had hosted a geocaching coffee event that morning, then toured the monument for most of the day afterwards. The next day, I drove southward out of Grand Junction heading for Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. I'd been to the park previously, before it had been upgraded to national park status, but the time gap between visits of over 50 years made me want to go back and see it again, as all I could recall of the park was that it was very vertical.

On thing that I noticed as I got to the park was that it was surprisingly busy for it being the middle of October. I figured that I'd have the park mostly to myself, with maybe some other senior citizens traveling around the country visiting sites in the "off season" but that was not the case, at least the day I was there. There were plenty of families and many of the viewpoint areas were filled to capacity with cars. 

As a kid, you don't remember things like parking problems, but I couldn't help but wonder what this would be like in the middle of summer during the height of the tourist season. And of course, my mind went back to that summer day over 50 years ago when my dad hopped us all in the station wagon for the trip north from our base camp in what I believe was Durango to visit this seldom visited national monument. Perhaps, the upgrade to national park status has boosted tourism to the place, but I still couldn't help but think that the minuscule parking lots during the summer would not be a positive experience for the average person visiting the park.

Because it was October, the park was beginning to experience multiple signs of fall with many of the park's deciduous trees and bushes showing off their fall colors. I saw photos from a national park group on Facebook that I frequent where someone posted similar photos, but had been there about 10 days later and they were even more spectacular in color than the one I've posted here. Being from Southern California, almost any color is amazing, so I guess you could say I was impressed with what I saw that day.

As I noted above, the park is very vertical. The Gunnison River carved through the volcanic rock and carved it very deep, but not very wide. At points in the park, the canyon is only about there quarters of a mile wide, but almost a half mile deep. Contrast that with the Grand Canyon in Arizona which might be a mile deep but 10 miles wide and you can see where this little canyon can be quite impressive.

As always, part of my reason for being there was to learn some geology and what better way to do that than through some of the earth caches that had been placed in the park. I did many of the tasks that were required by the different earth caches and walked several trails to get closer to the edge of the canyon. As I drove out to Painted Wall, the crowds thinned tremendously. I was actually surprised at this since I felt that the Painted Wall section was the most spectacular in the park, but it also meant that the trails were less populated and so there was time for some solitude, so I wasn't complaining.

It was also in this section where you could really see where the canyon got it name. The walls of the canyon are composed mostly of gneiss, but had bands of intruded light colored pegmatite running through them. This area is also the deepest part of the canyon. Imagine being in Paris. You could stack two Eiffel Towers on top of each other and they still wouldn't reach the top of the canyon from the river below.

I know the nostalgia of wanting to come back and retrace my childhood steps might seem silly to some, but I was glad I came. I can remember being not very impressed with my dad's photos of the park at the time and I know why now. With little to no clouds directly overhead, the sun made for very harsh lighting conditions. Lots of deep shadows so you really couldn't see a lot of detail in some of the photos and my own photos are very similar in appearance.

I enjoyed my time in the park and if I'm ever in the area again, I'll make sure I spend some more time on the opposite rim for a different perspective. There just wasn't enough time to squeeze both rims in on the same day with all the driving that entailed. After spending several hours in the park and enjoying a light lunch there, I headed back to Grand Junction, geocaching all the way back to my motel.

My First Full Day in Colorado

This is a continuation of my post from last week chronicling my road trip to Colorado and Utah. I pretty much took enough photos for each day, so from here on out, each day will be a different blog post to cover the entire road trip.

Usually, when I road trip and the day is primarily going to be sightseeing, it will still encompass some kind of geocaching, either earth caches or virtual caches and this was no exception. That third day, I woke up and headed off to a meet and greet coffee event that I was hosting in Grand Junction. I'd met two people the day before who were planning on attending but I wasn't sure what my turnout would be for a mid-week (Wednesday) meet and greet at 8:00 in the morning. I was pleasantly surprised when 11 people showed up for my coffee event. 

There were actually a couple of reasons why I decided to host an event mid-week. One, I enjoy meeting other geocaching people, putting names to faces of some of the caches that I'm probably going to find later during that trip. Two was a purely selfish reason. I wanted an extra cache type in Mesa County, Colorado to help me with that challenge I was working on for 6 different cache types in 20 different counties. We all had a good time at the event and then we said our goodbyes and I headed out to Colorado National Monument.

I've known about Colorado National Monument for as long as I can remember. My parents took us to Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Monument back in the early 70s, so I'm at a loss as to why they didn't drive the extra hour north to visit Colorado National Monument. Needless to say, it's been on my list of places to visit ever since and it didn't disappoint. As I approached the entry point to the park, the ranger told me that there might not be a whole lot of parking at any of the pullouts or parking lots as there was a naturalization ceremony going on at the park's amphitheater. Glad I was told ahead of time, so I made do with what I could that day, but it wasn't much of a problem. Rangers were overlooking some sketchy parking that was happening on the sides of the main road, which was understandable given the circumstances.

As I drove up the road, I pulled out several times to enjoy the view and work on a couple of earth caches. Balanced Rock, in the second photo, was one of the formations I was able to see from below. Most of the park, you're looking downwards into the valley below, but I was still working my way to the mesa above. The wind and water erosion that created this formation and others in the park will eventually destroy them as well, but that's the geologic cycle at work. 

