Daydreaming Sunday
It is Sunday Morning. My wife is travelling on business, and I got the kids to take care of. But that is not a bad thing as you might think, I actually have the full liberty of doing whatever I want with them and they do as well. For example, they can sleep in as long as they want. The older is doing just that (I do not mind) and the younger just had a bowl of cereal with me. So now I can finish my second cup of coffee and write something for the #weekend-engagement. I have never written here before, but I know of its existence from the very beginning and I am an avid follower. Although, I don't comment or engage majority of the time, mostly due to time constraints, but I do keep in touch with @galenkp on a regular basis. Congratulation to Galen and the community for the two year anniversary.
Imaginary Trip
On to the trip I was day dreaming. I shared this map with Galen earlier about a trip maybe someday I might take, on a RV from my hometown Houston, TX to Anchorage, AK. Below is the screenshot from my laptop. Those stars that you see on my google are are not just the places I have been (I don't mark the spots, just for the sake of marking), the marked points are places of interest that I have been multiple times and just used for driving directions. This is a random footprint of my places of interest in the US. Again it is NOT a list of places that I have been. If I plot those the map will be quite a bit full to see anything of interest anyways. It is just a random of more frequented places that I visit rather regularly. The point of this rambling is the fact that you can immediately see that I visit western US more often, and do not visit eastern parts at all. That is quite true. I rarely visit east of the continental divide of the US. Also I visit Alaska a lot! This is quite true as well (you are getting a glimpse of my traveling habits within the US). Also there are no 'stars' on Canada, although I have been there, but mostly shorts trips around Calgary and Vancouver, and mostly business trips. Airport and business hotels are all that I have seen in Canada. So Canada remains largely unexplored for me.
So I was thinking, since I enjoy Alaska so much, and never really been to Canada in any meaningful way, when kids leave for college, maybe my wife and I can make a trip across the continent of North America. It is nearly 4200 miles long trip, and likely will have many detours, and that will give us a good understanding of this continent.
The US part of the drive I have done multiple times before, from Texas to Colorado to Wyoming to Montana, all the way to the southern border of Canada. I used to do some field work around Glacier National Park, MT, so I used to frequent there as a student.
This is North Fork of Teton River, in the Distrubed Belt Montana (there is nothing disturbing about the disturbed belt, its very peaceful!), just south of the Glacier National Park, where my wife and I used to do some mapping :) Brings back a lot of memory. I will be sure to visit this old field area of ours. That ranch property you see in the middle of picture, used to be owned by a gentle natured, kind Montana Mountain Man :) He offered us to stay there for free :) I don't know if the gentleman is still around now, probably won't be in 10 years, when I plan on doing this trip for sure. He was in his late 60s back then, about 16-18 years backs when I last saw him!
However, North of the US-Canadian border is unknown territory for me, and nearly unlimited adventure awaits. It is Banff and Jasper National Parks in Canada that I wanted to visit for a long time. I might not wait 10 years to do that. Recently my nephew moved to Edmonton, CA to study and I might visit him soon enough. Hopefully next summer will be good time to do that trip. So that I will have some familiarity around the southern part of the route around Alberta.
Still there is a lot of land between Alberta to Alaska, where I re-enter my familiar country again. But I am seriously looking forward to the drives through upper British Columbia and Yukon. Such a wonderful history of Native Americans and then Gold Rush there! That part alone could take months. So perhaps it is better for me to start from Calgary, and skip the US part, as that is something I have done many times. I am not sure what I will do, but it is excellent to daydream about it!
Damn!! That is still 3400 miles!! Isn't North America BIG!
Happy weekend, folks!
Hello Azircon
Many thanks for stopping by and posting for the 2 year Anniversary. Quite a milestone for Galen and the community as a whole.
It is always good to be able to take out a map and put together a plan, even if it's in the near future (I say that because time goes so fast). You are a geologist I believe, please correct the terminology if it's incorrect. What kind of treasures are there awaiting you in Canada?
My mom was a gemcutter and always wanted to seek out Mexican Fire Agate with her own hands.
Yes, I am a geologist, so is my wife.
Mexican fire agates are found in Northern Mexico and New Mexico in the US as well. Essentially all along the Rio Grande Rift. They are quite rare actually.
That makes finding places to explore together much easier with geology in common.
I hope that you'll get to do your trip out to Canada, it makes sense to go somewhere that you haven't previously explored.
I would assume that things like Fire Agates would be like opals and become more scarce as time goes on, but I don't know that much about the formations out there.
Isn't Rio Grande also the name of a jewellery equipment supplier in the US?
They are all cryptocrystalline silica (sand). However, they are so small grains that even is basic crystal structure is visible with microscope. Typically very fine layers of Geothite and Laterite (both iron oxide) and interlayered with Agate to give that unique red color that comes out when polished. During the Tertiary, post Oligocene, 28 Ma ago to the last Ice age, there have been a lot of volanic eruption is the west and southern US. Fire Agates are associated with that.
Rio Grade is a river in the sourthen US, that flows through the rift of the that same name. Its a rather common name in the US.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rio_Grande_rift
https://geoinfo.nmt.edu/publications/periodicals/litegeology/33/lg_v33.pdf
These will help you get oriented if you are interested.
Ah ok, that makes sense as to why some of them have the bubble like looks, I didn't know much about how they are formed and the connection to volcanoes, I appreciate the insight.
I'll go take a read on the links you shared, thank you.
3400 km is a long journey,but you have really travel all those place in the map above,you have quite advanture, and you are still exploring that awesome.
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SixtyNine hours your sayy??
more like 69 days. Google is clueless
even better.
This looks like an epic trip 🤩 wow
4200 miles, would be cool and to be able to do many detours as well, to see more off the road.
I know it is still a bit away. How long are you thinking to do this trip over… day wise/ or even months. Or are you just planning to go and see what happens. More like an adventure that can change along the way.
Hope you do the trip. This way you can fully explore the areas.
Yep North America is truly big 😉
can be done over 2 months in summer I think. Also, I probably start from Calgary and skip the US part.
2 months sounds right for a trip like that.
It is a bit shorter, more time for your favourite parts 😉
I lived in Houston and did the TX to Colorado a couple of times.
Would be a cool trip in Canada and I would love to head up to Alaska too!
Yeah, I haven't done a long driving trip in a while. Mostly because of time and my kids don't enjoy driving, not yet anyways..
Ah well, maybe when they get a wee bit older, they might enjoy, mind you it is a bloody long drive to cross Texas!
May you have lots of stars :) I watched many documentaries about Alaska. It's a wonderful place. Thanks for sharing. It was fun to read.