Blogs from United States, North America

Day 49……19/05/2012 Well as predicted, it was just a kick back day today, and I will struggle to find anything to say. Lynne caught up with her cousin Sophie who is eight months pregnant, and has not seen for around thirteen years, and I just generally got in the way while Brian, Sophie’s husband gave their pool a bit of a spruce up. He had this great little vacuum cleaner type machine that attached itself to the bottom of the pool, and then just merrily went about its business scrubbing away. But that’s all I can say about today really. Day 50……20/05/2012 Today we will visit the Saguaro National Park which is situated just to the west of Tucson, where there are literally thousands of the famous cacti of the same name. We were warned to ... read more

The Late Jurassic age Mygatt-Moore Quarry is located in the middle Brushy Basin Member of the Morrison Formation. Located in western Colorado, this quarry has been worked since the early 1980s, producing a large sample of fossil vertebrate material consisting mostly of dinosaurs. For this study, 796 identifiable bones were counted from the Museum of Western Colorado's collections with the goal of characterizing the vertebrate fauna from this site for the first time. The bone sample consists of 50% sauropod bones and 30% theropod. A minimum number of 21 individual dinosaurs are represented. The most abundant taxon at the quarry is the theropod Allosaurus (29%), which is represented by 233 skeletal elements indicating a minimum of 6 individuals (5 adults, 1 juvenile); in addition, more than 190 mostly shed teeth of Allosaurus have been recovered from ... read more

Day 7. One week down, fifty-one to go. On this lucky-numbered day, we finished up the Big Sur coastline. The sun was coming through the clouds, and the water sparkled. We passed a beautiful cove: waves crashing against worn rocks, a little stream coming out the hills, a sandbar covered in shorebirds, the hillsides glistening with dew. In another cove, we saw two sea otters resting amongst the kelp and at least 25 harbor seals relaxing on the rocks. Passing over several historic bridges built in the early 1930's, we came to Monterey, a city set like a gem on the oceanfront. Following signs for the famous aquarium, we came down alongside the beach, where we found some surprisingly decently-priced parking. ($2 an hour! Downtown!) Before heading to the aquarium, we took Rascal for a walk. ... read more

Hi everyone! I've been in Seattle for a few days now, and it looks like I spoke too soon... it's been gloriously sunny the entire time, it was just a bit miserable when I arrived at 6am that first morning. Yay! Right now I;m in an internet cafe called 'Cyberdogs' on 9th and Pike. It's pretty trippy, there's loads of posters and mad shit hanging from the walls... oh and there's 3 scary stoned clowns sitting in front of me. One of them is a vegan and is clearly very proud of himself ('Cyberdogs' is a vegetarian cafe). Speaking of which, I finally gave in and bought some boots. I got black Dr Marten's, and oddly enough they are vegan! I would have happily bought the leather ones, but the truth is they were much more ... read more