As I continued up, I saw birds circling in the distance to the east towards Grand Junction and the town of Fruita. I came around and found another viewpoint and stopped there. There was a man viewing the birds with binoculars and I asked him if he knew what they were and he stated Golden Eagles. About five minutes later, we both spotted a Bald Eagle soaring along the ridge line. I think that's the first time I've ever seen Golden Eagles anywhere outside of a zoo and only the second time I've seen a Bald Eagle. Later in the day, I saw another Golden Eagle as it flew over my head at another viewpoint. I inquired at the visitors center later on and learned that Golden Eagles nest in the park, but Bald Eagles are rare sightings as they live and nest down in the valley near the Colorado River. I thought I was rather fortunate to experience both within five minutes of each other.

While continuing my drive along the road, I stopped at another viewpoint and got to see one of the main features of the park, Independence Monument. One of the early explorers of the area climbed to the top of this particular rock and planted an American Flag on the summit, some 450 feet above the valley floor. It's become a tradition for rock climbers to ascend the formation on July 4th and fly the flag each year.

I decided on one short hike to get out to another viewpoint, then after that headed to the visitors center to gather more information about the park. By that time, there were all sorts of parking spots as many of the people who had attended the naturalization ceremony in the morning had left. I spent another hour or so in the park, then left to find some geocaches outside of the park as I'd done all of the earth caches inside the park.

To the north of the park, I found a road that had a series of challenge caches on it and I traversed the length of that road finding all of the challenges. This was actually of particular interest to me as most of the challenges were about finding different types of caches in a certain number of counties. One of the challenges wanted me to find a multi cache in 25 different counties. A multi cache is a cache that usually has at least two different spots you have to visit in order to find the cache. Before the trip, I'd found multi caches in 24 different counties and I'd literally found my 25th county earlier that day when I found a multi cache in Grand Junction on my way to visit Colorado National Monument. I'd say that was fortuitous.

All in all, it was a very good day. I'd enjoyed myself tremendously sightseeing in the monument and then had a good time geocaching later in the afternoon. As noted above, the monument didn't disappoint and I was thrilled with all of the geology and the spectacular scenery. Eventually, I got back to my hotel room, had dinner at a nearby restaurant and had a good night's sleep. The next day would also be a big day of sightseeing somewhere else.

Happy Place

It's the end of the month which means it's time for P.J.'s monthly photo blog challenge. I thought about this one, then figured that I have a bunch of happy places, things or actual places that I enjoy immensely, so I thought I could make this more about all of my happy places as opposed to just one happy place. I mean, why limit yourself? And I'm sure if I really tried, I could come up with some more, but these are the ones I've chosen for this month's photos and they are in no particular order of importance.

1. It's all about planning

Right now, I'm in the middle of my second round of immunotherapy for my cancer treatment. This is a maintenance round, primarily meant for preventive care, so that's a very good thing. I had my first treatment on Monday and I have two subsequent treatments on the 5th and 12th of next month and then it appears I'll get another 3 month break. What this means in the long run is I'm planning a road trip to Utah and Colorado.

One of the things that has been really frustrating about my illness is it's not really allowed me to plan any kind of trips because I've had appointments, surgeries, and procedures that have take top priority. I get that, but with more free time, I've been able to start planning for future trips again.

I love planning road trips. I love to look at maps and guidebooks and determine what route I will take in order to fully maximize the time I have for this specific trip. This time, the plan is to head to Grand Junction, Colorado and tour Colorado National Monument and Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. 

I've been to Black Canyon of the Gunnison way back when I was around 13. This was actually so far in the past, the park was a national monument at the time and has since been upgraded to national park status by an act of Congress. I've never been to Colorado National Monument, but I intend to spend a day at each park and make Grand Junction my base for the three days and two nights I'm in the region. 

And I will be the first to admit that I started planning this road trip too early. I've pretty much set up my itinerary, have my hotels books and know what I want to do each day and I WANT TO GO NOW! But I can't, because of my upcoming treatments. I should have waited until next week perhaps to start planning, but you'll see later in this post that waiting might not have been a really wise choice either, because next week is going to get busy.

2. Papa and Gaga time

We didn't do this very often last year, but once I got sick, time became a little bit more precious and my daughter and son-in-law started having regular video chats with us so we could see the little one. Usually these happen around dinner time, so in essence we get to eat dinner with our granddaughter on an almost daily basis and we live 300+ miles away from each other. This is just one of the many screenshots I grabbed a couple of weeks ago when we were having dinner together.

Just watching and listening to her babble about her day, what's she's eating, her insistence on seeing our two Pooh bears that she knows are at our house, and seeing her new developments that seemingly happen on a daily basis really takes me to a happy place.

I've heard it said that being a grandparent is the best and I've probably said this more than once on this platform, but it really is. And she's coming to visit in about a week. It will be a short visit, but we are both really looking forward to seeing her and her parents.

3. The Wonders of Nature

I will never be not astounded by the wonders of nature around us. It's probably why I love to travel, to experience new things in nature to me. It also allows me to practice my art of photography and although that's developed and evolved over the years, especially with my reliance more and more with my phone as opposed to my DSLR, I still love going out and hunting down that elusive butterfly, or taking a wonderful landscape photo from some place I've visited. This particular butterfly allowed me to get my phone about two inches away from it, almost as if it knew I wasn't going to try and capture it.

My parents instilled in me a love of nature and I fully want to enjoy it for as long as I possibly can. Already in my mind, I'm planning other trips that I can take in the future. 

4. Hiking

I realize this photo isn't the greatest photo, but it really encapsulates what I enjoy about getting out in nature. I've been asked why I never took up mountain biking as it appears as if I'd be a good candidate for that particular type of exercise and recreation and I think it's mainly because I feel that biking would intrude in some of the other happy places I also like to enjoy, like photography, nature and geocaching. I mean, if you're flying by something at 20 miles per hour, by the time you stop to "smell the roses" or pursue the butterfly, the butterfly has already flown away. And so I walk, and I walk, and I walk.

