Notice the difference in the photo, not beer but ice cream. The others are more of the usual.
We had lunch at a place called Union in San Diego’s Gaslight district. Food was good, but we wanted the ambiance of the outdoor seating.
San Diego is very pleasant. It is fairly green in the winter, since the Mediterranean climate here features warm and dry summers and rainy winters. A local friend, Dana P. Eyre told me that this winter was indeed rainy, but not outside the normal. although there have been droughty winters in the last few years.
We go back on Tuesday, not sorry to have missed the snowy weather back home. We also visited the San Diego Botanical Garden, as you can see in picture #4. Last is the entrance to the gaslight district, the San Diego old town.
Despite California car culture, San Diego is a very walkable city. It has a good troll line. We dropped off the car a day early, since we didn’t figure to need it here for the last day.
We had a beer-less lunch today in a little village called Borrego Springs. We drove from Palm Desert to Temecula in a very round about way, first going south the Salton City and then west through Borrego Desert Park.
The Salton Sea was created by accident in 1905 when water from the Colorado River broke through dikes and flooded the flat land below sea level now the Salton Sea. This “lake creation” has happened periodically in history. Water fills the basin and then evaporates. In the deep historical past, this was part of the ocean, the Sea of Cortez reached farther inland during warmer periods. In the much cooler times of the last ice age, it was part of a big freshwater lake. When California became part of the United States, there was no water. It was called the Salton Sink and was like a smaller version of Death Valley.
This incarnation of the Salton Sea is living longer because it is fed by irrigation runoff from the Imperial Valley. For some years, levels were actually rising, but more efficient irrigation has produced less runoff. The Salton Sea is now evaporating faster than it is being filled. It will become an ecological problem, as the salty dust exposed by evaporation becomes dust in the wind.
Salton City is odd. It was platted out in the 1960s as a resort community. The streets are laid out in a grid patter and have names like “Harbor,” “Marina” or “Coastal Breeze”. None of those things apply to today’s Salton City. It is mostly empty. I was surprised to learn that the city is actually growing. New houses are going up. Why not? They already have the grid. It is a depressing place, however, like visiting a Twilight Zone city.
We drove along the Salton Sea and saw parts of the Imperial Valley, the most productive agricultural area in the world. But it is not really pretty. It is like an agro-industrial place, very flat and productive.
As you leave Salton City, you go through some depressing piles of dirt, but these are full of campers. Evidently it is a good place for off-the-road. Borrego Springs is a pleasant little place. I imagine it is pretty hot in the summer.
First two pictures are us at Borrego Springs. Next is CJ driving the convertible. It was a bit too cold, but since we paid the big bucks, we wanted to use it. You can see a lot more from the open car and the mountains past Borrego Springs were attractive. Picture #4 is Salton City. That is the middle of two, really. Lots of lots available. Last is Borrego Springs.
— Okay. A day w/o beer is like a day w/o sunshine. We had the Diet Coke for lunch, we we walked over to place called Karl Strauss not far from our hotel
Had some great beer. I did the flight first and the winner was one called X Rye Zeeb. The X is just for show. The Rye is for one of the big ingredients and the Zeeb is the name of the brew master. It was a very smooth IPA. It would not meet the German purity law (Reinheitsgebot) since includes rye, but it was good beer. Chrissy had an Irish red. Our pictures show the event. In picture #4 I am looking serious. I have been told that I smile too much so people do not take me seriously What do you think of my serious look?
Joshua Tree National Park protects a unique environment where two environments meet. The Joshua Trees grow in the high desert of the Mojave. As you go downhill, you get into the Colorado Desert biome. The Colorado is a subset of the the Sonora Desert, but it lacks the iconic saguaro cactus, which is kind of a big deal, IMO.
The dominant thing here is creosote bush, also known as chaparral. This bush does not play fair. It emits a kind of toxin that inhibits the growth of other places, resulting in widely spaced bushes, each able to get enough water. They look like somebody has planted them in regular rows.
Another common plant in the Sonoran Desert is the cholla cactus. My cousin Carl Hankwitz warned me about them. If you get near, they stick into you. They call it the jumping bush because it seems to jump on you and hold you down.
Joshua Tree was going to be shut down because of the shutdown, but they opened today with volunteers and money from entrance fees paid voluntarily. There was some vandalism a couple days ago. I have trouble understanding the malice that goes into destroying nature. The logic of keeping it open was that visitors would help avoid vandalism by at least providing witnesses to disapprove.
We first visited the park in 2010. I was at Camp Pendleton for a Marine training exercise and Chrissy came after. I rented a car, but it was a piece of crap, so I took it back before CJ arrived. They had a convertible, so we traded up. Since that time, we have really enjoyed convertibles. I don’t think it is worth it to own, but renting once a year it is nice to have. It was not really warm enough to drive with the top down, but we did it anyway, using the heater to make it okay. You really see a lot more.
