National Parks @ MindSay

Two self-styled vigilantes against typos who defaced a more than 60-year-old, hand-painted sign at Grand Canyon National Park were sentenced to probation and banned from national parks for a year.

Jeff Deck and Benjamin Herson pleaded guilty August 11 for the damage done March 28 at the park's Desert View Watchtower. The sign was made by Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter, the architect who designed the rustic 1930s watchtower and other Grand Canyon-area landmarks.

Deck and Herson, both 28, toured the United States this spring, wiping out errors on government and private signs. They were interviewed by NPR and the Chicago Tribune, which called them "a pair of Kerouacs armed with Sharpies and erasers and righteous indignation."

An affidavit by National Park Service agent Christopher A. Smith said investigators learned of the vandalism from an Internet site operated by Deck on behalf of the Typo Eradication Advancement League.

The misspelled word "emense" was not fixed, Deck wrote, because "I was reluctant to disfigure the sign any further. ... Still, I think I shall be haunted by that perversity, emense, in my train-whistle-blighted dreams tonight."

Went for a quick ride to town today and stopped at one of my cache's to check on it and grab a National Park Geocoin that I will take up to Oregon tomorrow ..... geocaching day.

cllecr spiked my interest in the coins and when I saw one had been dropped off at the cache I had to go and get it .... and share with her.



This coin represents a National Park in Maine ..... see the flip side ....



Pretty coin ..... and will have fun sending it on it's way .... it wants to untimately return home to NY. It started out in Southern California.



Another bug in the cache.  I left this one there .... if it doesn't get picked up in a while I'll retrieve it too and move it along.  This also started out in Southern California.  It's goal ..... is to visit as many "bugs" as possible.

So tomorrow I'll be off geocaching ..... and I can't wait.  Thinking I'll take Route 66 east and pick up a few in that direction.  Haven't been to far that way and it'll be new territory ..... one without snow .... hopefully.

It was a blessing to grab a towel after the shower this morning dry my hair .... walk to the mirror and just kind of finger it a second .... and whhhhaaaaaaalaaaaaa ......... done.  My kind of styling .... let me tell you! 

Hope everyone is having a good Saturday.  I'm looking forward to my Sunday ........

Peace.  J.

Holy scraps!

 

It's been a while. 14,000 miles and counting. We're in San Francisco, staying with one of Stacey's friends. This will be our first night that we're NOT camping. Amazing really, being on the road for over 70 days thus far. The sights, the sounds, the pictures - all incredible. We've seen so many things...and now I can upload a few pictures - finally!!

 

I'll dispense with the blatherings. These are just some random shots I could cobble together quickly before we go out to dinner. I have many, many more:

 

The fishing has been good:

 

But where we were fishing, these guys were nearby - also fishing:

 

And our entry into the wonderful 49th state:

The Alcan is a long, long drive. Denali and Mt. McKinley are amazing (when you can see them):

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The glaciers makes everything look small:

And lots of great hikes to the mountain tops:

Of course, I spoke of Haines, Alaska. Go there sometime:

And you can also climb to the top of those mountains:

 

The sunset is after midnight - but it's usually pretty nice:

Before all that - on the way up I had to take pictures again at Jasper and Banff - they were much better this time around:

 

And my new header is the recent shots of Crater Lake I just took. Awesome place. Tons more where these came from. It's been amazing :)

I rarely go camping at parks that are at impoundments.  The are generally the worst quaility of parks and seem to attract the wrong sort of crowds.  Its hard to enjoy the solitude of nature with shitheads zooming past in their speed boats.  The oily sheen of spilt gas on the water and the danger of lost fishing gear on the shores.  Broken beer bottles and smashed up cheap styrofoam coolers.  This is of, course on top of the severe environmental damage caused by these man made lakes.  The flooding of the prime habitat, so assholes can water their golf courses and have a place to tailgate on Saturday nights, is truly apalling. 

 

 

But beneath these stagnant waters lies the once beautiful rivers that the dams flooded.  I say it is time to tear down the dams and let the rivers be wild and living things that they once were.

 

Finally some sense.  Finally some wins to us:

 

The decision to protect 180,000 ha of Tasmania's old growth forests including the Tarkine rainforest & part of the Styx Valley;

Commitment by the QLD Govt to establish a Wild Rivers Act and a promise of $10million towards the protection of Cape York Peninsula;

A forty fold increase in protection for WA's marine environment with another 120,000 ha added to no-take sanctuary zones;

7,000 ha of NSW old growth forests protected, including the vital upper Deau, Monga and South Brooman water catchments;

In Victoria, declaration of 102,000 ha of the Otway Ranges to create a new Great Otway Nat Park and a further 10,000 ha of Geelong's water catchments excluded from logging;

Declaration of the new National Park and petroleum exclusion zone at Coongie Lakes, SA, that represents the end of 20 years of controversy over petroleum activity in the region.

 

All it took was a few letters and donations by all.  Individuals make a difference.