Before I was retired, I was pretty much limited to hiking on the weekends. Now, I just get up, look outside and if the day looks promising, I'll put on my hiking shoes and head out to a favorite trail and enjoy the day. And what's really funny about all this is, as a school teacher, we're used to loving our summers. Now, I would honestly say that summer is my least favorite season of all. It's so dang hot that unless you get up at the crack of dawn and get out on the trail, it's usually pretty miserable out there. It's so much nicer during the cooler months of fall, winter and spring, when you can go out just about any time of the day and get a good hike in without feeling like you've been on a summer death march. Plus, now that I'm retired, I can hike any day of the week, so I don't have to exclusively go on the weekends when the trails are crowded. Nice quiet trails where I can really enjoy nature take me to a happy place.

5. Geocaching

Did you really think I could get through an entire blog post talking about happy places and not talk, at least a little bit, about geocaching? I didn't think so.

So much of the past 22 years of my life has been intertwined by this silly game that I discovered. As one of my friends, who I later introduced to this game said, "Geocaching. It's hiking with a purpose!" Although I'm not sure I agree with this sentiment entirely, I did see where he was coming from with his explanation.

And yes, part of my next roadtrip will be geocaching related. I'm actually planning on hosting two event caches while out on the trip, one in Grand Junction, Colorado and another one in Salt Lake City, Utah. What better way to meet up with other geocachers in the area than by attending an event. I looked at my itinerary and then searched to see if there were already events planned (there weren't), so I decided to host my own morning coffee events. I usually do this when I'm on a road trip, but this is the first time I've hosted two events while out on a trip. It's kind of ambitious for a 7 day trip, but I'm up to the task.

It's always enjoyable to talk with other geocachers about the game. Who knows, I might end up going caching with one of the people who show up at one of my events.

The other goal of this trip is to get the webcam caches that are in the Salt Lake City area. A webcam cache is where there's a public webcam that you need to stand in front of the webcam and either have a friend back home get a screen shot of you, or you can alternately get a screen shot of yourself off of your phone.

I've signed several challenge caches for finding webcams and since there are four different webcams in this area, it's like a goldmine for cachers working on webcam challenges. To put things in perspective, there are approximately 203 active webcam caches, so they are exceedingly rare. Webcams are no longer recognized as "real" geocaches, so these are the ones that have been grandfathered into the system. They are not getting replaced, so when one gets archived, it's gone and there's not going to be one to replace it. That's why when geocachers see there's a webcam close by, they want to get their photo taken, because you never know if that particular webcam might disappear sometime in the future. Of the 10 that I've taken a photo at, only 4 of them are still active.

And there you have it, my take on the theme Happy Place. Please stop by P.J.'s page and see how other people interpreted the same theme.  And as always, please leave a comment. I won't bite.

Collections and traditions

For those of you who know me well, you already know that I'm most comfortable in tee-shirts and shorts, unless it's the winter months and then it's tee-shirts and pants. Not really much difference, but at least it keeps my legs warm.

Anyway, most, if not all of my tee-shirts are ones that I've purchased when I travel. I started this way back in high school when the family would camp in Yosemite National Park almost every summer. And every time I was there, I would purchase a Go Climb a Rock tee-shirt. It sort of became a thing for a while there and I had a Go Climb a Street shirt that I bought in San Francisco and a Go Climb a Volcano shirt that I purchased in Lassen Volcanic National Park. I even had a gag tee-shirt that a friend of mine purchased for me that said Go Climb Mt. Fuji.  

After high school, I tended to drift away from the Climb shirts and just purchased ones that I liked. Most of these tee-shirts center around the national park experiences, but there's also novelty tee-shirts that some of my family and friends have purchased for me. So what does this have to do with anything?

Well, when I'm out and about I tend to wear a tee-shirt that fits the theme of the day.  If I'm geocaching, then of course, the likelihood is I'll be wearing a geocaching tee-shirt.  If I'm camping, more than likely, I'll be wearing a national park shirt. Family visits usually mean I'm wearing a shirt given to me by one of my kids.  You get the idea now.

After looking over some of my more recents shots I took at several national parks, it seems like I have a "Go to" shirt for when I enter a national park and get my photo taken at the entrance sign of said national park. I'm wondering if it's my subconscious telling me that I have to wear my Yellowstone National Park tee-shirt every time I enter a national park, or if it's just a coincidence? It's probably the latter, but no matter what, since this has become sort of a tradition, I obviously will be wearing that tee-shirt on my next excursion out into a national park, or at least when I get my photo taken at the entry point sign. And of course, because I noticed this, I'm going to either have to get back to Yellowstone to get a couple more tee-shirts, or order some on-line so I have a ready supply for future trips.

Road Trip

Well, this one is way late in coming and I should have written some other stuff in here many months ago.  But that's water under the bridge and so seven months have gone by since I've written here. It's not like I haven't been motivated, but I just never got around to it and this has languished long enough.

So why all of a sudden am I writing today?  Well, P.J.'s photo blog challenge for this past month was the theme "Road Trip" and I did go on a road trip last month where I actually took some photos, so it made it easy to get back into the swing of things.

When I retired three years ago, I set several goals that I wanted to accomplish so it wouldn't get stagnant. One was to visit or do one new thing each year. The second was to have at least one overnighter somewhere each month. It didn't necessarily have to be a camping overnighter, but just somewhere different each month.

It was going fairly well, but then the pandemic hit and everything fell apart. But recently, I'm been getting back into the swing of those goals. And I will be the first to admit, that it's easy to come up with an excuse to take off for a long road trip.  

