Trip to Sacramento

I went to the CalNex data meeting in Sacramento to give a talk (similar to my AGU talk) about methane emissions in L.A. and from rice fields.

I took off during a cloudy day in Colorado, which made for a nice sea of clouds lapping up against Longs Peak.


We reached California's Central Valley around sunset.


I was excited to see flooded rice fields!


Our hotel was near the former governor's mansion. The last governor to live there was Ronald Reagan.


Here's Cesar Chavez Park and the California EPA building, where the meeting was held.


The Capitol was surprisingly dull.


On my way home, one of the static discharge wicks on the wing of the plane kept vibrating, so I took a picture of it.

Summer is almost here

We finally had nice weather this weekend, with temperatures getting up near 80. Saturday, I walked downtown for coffee with Sara. I took a new path across the street from my place, which brought me past this garden I didn't know was there.


Nearing downtown, we passed what looked like new pine cone formation.


Today, I weeded my front "yard".



I couldn't fully enjoy the nice weather, because my knee's been acting up, and because I went into work for awhile today.

Nice View

My favorite view when I drive into work in the morning is of the mountains above Boulder. I especially like it after it's snowed up there, and the following morning is sunny and clear. Like this morning!



I also liked the sky when I left work this evening, so I stopped by the same spot on the way home.

Weekend

My friend and former coworker Ed was in town this weekend. Today I went golfing with him and Eli. It was my first golf of the season (in fact, the first since I hurt my knee last summer).


On my way into Boulder Saturday night, I took some sunset pictures. I tweaked the last two to make it appear closer to what my eyes saw.

Trivia

We didn't do so well at trivia this week -- 7th place for Greg, Tara (a coworker), me, Cora, and Trevor.


The highlight of the night came when Cora won eyeball bandages for answering a bonus question correctly.


Trevor was excited for the non-bandage eyeball sticker:

Yellowstone, Day 2

Wednesday, on our way to Mammoth Hot Springs, we passed by the Norris Geyser Basin. Julie and I were surprised at the amount of steam rising from the area:


We also passed by Roaring Mountain:


The highlight of Mammoth Hot Springs was the hillside, with terraced pools oozing minerals.


The day before, I had remarked that I hadn't seen any small mammals yet. At Mammoth Hot Springs, we saw a black-tailed jackrabbit:


and a chipmunk:


Then we headed off to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. We weren't able to access the North Rim, but we were able to see the Lower Falls from Artist Point:


Then we went back to the Norris Geyser Basin and hiked around the geysers there. My favorite was the Steamboat Geyser. Not only was it fairly active (with occasional 10 foot spouts), but it had a neat little vent that looked like a mini volcano (the gray mound in the foreground).


On our way out of the park, we saw either a wolf or a coyote:


We also saw an elk that still had its antlers:


We drove to Jackson that night, and home to Boulder on Thursday. It was a great little trip -- now Julie and I both want to go back in the summer when the whole park is open (and we can enter it from Wyoming instead of Montana)!

Yellowstone, Day 1

Our day started out in Jackson. Here I am at one of four gates made from discarded elk antlers at the town square:


A few hours later, we were finally in Yellowstone National Park. The first thing we saw was an elk close to the road:


Then several bison passed us on the road:


We saw dozens of bison and geysers today. Here is combined photo of the two!


One of the geysers contributing to that steam was this one:


This geyser area also had a bubbling pool of mud:


Most of the steam in the bison picture came from this geyser:


After many stops, we eventually made our way to see Old Faithful.


This is a picture of (L to R) me, Old Faithful, and Julie:


We then walked around the Old Faithful area checking out other geysers.


We spent enough time wandering that we saw Old Faithful erupt a second time!


We stopped by the Midway Basin after Old Faithful.


Then we drove around looking for wildlife. We saw this bald eagle, which was perched nicely on the top of an old burned tree until just before Julie was about to snap his picture, at which point it flew away, leaving Julie to frantically take its picture as best she could:


Then we came upon a bison traffic jam:


We eventually had to turn around and head for our hotel in West Yellowstone. Just when we thought our day was over, we came upon this wolf eating a carcas:



It was the first time I'd ever seen a wolf in the wild. A professional photographer was in another car that had pulled over to watch. Through her scope, we saw the wolf up close. It was like watching a National Geographic special! There were three other wolves sitting and waiting off to the side. Eventually, this wolf finished gnawing at the bones, left the remains to the crows, and headed off with the other three wolves. It was the highlight of the day!