Exit78 Photo of the Day #45

In Arkansas, tulips are an annual. Native (ProFlowers) to eastern Turkey and the foothills of the Himalaya mountains, regions with a cold winter and hot, dry summer, tulips thrive in similar conditions around the world.  Unfortunately, from the perspective of growing tulips, our winters aren’t cold enough for a long enough period of time. Sometimes a bulb or two will last for more than a year or two, but tulips don’t flourish for multiple years here.

Tulips blooming in west-central Arkansas, March 26, 2018 (Apple iPhone 6s)

Series notes:

• The photos in this series are (usually) randomly selected from a batch of photos specifically “curated” for Exit78 Photo of the Day.
• Each photo in this series is an “original work” – a copyright term – of Michael Goad.

Exit78 Photo of the Day #44

One beautiful September day in 2013, we took a drive on the mostly unpaved Minnesota River Valley National Scenic Byway, where we came across the ruins of a 19th century home.

Ruins of Joseph R. Brown house, Minnesota River Valley National Scenic Byway, Minnesota, September 7, 2013 (Pentax K-r)

The Joseph R. Brown State Wayside Rest (Wikipedia)  is a National Scenic Byway Wayside Rest area. It is located on Renville County Highway 15, south of Sacred Heart, Minnesota, United States.

The Wayside Rest displays the granite ruins of Joseph R. Brown’s home from 1862. Brown, his mixed-blood wife and twelve children lived in this home, which was a center of hospitality along the Minnesota River Valley. The three-story home was then considered a mansion compared to typical pioneer homes. It was destroyed during the Dakota War of 1862 on August 19, 1862. His family was spared because of his wife’s Native American heritage.

Brown was a politician, inventor, publisher, and Indian Agent.

Series notes:

• The photos in this series are (usually) randomly selected from a batch of photos specifically “curated” for Exit78 Photo of the Day.
• Each photo in this series is an “original work” – a copyright term – of Michael Goad.

Art on Sunday #26

Stained Glass Window, Copper Foil  Method, Fordyce Bathhouse, Hot Springs National Park, August 19, 2012 (Pentax K-r)

The  Fordyce opened March 1, 1915. Designed by Little Rock architects Mann and Stern and constructed under the supervision of owner Sam Fordyce’s son John, the building eventually cost over $212,000 to build, equip, and furnish.

The interior features marble walls, benches, and stairs; terra-cotta fountains; stained glass skylights and windows; a wood-paneled coed gymnasium (at the time said to be the largest of its kind in the state); and private staterooms. Even the basement was bustling with activity, with its bowling alley and its quartz-crystal ornamented spring display. Today, the Fordyce is a museum and the park’s visitor center.

Exit78 Photo of the Day #43

The lawn of the Cold War Memorial was recently mown, the dew was heavy, there had been recent rains, and mushrooms were popping.

Mushroom on grounds of Cold War Memorial, Patriots Point Naval and maritime Museum, Charleston Harbor, South Carolina, June 13, 2012 (Pentax K-r)

Series notes:

• The photos in this series are (usually) randomly selected from a batch of photos specifically “curated” for Exit78 Photo of the Day.
• Each photo in this series is an “original work” – a copyright term – of Michael Goad.

Exit78 Photo of the Day #42

Many western U.S. parks use cairns – human-made piles of stone – as trail markers over rocky or barren terrain. Unfortunately some park visitors think it’s cool and fun to create their own stacks of of rock.

Visitor created stacks of rock – rock graffiti – Canyonlands National Park, Utah, September 28, 2011 (Pentax K-r)

“Rock graffiti, even if seemingly impermanent, disturbs the natural state of the environment for other visitors, and have a permanent ecological impact. Also, be aware that it is considered by the National Park Service as a form of vandalism and it is illegal.” (Zion National Park)

A lot of people will think, “Oh, what’s the harm?”

There’s not much harm if one – and only one – person builds a stack of stones, but it’s never going to be just one.  Other people will follow along and do the same, with no thought that they are disrupting the natural state of the site or possibly doing ecological damage to a fragile ecosystem.

For national parks, in particular, and other wild parks, defining characteristics include that the ecosystem is not materially altered by human exploitation and steps are taken to prevent or eliminate such exploitation. (International Union for the Conservation of Nature)

Many parks have fragile ecosystems that can be easily damaged. Utah’s Arches National Park, Canyonlands National Park, Hovenweep National Monument, Natural Bridges National Monument, for example, are covered in many areas in bumpy, clumpy, blackened soil – biological soil crust, a living ground cover that includes lichen, mosses, green algae, microfungi, and bacteria, but is dominated by cyanobacteria. It helps control erosion by keeping soil stuck together.  It also holds and retains water. Humans can destroy this protective crust without meaning to. Vehicle tracks, bicycles, and footprints are harmful, as is taking rocks from the soil to build stacks of rocks.  Breaking up the crust makes it easier for rain and wind to scatter the soil.

Considerate visitors respect the parks, take only pictures, and leave only footprints, conserving the park environment for those who follow.