"Honey, I'm going up to visit the grand baby."  And so I go, although both of us went up in April for Easter, but I went up by myself to visit her in July.  June, I did a road trip up the Owens Valley on the east side of the Sierra for a lot of really good geocaching.  July, the grand baby came down here for three weeks and then we turned around and went up there for another week. Why? Because we could. August, I did another short backpacking trip in the Sierra and that brings us to this month.

I looked at the calendar and the weather forecast and it was going to be hot down here, so I decided to head up to visit the grand baby again, then head up to Lassen Volcanic National Park. I've visited this park many times in the past and seven years ago I accomplished a bucket list item by summiting Mt. Lassen in June 2015. So why go back? It's one of the least visited national parks in the lower 48 states, so there's a lot of peace and quiet, especially if you go during the week. My plan was taking me there on a Tuesday and leaving on a Friday before the weekend crowds come in. Second, because it was already mid-September, the crowds were going to be even smaller during the week, because school is back in session so there wouldn't be as many vacationers out.

Third, it's a beautiful park with some fascinating geology, plus there were a couple of new geocaches (a virtual cache and an earthcache) hidden since the last time I was there and because you know I love to go geocaching, that seemed like a no-brainer. 

My long hike day I'd set apart for myself dawned crisp and cold. Temperatures were down in the mid 30s overnight, but it warmed up nicely during the day.  I drove around the mountain and went down to the trailhead for Brokeoff Mountain, which is the second highest peak in the park at 9200 feet (2804 meters). The hike was a little bit over 3.4 miles (5.47 km) with an elevation gain of 2600 feet (792 meters). The third shot is of Brokeoff Mountain from the trail. The trail had some very nice shady spots and I had two small water crossings going up.  I ran into a total of 13 other people on the trail the entire day. Had I opted to go up to the top of Mt. Lassen instead, I probably would have encountered 3 times as many people. It was definitely a road not taken kind of adventure.

Brokeoff Mountain was my new thing for the year. In all of the years I'd been going to the park, I'd never taken that trail before. Of course, geocaching was to blame since there was the new virtual cache on the top of the mountain, which got me going. I probably would have gone to the top of Mt. Lassen again were it not for geocaching, but that's one of the reasons I really love geocaching. It takes me to a lot of places I might never have gone without it.

I'm not sure it's because of my age, or something else, but I felt like the hike up there was tougher than the hike to the top of Mt. Lassen.  Of course, I was seven years younger then, but still in my late 50s. After we got done with Mt. Lassen, my friend Craig and I then hiked out to Bumpass Hell. This time, I really wanted to go out to Bumpass Hell again, because the area really highlights the thermal features of the park, but once I got down off of the Brokeoff Mountain hike, I was pretty much spent. I headed back to my campground with no intentions of stopping elsewhere, at least to hike.

I did stop numerous times on the way back to the campground, however. Summer of 2021 was not a kind one to this park with regard to wildfires. The Dixie Fire burned about 64% of the park's eastern side and there was lots of evidence of the fire as I drove back around to my campground. In fact, the virtual cache at the top of Brokeoff Mountain had me taking compass readings of both Mt. Lassen and Mt. Shasta. As you can see by the shot of me at the top, taking a compass reading of Mt. Lassen was easy, but Mt. Shasta was more difficult to spot through the haze of not one, but two different wildfires that were between us and Mt. Shasta. Fire, it seems, is becoming more and more prevalent throughout the area.

What is really amazing, in my opinion, were the number of trees that survived the blaze.  It's not readily apparent in my last shot, but if you look closely, you can see quite a few individual trees that survived and will be the trees that help sustain this forest into the future, provided the area gets enough rain and snowfall. That being said, when I asked about weather for my trip, they said it was going to be cool at night, which I already knew and that a storm was coming, scheduled to come in Friday or Saturday. Since I wasn't planning on being around, it didn't bother me, but the forecast was for rain, with snow on the summit of Mt. Lassen.  Let's hope the area gets more of this all winter long.

And there you have it.  My road trip for September.  Please stop by P.J.'s blog and check out the links of others who posted about road trips.

Get Out and Play

Once again, it's time for P.J.'s monthly photo blog challenge, and once again, I've been remiss in not writing more here since this is literally the first post in over a month. I missed all of October, but then again, I could argue that I was following the theme of the month, which is Get Out and Play. Yeah, that's my story and I'm sticking with it. Needless to say, I went out and played this month, taking my first out of state road trip since before the pandemic hit. I hiked, I camped, I took lots of photos, so it was difficult to whittle down all the photos I took into just five shots, but I tried my best. Here are my five shots for this month.

1. A unique icon

Those of you who have been following along on this wandering that I do, know I love to geocache. One of the things that has kept me interested in the game are challenge caches - a cache that gives you a challenge to fulfill. 

My first stop in Arizona was the Tucson area for two reasons: 1. Saguaro National Park, a place I'd never visited before and 2. The only webcam in the entire state of Arizona. Now, I know what you're probably thinking. "There's only one webcam in the entire state?" Well, there's only one webcam that's also a geocache in the entire state and it's located on the campus of the University of Arizona. So I ended up walking around campus that first day, looking for the webcam. Now usually, you'd just go to the coordinates and find the cache, but this one was a little bit trickier than that. You were told what building you needed to find, but the coordinates weren't at that particular building, but rather near a campus directory. Eventually I made my way over to where the webcam was and took a screenshot on my phone of me looking like I'm having a conversation with a fire hydrant on the university's campus.

