The Volcano Experiment

 Desert Boy has been asking off and on about volcanoes, so when I saw this All About Volcanoes activity at the thrift store for $1, I decided it was time. The activity was to paint a volcano landscape and then mix baking soda and vinegar and have the volcano erupt. I have very fond memories of making volcanoes when I was a kid, and since I'm still a kid, I was ready for an erupting volcano.

 The first step was to put on painting clothes and paint the volcano terrain. It had already been painted once, but that didn't matter. There was still plenty of paint left.

 The kids got along better than I expected. They each had their designated volcanoes to paint, and they did well sticking to them.

 Desert Boy was working hard at painting his volcanoes just the way he wanted.

 Desert Girl was just glad to get the paint applied; she didn't care how it looked.

 Here's the finished product. Now came the hardest part: waiting for the paint to dry so we could do the exploding volcano part.

We played games, ate dinner, cleaned up, and finally declared that the paint was dry enough.

The kit was missing the directions (of course), but it had most of the parts pictured on the front. That included a mixing bottle for the baking soda and vinegar. We couldn't quite figure out how to mix it in the bottle, but what could go wrong?

 We decided the kitchen floor would be an appropriate place to do this experiment, with a box and a baking pan under the volcanoes (since we couldn't quite get the supports to work). I had put the vinegar (with red food coloring) into one of the chambers of the bottle and was adding baking soda to the other.

Then it was time to shake the bottle and put it under the volcano. That part didn't quite work out right, and we ended up with a volcano spurting 'magma' four feet into the air. It was quite impressive. And extremely messy. It's a really good thing that our volcanic eruption wasn't hot, or we would have had some problems. As it was, we got more of the kitchen cleaned than we had intended.

Unfortunately we weren't able to capture any of the massive explosion on camera due to the utter amazingness of the event (and the necessity of grabbing towels to try to save some stuff from getting red and wet) . We will have to try again. And I've already decided that next time we're going to bury a two-liter bottle in a pile of dirt. The kids can sculpt the dirt how they want. Then we'll pour the vinegar and baking soda into the bottle and it can erupt outside. Somehow that just might work out better.

Chasing Shadows

A few weeks ago I had the idea to go up in the mountains late in the afternoon and take photos of the mountain shadows extending over the valley. I really liked how the mountains reached out and stretched farther and farther.


The late afternoon shadows highlighted all the gullies and arroyos that break up the landscape, showing how rugged it is.


The kids were with me and wanted to hike, so I wasn't going to say no. Anything to burn off energy is a good plan in my book! We drove to the end of the road and the kids ducked through the gate.

Desert Girl thought this was great idea.

She started off enthusiastically, happily making little footprints in the skiff of snow.

 

It didn't take her long to figure out that this was an uphill hike, and suddenly she wasn't so thrilled.

The mountain shadows continued their invasion of the valley.

Some of the peaks looked exaggerated, almost like daggers piercing the air.

I made it up to the curve, where there was certainly a lack of snow at 8500 feet for early February. (It has since snowed, thank goodness, and the road is covered in white.)

 

Desert Girl started realizing that the walk downhill was more fun than uphill. She was fascinated by the yellow line, running down it.

The temperatures quickly plunged and we retreated to our van. We were glad we didn't have to spend the night out in the frigid clime.

At our next overlook, we saw that the progression of shadows had nearly terminated: the mountain shadows were now on the mountains across the valley.


The play of light was magical, with the twilight dancing over the mountains and valleys.

Good night, beautiful mountains.

Snow Survey

 Yesterday I helped do a snow survey up in the mountains. The snow survey measures the amount of snow at three snow courses. It's been done since the 1940s so there's a nice, long dataset to see how the years compare.

The snow survey is done twice each year, at the end of February and the end of March. Last year I went up to the first site in February and did the whole course in March. In March we could drive a couple miles up the road, which made for a shorter course that we all appreciated.

 The forecast was for 90% chance of precipitation and windy. We hoped that it would snow enough to cover up the crusty snow on the road and we would have some fresh powder for the ski down.

Five of us headed up to the first site.

 We made it off the road, knowing we weren't far from the first course. The snow wasn't all that deep, so we had to negotiate around bushes.

 Here's our group (except for me). It's still early in the day so we're looking strong!

 Jennie is fairly new to skiing, but she did an awesome job.

 We finished the first site and set off for the next site just before noon. We were able to travel fairly quickly because there wasn't too much snow. We took turns breaking trail and trying to figure out where the trail was.

This is an avalanche chute that had a major avalanche in 2005. The young aspen are now a few feet tall. As you can see by the lack of snow at the top of the chute, we didn't have any avalanche concerns on this trip!

My fancy skis. Like the duct tape? The skins just wouldn't stay on without them, and skins were critical to add extra friction to go up hill and slow me down going down hill.

Here I am with the snow tube on the third snow course. We use the tube to measure the depth of the snow and the water content. The snow wasn't super deep at any of the sites, but we'll have to wait for the numbers to see what percentage of normal we are.

We left the uppermost site at 4 p.m., which meant that we finished our ski in the moonlight. Yep, moonlight. That 90% chance of snow gave us a few flakes, but nothing measurable, and the snow clouds blew right over us.

We were all whooped by the time we got back to the vehicles. I think that's the longest ski trip I've ever been on, and my body felt it in many places! Nevertheless, it was an enjoyable day and I'd do it again.

Our New Train Project

 Desert Boy and I were talking one morning over breakfast, and not surprisingly, the subject of trains came up. He talk about trains usually several times a day, but this particular morning he added in an adjective that gave me an idea and made me want to learn more.

We looked online to see if we could find a map of Amtrak routes that go near national parks. We found AmtraktoParks.com, which had some neat features. But we wanted to do something a little different. So I found an old map of the United States and we taped it to a big piece of cardboard.

 Next I drew all the Amtrak routes on the map in red. It was fascinating seeing where they followed an Interstate, where they followed a secondary highway, and in a very few places, where they followed no road at all. (And probably historically speaking, the railroad tracks were in many of those places before the roads were.)

Then we covered the whole thing with plastic Saran wrap, as Desert Girl was trying to abscond with the markers any chance I wasn't looking and add her own train routes. Desert Boy was pleasantly drawing volcanoes and other things he wanted to see on the excess cardboard around the map.

 We still wanted to do more to the map, such as add in some of the destinations, but before we got to that, it was time for a break. Desert Boy got out a couple little train cars and started chugging them around the train routes. He doesn't know many of the state names, but I think he might start picking up a few as time goes on, especially when the trains crash into each other. ("Caution, train crash in Texas. Please take alternate route.")

This is definitely a work in progress. It's been quite fun for all of us (except Desert Girl when the markers were taken away). It's also made me think about some possible vacations that could include the words "All Aboard!"

Winter Bike Riding

 It's been such a mild winter that we've gotten in a fair bit of bike riding. Desert Boy can really roll.

 Since the only paved roads in town are state highways and we don't have any sidewalks, it's nice to have an option where we don't have to worry about traffic so much. (I really think a sidewalk/bike path from one end of town to the other would be awesome!)

 Desert Boy is often off-kilter and I wonder if he's going to manage to stay upright, but somehow he manages to pull it off. He's got a really good sense of balance.

 Even the mountains don't have much snow on them! I'm supposed to help with a snow survey tomorrow, and we'll measure just how much snow there is.

Desert Boy's learned that one extra item is useful for winter riding: gloves. It might not be too cold, but it's cold enough to want a little protection!