Sometimes Life is Perfect

Last weekend was pretty much spectacular. I lead a very spoiled life, but I am very grateful for it. So being spoiled isn't such a bad thing if you recognize that you are spoiled, right? Anyhoo, I went on a geology field trip to the grand canyon. We started off stopping at the place where lake Bonneville drained. Its in Idaho. Yep. We examined the channel it carved through some basalt, and I took my very first picture of my rock hammer. The holes in the rock are vesicles (bubbles) that formed from the gaseous basalt as it flowed as lava.

Don't worry if you aren't impressed or interested by this statement. It just proves how nerdy I am. Following the stop in Inkom, Idaho, we went to a gas station in Utah. No joke. There we examined the different water levels of the body of water that is currently the great salt lake. Also we discussed how the "bench" along the mountain is actually a fault and that everything built on it is located on a seismically unsafe region. Memo to self: don't live on the bench. From there we hopped, skipped, and jumped (or maybe just drove) to the Bingham  copper mine. It was big, as always.

Following the mine we headed to BYU's museum of Paleontology and got to watch as dinosaur bones were removed from rock and were prepped to be put on display or shipped off to other museums. It turns out that dinosaur bones are like legos and you can use someone else's legos to complete your own skeleton?

And I want Ben to hunt an Elk of THIS size. 

After that we went the long haul to St. George with the periodic spotting of cinder cones (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinder_cone) and in-depth discussions of fault-lines and geologic forces at work in central/southern utah. We camped just outside of St. George next to some petrified sand dunes. We called it the "no fun" zone because the rules included: no fire, no climbing on rocks, no sleeping on the grass, and no smiling. That last one might be made up... 

The next day we drove to Colorado city to look at all the polygamists. No joke, look carefully at the name of this gas station. The ladies we met inside were super friendly and all of them wore long dresses and some of them wore bonnets. Plus the houses around there were pretty massive, but not mansion-like. 

We went to a part of the grand canyon that very few people see. And seeing how my little pamphlet is all the way on the other side of the room, the name will remain a mystery. We had to off road a bit to get there, and I was impressed with those 12 seater Chevy vans that we rode in. No wonder why the BYU-I fleet coordinators don't like the geology department... So we continued on until we were met with a view like this-

Thats a 2000 foot vertical cliff right under them. Then after a "bounce" its another 1000 feet to the river.

My frozen, terrified position is due to that incredibly long way down. Manly, no?

To reinstate my dominance over the multimillion year old landscape I flexed at it. Manhood restored. 

And here are some pictures that I snapped of the group while we were there. I preferred taking pictures of others rather than having my picture taken. So if you are bored by this part, just skip. 

View from the cinder cone, looking at the other cinder cone. The two vans are scale.

 The campground facing the valley.

 This pavilion was put up some 40 years ago. You can see how much soil erosion has occurred in the last 40 years. Pretty neat, yeah? Now just wait another 10,000 years and we'll have another arm to the canyon! By the way, the rock hammer is used to provide scale for the picture. Its a point of reference. Or perhaps I have an obsession with that hammer. Who knows.

 After we broke camp we headed off to see some dinosaur tracks in southern Utah. The landscape was pretty amazing.

 Here is one of the sets. My professor was being a "dinosaur." He was a terribly serious man who never goofed around.

 Another set. This sucker was much bigger. My paleontology skills tells me it was an allosaurus. Or maybe its impossible for anyone to tell what made the tracks. But it doesn't stop me from making up stuff. It was way cool.

 The view as we walked back to the car. So GREEN!

 On Sunday we stopped by the St. George temple for about an hour to walk around the grounds and to go inside the visitor center. It was a very nice way to end the week. I just wish we could have done a session.

After that we drove back home. The ride home wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be, and we had good conversation the entire time. It was a very wonderful experience, and my favorite part would have to be having a temple experience while surrounded by God's creations. Its pretty amazing that we have this beautiful world to live in, and this experience just helped me remember some of the Lord's tender mercies in my life. This is the truncated version of my adventures, and we stopped about a million more places, but it was much less picturesque and had more to do with the technical analysis of the landscape and how it formed. Next on the list of adventures is Latin dancing and then Mesa Falls. I love life!