On a side note, before smart phones, these were event tougher, because you literally had to phone a friend and have them get a screenshot on their computer. I did that here as a back up in case I wasn't able to get my own shot, but for this blog entry, I'm using my own photo. And this also gave me my 9th different icon, or type of geocache, in the state of Arizona, second only to California.

2 & 3. Saguaros

As noted above, the national park was one of my "must see" stops on my road trip to Arizona. I'm a national park enthusiast and this particular park has been on my bucket list forever. When we used to travel to Arizona to visit my uncle who lived in Scottsdale we never got as far as Tucson, but we could see saguaro cactus pretty much everywhere on the drive over to my uncle's house. They are fascinating and so the park which was a national monument at the time went on my bucket list. 

I never got to take the kids to see the park when they were growing up mainly because there's no car camping in the park, only backcountry camping. And so it sat there on my list until this past month when I decided that it was time.

I had plans to hike to a virtual geocache in the park, but the road leading up to that particular trailhead was closed while I was there, so I spent part of the morning walking a short nature trail in the park and the rest of the morning hiking on a trail in Tucson Mountain Park which is located to the east of the western portion of Saguaro National Park. The National Park is broken into two different sections, one located to the east of Tucson and one located to the west. The black and white photo, which I've entitled "The Clouds Laugh" was taken in Tucson Mountain Park while I was hiking and finding a couple of geocaches.

4 & 5. Chiricahua National Monument

My second stop on this trip was in Chiricahua National Monument in southeastern Arizona. The backstory for this park comes from a student I had probably 18 years ago. When I was teaching, my school room was always plastered with posters from various parks that I had visited or wanted to visit in the future. One day in class, this student came up to me and asked if I'd ever been to Chiricahua National Monument before. When I answered in the negative, he proceeded to tell me how beautiful the park was and what a neat place it was and he spent the better part of several class periods extolling the virtues of this park. When a 13 year old kid is that excited about something in nature, you pay attention and so this park went on my bucket list as well.

My plan was to camp here for two nights and enjoy a full day of hiking and sightseeing in the park, before heading back to Phoenix where I'd spent one more night before coming home. As I was setting up my tent at my campsite, I was interrupted by a couple of coatimundis wandering through the campground. I'd seen photos of them, but have never seen them in the wild, so this was really a thrill for me. 

These two were very skittish and took off as soon as I walked a little bit closer, so I didn't get a photos of them, but my luck definitely changed the next day as I had an entire troop of around 15 coatis wander through the river bed behind my campsite.

The troop, composed of females and youngsters wandered in the river bed and fortunately, I had my camera ready, just in case. They'd send the younger coatis up the juniper trees to pick berries and while feeding themselves up in the tree, they'd also drop berries down to the others waiting below.

Once they left, I packed up my gear and headed up to the top of the park where I'd take my hike in the Heart of the Rocks loop. My goal was to see some of the geological features of the park up close and to also get the Heart of the Rocks virtual cache there. The last photo posted here is the Pinnacle Balanced Rock and is pretty typical of the types of formations you can see in this park. 

Most of the formations are created by freeze and thaw cycles, so eventually, this particular formation will fail, but others will eventually also be created through this cycle as well. I did a second hike into an area called the grottos where the rock pillars are very close to the trail and several of the pillars have collapsed against each other. There is one point in the grotto where you can sit directly underneath a very large (garage sized) boulder being held in place by two neighboring pillars. Yeah, I sat there for a little bit.

And there you have my five photos of when I got out and played last month. Please stop by P.J.'s site and see how others got out and played last month. Please feel free to comment here. I will respond back and I don't bite. As always, thanks for dropping by.

Some real wandering

In a couple of days, I'm going to be doing some actual wanderings, something that I haven't done in about a year and a half, since right before the pandemic shut everything down. I've been planning this trip for the past 6 months, getting everything together, taking training hikes at altitude, and keeping in shape, just so this could happen.

Next week, I start a 23+ mile backpacking trip into the Sierra Nevada out of Horseshoe Meadows trailhead. The nice thing about this trek is the most I'll be hiking on any given day is about 8 miles. Most of the days are in the 5 to 6 mile range. I haven't been backpacking since I was in college, way back in (mumble, mumble), let's just say, Elvis died the week I was backpacking in the Sierra.

Our first day, we'll hike about 5 miles up to one of the Cottonwood Lakes and find a campsite. There's actually a couple of geocaches up there, so we'll probably look for those after we set up camp. Those might be the only geocaches we find on the entire hike, but that's fine. My plan is to enjoy this, take lots of photos, and possibly put together some video blogs when I get back home.

The second day is probably our toughest day, hiking 8 miles up and over New Army pass into Sequoia National Park. Campsite is scheduled to be Soldier Lake in the park. From there, on the third day, we'll hike south, pick up the Pacific Crest Trail and follow it southbound to our next campsite. The next day, we'll complete the loop and end up back at Horseshoe Meadow. 

I'm really looking forward to this trip.

Petrified Forest National Monument

Once again, it's time to look back on my youngest and my 2017 road trip to Wisconsin and back. When last we checked, we had stopped at Capulin Volcano National Monument in northeast New Mexico. The following morning, we headed off with the intention of making it into Arizona, somewhere near Petrified Forest National Park. As we drove we, of course, geocached along the way, because that's what we do.

We stopped for lunch in Albuquerque, New Mexico and then continued on to Arizona, reaching Petrified Forest sometime around 3 o'clock in the afternoon, which gave us plenty of time to tour the park. This was my second visit to the park and the first for my youngest. For those of you unfamiliar with the park, you can either enter the park at the southern end or at the northern along Interstate 40. There is no established camping in the park but there is plenty of wilderness backpacking opportunities, although you'd have to be prepared since it is a desert and water is scarce.