Series notes:

• The photos in this series are (usually) randomly selected from a batch of photos specifically “curated” for Exit78 Photo of the Day.
• Each photo in this series is an “original work” – a copyright term – of Michael Goad.

Exit78 Photo of the Day #41

We first saw this beautiful Catholic church perched on a rock about nine miles south of Estes park on Colorado 7 in the early 1990s. On our 2011 trip, we stopped to get some pictures from the road.

Chapel on a Rock (St. Catherine of Siena Chapel), Allenspark, Colorado, September 16, 2011 (Pentax K10D)

St. Catherine of Siena Chapel is built on a large piece of granite that the Colorado highway department once planned to dynamite to widen and straighten the road. Located on the grounds of  Saint Malo Retreat, Conference, and Spiritual Center, which was badly damaged in a fire in November 2011, the chapel was completed in 1936, fulfilling a 20 year-old inspiration of Monsignor Joseph Bosetti that was based on the Biblical phrase “upon this rock I will build my church.”

Plans to rebuild the Retreat Center were thwarted when 2013 devastating floods and mudslides badly damaged the land and infrastructure needed for the restoration, though it left the chapel, built on that granite rock, undamaged. Current restoration and renovation plans will rebuild portions of the property with a new retreat center built elsewhere due to the unpredictable conditions of the land and the possibility of future sediment flows and mudslides. Improvements inside the St. Catherine of Siena Chapel have been completed.

Series notes:

• The photos in this series are (usually) randomly selected from a batch of photos specifically “curated” for Exit78 Photo of the Day.
• Each photo in this series is an “original work” – a copyright term – of Michael Goad.

Exit78 Photo of the Day #40

The thermal features of Yellowstone are fascinating and deadly.

Black Pool, West Thumb Geyser Basin, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, August 4, 2010 (Pentax K10D)

Black Pool (Wikipedia) is a hot spring – temperature 72.9 °C (163.2 °F) – in the West Thumb Geyser Basin of Yellowstone National Park in the United States.

The pool was cool enough up until 1991 for dark orange-brown cyanobacteria to grow throughout the pool. When combined with the blue of the water, the pool appeared to be an exceptionally dark green to almost black, hence the name.

An exchange of function took place in 1991, shifting thermal energy to Black Pool and nearby Abyss Pool, causing them to heat up. Black Pool’s temperature became hot enough to kill all the cyanobacteria in the pool, turning the pool a rich teal blue color. The pool also had frequent boiling eruptions on August 15, 1991, doming the water to 3 feet and causing heavy runoff. Black Pool remains extremely hot, and is now one of Yellowstone’s most beautiful and intensely blue pools. The name of the pool remains “Black Pool.”

Series notes:

• The photos in this series are (usually) randomly selected from a batch of photos specifically “curated” for Exit78 Photo of the Day.
• Each photo in this series is an “original work” – a copyright term – of Michael Goad.

Exit78 Photo of the Day #39

Four months from now, the air will be hot and heavy with humidity, the cicadas will be droning and the summer flowers will be in bloom.

Black-eyed Susan blossoms (Rudbeckia hirta) in the yard, west-central Arkansas, July 27, 2008 (Pentax K10D)

Rudbeckia hirta, commonly called black-eyed Susan, is a North American flowering plant in the sunflower family, native to Eastern and Central North America and naturalized in the Western part of the continent as well as in China. It has now been found in all 10 Canadian Provinces and all 48 of the states in the contiguous United States.

Rudbeckia hirta is one of a number of plants with the common name black-eyed Susan. Other common names for this plant include: brown-eyed Susan, brown betty, gloriosa daisy, golden Jerusalem, English bull’s eye, poor-land daisy, yellow daisy, and yellow ox-eye daisy.

The plant also is a traditional Native American medicinal herb in several tribal nations; believed in those cultures to be a remedy, among other things, for colds, flu, infection, swelling and (topically, by poultice) for snake bite (although not all parts of the plant are edible)

Series notes:

• The photos in this series are (usually) randomly selected from a batch of photos specifically “curated” for Exit78 Photo of the Day.
• Each photo in this series is an “original work” – a copyright term – of Michael Goad.

Post-processing¹ #14

Navajo Loop Trail, Bryce Canyon National Park, October 7, 2015 (Apple iPhone panorama)

Navajo Loop Trail, the most popular trail in Bryce Canyon National Park, takes visitors down into the Bryce Amphitheater. Rated as a moderate trail, it drops steeply² from Sunset Point regardless of which direction the hiker takes. The last half of the 1.4 mile trail climbs back up to Sunset Point.

1. Image editing to enhance the photo closer to what the eye “saw.” Images in this series are selected within a day or so of being edited and are either posted at the time or scheduled for posting at a later date.
2. Online, you’ll find several different numbers for the elevation change for this hike. The park service page says 550 feet,  AllTrails has 521 feet, and Utah.com has 800 feet! Besides latitude and longitude, the GPS in my Pentax camera records the elevation for each photo.  From a photo taken at the top and another down in the amphitheater, I calculated 450 feet.