Joshua trees form a kind of savanna. The little ones look like longleaf pine in the bottle brush phase, as you can see by the second photo. Photo #3 is just a nice sunrise photo. #4 shows me close the the cholla cactus. I did not touch. Last is ocotillo. It is a deciduous tree, but not dependent on season. Instead, it is rain dependent. After it rains, the leaves come out. This can happen five times a year.
A very eventful day. We went to Joshua Tree National Park and visited Palm Springs. I will write about such things soon, but let me start with the usual beer pictures. We went to Babe’s Bar-B-Que & Brewhouse for pulled pork and beer.
I don’t think pigs & beer get the credit they deserve for the advance of civilization. Recent scholarship indicates that beer came before bread in the use of grain. It is an excellent way to preserve the otherwise perishable product and provide carbohydrates into the future. Pigs are one of the world’s most efficient protein machines, and they recycle superbly. They grow fast and they can subsist on garbage that would otherwise just be wasted. Peasants could feed the pigs the slop they no longer wanted to eat and shortly harvest a bonanza of pork products.
I believe it is true that w/o pigs and beer, Western Civilization never would have broken free from the cycle of subsistence.
So let’s toast the wonderful pig with a flight of beer.
We had two sets of beer today. The first group is at Babe’s. The other two are from lunch at an Italian place in Palm Desert. I am not leaning sideways because I am drunk, but rather because Chrissy need me to lean out of the light.
I am at the crash-bang course. Not supposed to write about details and not allowed to take pictures. I have to take it so that that I can spend more than 44 total days overseas. I have no current specific plans to do so, but this is a kind of a advance down payment in case something comes up. The certification is good for five years.
The training is not much fun, but there is beer here and good colleagues to drink it with. Since Mariza wrote about how I like beer and others have seen so many pictures of me glass in hand, I have been thinking about my relationship with the golden liquid. I do indeed like the taste of beer, but it is the social aspect, the ritual that I enjoy. I am carrying on an ancient tradition passed on by my father and passed to him by his, nigh onto the middle ages.
Rituals are important. I am not saying that beer drinking is some sort of mystical philosophy, but it is one of those things that lubricates life and relationships. I know that some people feel that way about wine or fine foods, or any number of human activities. My first picture shows some beer drinking with a couple of colleagues. The others are from a walk I took around my Fairfax neighborhood on Saturday. Pictures 2 & 3 are Dunn Loring woods. #4 shows some suburban fall colors. The last one is near the Metro. Planning is done well. You have the necessary parking garage, but it is insulated by a “sleeve” of retail and restaurants. Parking garages are ugly, but when they streets are protected from the eyesore by useful businesses, it is good.
Still at crash-bang, so do not have much to say, since I am not supposed to share details. Suffice it to say that today we trained in simple defense and how to get out of burning buildings. I am (I think) the second oldest guy in group and I am pleased to say that I did okay. I do not really think I could fight off a serious attacked nor very heroically get out of a burning building, but I could deal with the minor versions of these things.
Had a few beers with colleagues. I like my FS colleagues. We have an odd set of characteristics and this is a group where I fit in reasonably well. My younger colleagues did some karaoke. They had a good time and it was good fun. My picture is a bit out of focus, which is probably a good thing. They said it was okay to post the pictures, but maybe better not to be identified. Funny that they even supply the singers with a cardboard guitar for air guitar playing.
Did my first Forest History Society board meeting. It was very interesting and I think the FHS does very worthy work. Everybody was very nice to me and my fellow board members are great people – smart and committed.
My gentleman of leisure portfolio keeps me pretty busy. It was/is the way I designed it. I am not busier than I was when I was working, but there is often a greater diversity of activities. I do to lectures, study lots of books & tapes, participate now on two boards of directors, still get to work overseas for State Department and do my forestry. All of this is great and “retirement” is working out better than I planned. I guess I am feeling a little tired.
I expect that I will get over it. I often felt like this after an official trip or speaking series, even if, especially if, it was successful. It was kind of like, “what next?” When I worked for the FS, I had a defined job and somebody who could kick me in the rear, at least in theory, if I slowed down too much. Now I have only what I create and there is no push. Well, enough of the end of trip angst, seen it before and will see it again. The angst never wins.
My pictures are from our last day in Durham. I had the usual beer. Chrissy did an old fashioned. Next two are Durham street scenes. Last is the floor at the restaurant “Mother & Sons” Trattoria. I took it by mistake, but I thought it looked good.
I am down in Durham to join the board of directors of the Forest History Society. I went for the orientation today and we visited the future society headquarters.