The park, for the most park is a drive through, something that can be seen in a couple of hours, but that doesn't diminish it in any way as a national park. The scenery is breathtaking with broad vistas in the northern part of the park. The small loop hikes take place in the southern part of the park where the concentration of petrified wood is found There's even several geocaches located within the park boundaries, which is very rare since the National Park Service views most geocaches as litter, but since these were all placed by a ranger who was stationed in the park, the park service allowed these. They even have a page dedicated to geocaching on their website. For the most part they were simple hides, but they took you to many viewpoints and points of interest within the park, without impacting the landscape in any way. Besides the traditional caches, we also found a couple of virtual caches and a couple of geological based earth caches.

Looking at the second shot, you can see in the distance, a developing thunderstorm. This would curtail a little bit of what we wanted to do, but we still were able to enjoy the park and what it had to offer. We drove through the painted desert part (northern) and stopped at all of the viewpoints, including one where there was a rusted hulk of a very old Studebacker roadster where there is a geocache hidden. Petrified Forest also has the distinction of being the only national park that the original Route 66 crosses through, which is what this viewpoint was pointing out.

After that viewpoint, you then cross over Interstate 40 and are now in the petrified forest. At every viewpoint, you get glimpses of logs, petrified with beautiful colors. As you can see in the third pooh  the colors of all of the logs were simply amazing. According to the park's website, the colors primarily come from three different minerals. "Pure quartz is white, manganese oxides form blue, purple, black, and brown, and iron oxides provide hues from yellow through red to brown." Most of the logs during this point are farther away, but you can walk out to them. Being in the high 90s, we opted to take photos and then continued on our drive, hoping to hike the Crystal Forest loop trail.

Once we got down to the Crystal Forest, we stopped and decided to hike the loop which takes you through a large portion of petrified wood and brings you very close to a lot of the logs that are preserved in the park. The temperature had cooled down considerably at this point owing to the impending thunderstorm which was approaching from the east. We kept hearing thunder in the distance and occasionally would see flashes of lightning, so we quickened our pace just a little bit. There's not a lot of cover out in the desert so the threat of a lightning strike was slightly higher, not to mention the distinct possibility that we could get rained on by a cloudburst.

I took some more photos and we finished up the loop and hurried back to our car, getting there just about the time it had started to rain. You can see the rain in the distance of the last photo as we hiked the Crystal Forest loop trail. As we walked the loop, I was struck by the immenseness of the logs, many like the one in the last photo lining the edge of the trail. I also lamented the fact that there had to be signs along the trail at regular intervals telling people that it was against the law to remove any of the petrified rock. In fact, people were encouraged to report other people who had removed pieces of petrified rock from the area. As you can see from the last photo, there's a lot of petrified wood, but if everyone took a piece every time they visited, the park would soon not have any of its namesake to even be a park anymore. If you are out and about anywhere, please practice the Leave No Trace principles as outlined on the link provided.

As noted above, you can probably see the entire park in about a couple of hours. To really delve into some of the trails, it would probably be more like four or five hours. But if you're traveling on Interstate 40, in the eastern part of the state and you're not in a hurry, this is a spot that you'll probably enjoy. I've been back a second time in October of 2019 when I was coming back from my Colorado road trip. I mainly stopped that time to find some of the geocaches that we hadn't found on the previous road trip mainly because it was really hot the day we were there. In October, I didn't have worry about heat and I was able to find the ones we'd bypassed two years previously.

Capulin Volcano National Monument

This is a continuation of our 2017 road trip that I took with my youngest in June and July of that year. The day we drove through 5 states in one day, we stopped at Capulin Volcano National Monument in the late afternoon for a quick day trip of this out of the way national monument. It's a small park, only open during daylight hours, so it's perfect for a quick side trip. 

Usually, when we enter a national park or monument, we usually hit the visitors center first and this part was no exception, but there were a couple of extenuating circumstances to this visit. There was an actual physical geocache located inside the visitors center. Usually, geocaches are not allowed within national park boundaries, because the park service views geocaches as litter, for obvious reasons. However, this one was being maintained by one of the rangers there and so this was one of those special circumstances. I'd found a geocache hidden in the visitors center of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, but this one was a little bit easier to find, because all we had to do was ask the person behind the desk for the geocache and they pulled it out from behind the counter. Cool deal all the way around. After signing the logsheet and dropping a travel bug off in the container, we then headed back to the car and the road which would take us to the rim parking lot.

This particular monument is only open during daylight hours, there is no camping inside the park, so it would only take a couple of hours to tour the entire park. We spent about an hour and a half there, either in the visitors center, or walking the rim trail around the volcano. We opted not to make any hikes after the rim trail mainly because we had had a long day already and still had another hour or so to drive to get to our motel room further down the road.

The rim trail is self guiding with several interpretive signs around the rim giving you insight into why this volcano is here and what happened when it erupted many thousands of years ago. Because it stands out from the surrounding landscape, it offered views of New Mexico in all directions. I'm sure that if we'd been paying attention to details on a couple of the signs, we might have been able to see into Utah to the north, but I don't recall any distinguishing features that stood out.

There were two interesting things that did stand out on that particular walk. The first was the abundance of ladybugs that were in the early stages of getting out of hibernation and into mating mode. They were everywhere and I got a couple of shots of them, but nothing to write home about. Those of you who are still reading at this point are probably wondering, why I chose to put a picture of a damaged bench here instead of a photo of the ladybugs.

