Ummagnumma

I rolled down the window. The breeze was chilly. Very chilly. It was early June, but northeast Minnesota did not seem to care. In the late spring of 2006, I embarked on a week of fishing and sightseeing in the Boundary Waters region of Minnesota with my father. We were to meet in late afternoon on a Saturday, but I decided to leave Norman, OK, early on Friday. Early ended up being about 1 pm, but that still falls under the definition of the word in my book. The drive was solely to be I-35 until the town of Cloquet, after which various highways would take me to my final destination of White Iron Lake, a few miles east of Ely. The drive on I-35 is beautiful in its vastness. The Flint Hills of Kansas are ... read more

Three friends and I went hiking on a beautiful late winter day (February 2009) in the Wichita Mountains. This small mountain chain is located in southwest Oklahoma, west of Lamont. These "mountains" (more like glorified hills) are quite different from the Ouachita Mountains in southeast Oklahoma, as the climate is much drier. Enjoy the photos. Coming up in future blogs: Table Rock Lake, MO; Bridger-Teton National Forest, WY; Two Harbors, MN; and San Francisco, CA.... read more

Vacations require hiccups. Trips you plan cannot and should never go as scheduled. If they do, you won't have as much fun, and you won't remember it as much as you'd prefer. Mom and I went to Canada in 2006, and it was a wonderful trip. We visited Niagara Falls, Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal, and I loved each place in many ways. Because it was a road trip, we had to drive there. From Lincoln, NE, that's no small task. The first three days were completely drive-days, though the first day we left after Mom finished work for the day. Hey, that's an extra day of vacation she can have later! The first night, we stayed in the Quad Cities. We arrived there around midnight, and after a quick sleep, we left the next morning at ... read more

Horsin' Around In June 2007, my sister, three college friends, and I went to Grand Lake and Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP) to hike the Cascade Falls trail. It was a beautiful sunny day that turned out to be relatively warm and smelly. Smelly in the "horse trash" sort of way. A long stretch of the trail is shared by horses. We actually met a few on the way back. We knew many more had been there, given the "remains of the day". Unfortunately, this required looking down as much as out on the forested trail. The western side of RMNP is much greener than its eastern counterpart. The mountains are smoother, and the ground is almost impossible to see because of the thick canopy. This side is wetter, and typically, the scenery is considered inferior ... read more

Fresh from a week of seminars and posters, colleagues and friends, shrimp on river boats and shrimp in local restaurants, my visit to Savannah last year ended with a short excursion to the Atlantic Coast. In all ways you can imagine, I needed some fresh air. I like talking about meteorology as much as the next of a seemingly infinite number of guys and gals, but there is life outside of work. There is a whole world outside the windows of a confining hotel with mysterious thermostat problems. My friend Somer, her massive pickup truck (which could be easily confused with a tank), and I decided to ride (plow, run over) US 80 to Tybee Island. On the way, we saw beautiful trees, marshes, and tall grasses signaling the transition from land habitat to sea habitat. ... read more