The Forest History Society has an extensive collection of books and documents related to forestry. They also publish books and videos about forestry and ecology.
This is the Forest History Society webpage, gateway to blogs, publications, and videos. The pictures are from the new headquarters. As you can see, it getting on toward being done. There is a lot of exposed wood and the structure is wood, as befits the mission. Lots of the material is donated by forest product industry. Notice especially the beautiful ceilings made out of southern pine.
One thing holding up the completion is the shortage of labor, especially skilled labor. I am hearing this all over the place. Unemployment is so low that it is hard to get anybody to do hard work, or sometimes skilled work. We are facing that problem planting and harvesting trees, and evidently with building too.
We also have our customary beer (or in this case for CJ wine) drinking pictures.They had a dinner for the board members that Chrissy and I got to enjoy.
Chrissy came with me to the farms today so she could take pictures of me with my trees to give perspective of size.
First two pictures are my longleaf pine in Freeman, planted in 2012. We (DoF Adam Smith) burned them in February 2017. Next two are from the SMZ. There are some very big loblolly there, beautiful. Last is one of the baby longleaf (2 years old) on the Brodnax place.
I mentioned the longleaf and had pictures of how they had grown. The first two pictures are t2-year-old loblolly from the Brodnax place. Last is the 22-year old loblolly recently thinned in Freeman. Good to show the size with a human scale. The 2-year-olds are doing very well. As you see, some are more than six feet high and they are coming over the brush. You can well understand why people plant loblolly. They are so easy.
Chrissy & I are in Durham, NC for a meeting of the Forest History Society. I am interested in forests and I am interested in history, so I am going to be on the board of directors of that organization.
The Forest History Society has a research collections on books and documents related to forests and ecology. They also publish a magazine on forest history and one on ecological history. They are just finishing a new headquarters. I expect to see it tomorrow and will include some pictures and texts. Durham is the home of Duke University. The city was in long term economic decline, but has been doing better since it became part of the research triangle. Recently, it was featured in the book “The Smartest Places on Earth: Why Rustbelts Are the Emerging Hotspots of Global Innovation.”
Anyway, we got to Durham this afternoon. Seems a nice place there are lots of places to get a beer and we visited two of them.
The first, featured in the first two pictures, was the Bull & Burger. Next we visited “Taproom.” You pay by the ounce and fill your own cup. We tried a few different kinds and then settled down to a game of shoots and ladders. We used to play this game as kid. It is only random chance, but there is moral lessons. If a kid does good things, he climbs a ladder. If she does bad things, she slides down the shoot. As I recall, I won.
Missing Chrissy and prefer not to drink alone, but I did find a place to get a good IPA. In Brazil you do not say I P A. You make one word out of it ipa.
I walked up to Av Paulista for EducationUSA. This place was right off that main street and called “Pier Paulista.” It was interesting to sit there and watch people walk by.
This is my last Saturday in Brazil. I felt pensive, but not sad. I love being in Brazil, but I really want to go home. I like to be moving, but I am nostalgic for more familiar and permanent things. I guess there is no cure for these contradictions. A couple of beers make you consider them.
Heading back east. The fire conference in Missoula was fun. I got some new insights and lots of things to think about.
Conditions in Virginia are way different from those in the West. Lots of the things that work in our SE ecosystems would be a bad idea out here and the reverse is also true. You really cannot make a policy that works for the whole country.
Today’s talks were useful for me, since they talked about the SE a little more. I was afraid, however, when the first speaker talked about tree mortality and said that trees that were scorched 90% would probably die. We just did a burn that scorched ten acres of loblolly. I was relieved when the next speaker pointed out that, indeed, in the West this was true, but in the SE scorch does not usually kill pines.
We talked about the different fire regimes. I think I added a little to the discussions talking about how spacing affects the heat plumes. I have seen this from experience. The research did not account for changes in convention related to spacing (a tighter canopy hold the heat) and said she would think about it as a factor in her research going forward. The other comment I made was that I thought that backing fires destroy duff, while head fires often scorch. Some of the research conflated the duff destruction with scorch. The two are often inverse. Backing fires look more benign, but they fry the roots. Anyway, it was fun today. It was good to mix the research with the field observation.
A guy from Georgia gave a talk about growing season burns versus dormant season. His research indicates no difference in hardwood suppression, especially dealing with sweet gum. This goes against some of our traditional wisdom, but it is a good thing, if true. It is safer to burn in winter. I got the guy’s information and will follow this.
My pictures show the usual beer drinking. Since it is my birthday, we went to a place called “Jake’s”. My relatives know, but my friends may not, that was my nickname when I was a kid. The next picture is a gas station in big sky country. Finally is a photo from one of the morning lectures, showing convention and its effects on trees, in theory.