Well, this damaged bench was interesting, mainly because the damage was caused by a lightning strike. That, in my estimation, made it the coolest thing we saw up there on the rim that day. The bench actually had its own interpretive sign, so we weren't just guessing about it and we didn't really wonder whether we were in danger of a possible strike since the clouds off in the distance weren't the thunderhead type of clouds.

While up on the rim, we also completed what needed to be done for a virtual cache that was in the park and we would have probably also completed the steps for an earthcache that was there as well, but hadn't read the cache page ahead of time. It was only after we were back down off of the volcano that we realized that the information that we needed was back up on the rim and there wasn't enough time left to get back up there before the park closed, and so we called it a day.

All in all, it was an enjoyable couple of hours we spent in the park, once again marveling at the power of nature. If you're ever in the northeast corner of New Mexico, you might want to consider checking out this little park. It was a mid summer day and we practically had the park all to ourselves. 

Rating the Libraries

I've been ruminating this post in my head for months and finally decided that I needed to write it out and today, President's Day, felt like the perfect day to get this one out to the public. As an aside, I have three calendars on my wall over my computer monitor and all three of them have a different way of noting today.  The Yosemite Conservancy calendar lists it as President's Day. The Nature Conservancy calendar lists it as Presidents Day. The National Park Foundation calendar lists it as Presidents' Day, so I guess, the choice is yours as to which you prefer.  

In my wanderings, I've been able to visit 5 Presidential libraries. Obviously, the California libraries (Nixon and Reagan), I've been to more than once, while the other three, I've only the opportunity to see once, however, I've been to the Lincoln Home National Historical Site more than once. Please understand these ratings are totally subjective and my opinion alone. Your mileage may vary depending upon your own preconceived notions about each man as well as your own perceptions after visiting each library. If I visit other Presidential libraries in the future, I will update these ratings including if I revisit any of the ones that are listed here. I will however note, that when I asked my youngest which ones they favored, they came up with the exact same ratings as I did, so either I've influenced them greatly, or great minds think alike. More than likely, it's a combination of the two. Also, I've chosen to write about each library in order of preference, from my least liked to what I felt was the best of the five. I will put links to all of the libraries and the associated historical sites in each rating as I get to them.

#5

Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum

18001 Yorba Linda Blvd.

Yorba Linda, CA 92886

The library, which is the closest to where I live and also the one that I've visited the most has a very good depiction of the 37th President's life with plenty of artifacts of the president as well as several interactive exhibits. There is a small piece of the Berlin Wall on display and the last time we visited, there was a huge flag created out of nothing but LEGO Blocks. For my 12 year old at the time, this was very cool.

One of the neatest exhibits I enjoyed was the World Leaders area where the museum had life sized representations of all of the world leaders of the time that you could walk amongst to get a perspective as to how tall or short some were. Preconceived notions about some world leaders definitely came into play in this exhibit and I was incredibly surprised to see how short Nikita Khrushchev was. When you read about powerful world leaders, you sort of expect them to be larger than life and yet, Khrushchev was only about 5' 3". Seen in the photo above is my youngest standing between Winston Churchill and Charles DeGaulle. My youngest stands about as tall as DeGaulle now.

Other highlights include Marine One, the helicopter that flew Nixon and his wife away from the White House on the day he resigned, which you can walk through. The house where he was born is also on the property and you can also tour this. Nixon and his wife are also buried on the grounds, so you can also pay your respects to the former president and First Lady.

The reason this one falls short, in my opinion is it was originally created by a group of "Friends of Nixon."  Apologies in advance for not knowing the exact organization, but you'll understand as you'll see a pattern in my ratings. This group wanted to keep Nixon's legacy strong and positive, so in the beginning, there literally was no mention of the events surrounding the Watergate Hotel. It was as if it had never happened. Eventually, the National Archives has taken over the running of the museum and the last time I was there, they were working on an exhibit explaining Watergate and what happened. This, I felt was the major downfall of the museum and I think it would be higher on my list if there was a more balanced presentation of Nixon's life and career.

#4

Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, Museum & Boyhood Home

200 SE 4th Street

Abilene, KS 67410

As noted in the title, not only can you visit the museum, but you can also tour the boyhood home of the 34th president. You can also pay your respects at the gravesite of the former president and First Lady which are located on the grounds.

The museum has a well rounded amount of artifacts surrounding Eisenhower, throughout his military career and including his presidency and post presidential career. Clothing the president wore are on display as well as military vehicles the president used before retiring from the service. Known to be an avid golfer, there is even a scorecard for a round of golf the president had with Ben Hogan. Obviously Hogan won the round, but looking at the card, you can see that with handicaps figured into the scores, the President actually won the round that particular day. I found the Emmy, the only one won by a President to be very interesting, especially with Ronald Reagan's use of television in the subsequent years.

As I noted in this blog post however, there were a couple of things that I felt downgraded the museum making it fall to fourth on my list. There was very little mention of his wife Mamie. Yes, there were some artifacts, but it was almost as if she was an afterthought in this life, as opposed to his life partner. The second thing I found wanting was similar to Nixon's library, in that this library was originally established by "Friends of Eisenhower" and later taken over by the National Archives. Although the museum has a fair representation of Eisenhower's life, it still didn't seem very balanced, as if Eisenhower never did anything wrong in his life. This doesn't seem, in my mind, like a good telling of history at all if all you're going to do with a certain exhibit is tell about all of the good things and not balance them out with their mistakes. Imagine if a biographer did that about John F. Kennedy and never wrote about the Bay of Pigs? That wouldn't be a fair representation of the man or the time period. That's what I found to be the case at Eisenhower's museum.

#3

Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum

212 N. Sixth St.

Springfield, IL 62701

Lincoln Home National Historic Site (NHS)

413 S. 8th Street

Springfield, IL 62701

I've included both the Museum and the Lincoln Home in this review mainly because they are tied together. The first time I visited Springfield as a teenager, the museum didn't exist. My family toured the Lincoln Home, the only home the 16th president owned, as well as his gravesite in the main cemetery in Springfield. The museum is new addition to the arena of presidential libraries, as they are basically a 20th century phenomena starting with Herbert Hoover. I may be wrong, but no other president before Hoover, with the obvious exception of Lincoln has their own library.

The best word I can use to describe the Lincoln Museum is "Slick." Since it's a new museum, it uses the newest technology available to get the story of Lincoln out to you. There's one presentation in a theater where you're told the story of the Civil War through a skit that was amazing in scope. It took me until the very end of the presentation to realize that what we'd been watching, was not a flesh and blood actor acting out the lines that he'd rehearsed, but a holographic image. Very impressive and like I said previously, slick.

Because this library is run by the state of Illinois, Abraham Lincoln can do no wrong here. The great emancipator is portrayed as larger than life. There is a more balanced approach to the man at the Lincoln Home NHS, mainly because it's run by the National Park Service (NPS). One of the interesting tidbits I picked up at the Lincoln Home surrounds the tree out in front of the house. This tree is replaced every so often as they are trying to keep the house looking like it did in 1860 just before Lincoln left for Washington. Obviously, he never returned to life in the house afterwards, but because the NPS keeps replacing the tree, you still have a good view of the house, without it being obscured by a larger tree if they'd allowed the same tree to grow.

What the museum also lacked was any large scale collection of artifacts of the former president. I blame that on historical timeline. The fact that this museum showed up late in the game nearly 150 years after Lincoln's death is probably a prime factor in the lack of personal artifacts of Lincoln or his family. Most of the heirlooms can be found in the nearby Lincoln Home NHS, which I've listed above. That being said, I think the presentations more than make up for the lack of artifacts which is why it's here solidly in the middle of my rankings.

#2

Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute

40 Presidential Drive

Simi Valley, CA 93065

The library dedicated to our 40th president is located about an hour and a half west of where I presently live, yet I've only visited once, although I know I'll visit again once the pandemic is under control. The museum does a good job telling the story of Reagan, although, once again, because it's not run by the National Archives, it's not necessarily balance in approach, but the overall exhibits more than make up for this shortfall in my estimation.

There's a good collection of memorabilia associated with all aspects of the man's career, both before, during and after his presidency. There's an entire piece of the Berlin Wall on display outside in a courtyard. Obviously, it's fenced off to prevent idiots from walking off with small pieces of it, but it's impressive even from a short distance. Reagan and the First Lady Nancy are both buried here, although I haven't seen Nancy's grave as she was still alive when I last visited the museum.

When we visited, there was a temporary museum piece displaying an original Magna Carta document, one of three or four known versions of the original document. The nice thing is we were able to view it very close hand under glass and as I was viewing it, I realized that I was looking at one of the most important documents in the world and it had creases and folds in it. Obviously, the people of the time, when they transported it around probably folded it up and put it inside a pocket for safe keeping. Can you imagine if someone did that today, with say, the original Declaration of Independence? Yeah, it wouldn't happen, but it was interesting to note it.

By far and away, the coolest permanent exhibit at the Reagan Library is Air Force One. It's located in its own building, put up on pedestals and you get to enter the plane from the front fuselage and then walk through the entire plane seeing what it looked like at the time and then exit out from the rear of the plane. You can also see another Marine One, similar to the helicopter at Nixon's library there. I would also like to add at this time, that in all but Lincoln's Library, there was a recreation of the Oval Office in the White House as it looked during that particular president's tenure in office. It was very interesting to see the different styles of each president and the artwork, paintings and rugs they chose to adorn their working office.

#1 

Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum

500 W US Hwy 24

Independence, MO 64050

Harry S Truman National Historic Site (NHS)

223 North Main Street

Independence, MO 64050

Once again, I've included both the museum and the NHS in this rating, mainly because they're so close to each other.

As with other presidential libraries, this one had a great collection of memorabilia from the 33rd president's life, before, during and after. Included in the artifacts were several of the cars Truman owned in his lifetime. The delegate badges both he and his wife wore during the 1944 Democratic Convention were also on display. There were several interactive exhibits inviting the visitor to express their opinion about the man who became president during one of the scariest times in American History, the end of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War.

The museum did not shy away from controversial topics either, having an interactive piece on the dropping of the Atomic Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Visitors were encouraged to express their opinions about the dropping of the bomb and how to access the man who made the ultimate decision. As noted above, there was a recreation of his Oval Office. I have to say, I think Truman's favorite color was green. Located on the grounds is his gravesite where he and his wife, as well as his daughter and son-in-law are buried, so visitors can pay their respects.

About 5 blocks away is the house Truman lived in for most of his adult life and tours were offered there, which we took full advantage of to learn a little bit more about him. Even without the tour of his house, which was not part of the museum, but part of the NHS, Truman's museum was by far and away, the most balanced in its portrayal of the President. There were lots of artifacts and the museum didn't avoid some of those controversial decisions he made while president much like the other museums did. As we were leaving, near Truman's gravesite, this quote stood out as a testament to him, "The Truth is all I want for History."

And there you have it, my most likely biased opinions on the five presidential libraries I've visited. Once everything settles down again and I'm able to travel more freely, I'll be looking for other presidential libraries to visit. I believe the closest one to me that I haven't visited is in Texas. I look forward to any comments you have.