Wonky? No Wonky?

For Fault Rocks (and anyone else wondering): definition of wonky, according to some free internet dictionary.

won·ky (wngk)
adj. won·ki·er, won·ki·est Chiefly British
1. Shaky; feeble.
2. Wrong; awry.

I think I picked up this term in Seattle, but the blog title phrase comes from the Noatak River trip I took with Bryn and Louis back in 2005. I'd forgotten about this story until Bryn and Louis retold it (mostly for the entertainment of others) when I was last in Alaska.

The catch 22 for people with a coffee addiction is that you need the coffee to start being functional in the morning, but you have to be somewhat functional to get the coffee into your system. This is especially true in the backcountry.

So, one morning on the trip, I was attempting to pour the functionality elixir into my mug and Louis pointed out that the mug looked a little wonky (I had infected them both with this word during the course of the trip). All I could manage to do/say in response was yell "No wonky! No wonky!" at my coffee cup. It is one of those trip stories that is really only funny to the people on the trip (or those who have seen me try to function without coffee), but the general sentiment seemed to capture a little of the day to day struggle in life. You'll never reach a fully No Wonky state (and really, who would want that? The wonky stories are usually so entertaining), but you still try.....

In a rut....

This one is for Mom. Mom's small obsession with wagon wheel ruts became clear during multiple family vacations driving out west. We stopped at all kinds of Oregon Trail sites and saw ruts in corn fields, sage brush, as a part of highway rest stops, you name it.

I came across this Oregon Trail site on the Snake River plain in SE Idaho during the drive to Powell yesterday; the Massacre Rock historical site. Apparently about 10 Trail goers from 3 or 4 different wagon trains were killed during attacks here over the course of a couple days. Despite the slightly macabre association, there ARE nice rocks to look at, with Snake River canyon volcanics as the backdrop.

The top of the ruts was about even with the top of my head.
Just up the road is another site, called Register Rock, where many Trail goers carved their names in the rock; this is nicely surrounded by a giant chain link fence, in the middle of a picnicking park.
I've been told there are ruts here in Powell and that we may see them during the workshop field trip in the Big Horn Basin on Tuesday....

Outta Here!

Ok, field vehicle is loaded, computer is backed up, I've made more Landsat images in the last 36 hours than I care to think about, and I just deposited the equivalent of half of my salary from last year into my checking account.

I think I'm ready to go. Finally!

Mileage contest

I'm back in Santa Cruz and getting ready for my June 22nd departure for the West. I recently tried to estimate the number of miles I'll drive, for a proposal budget, so here is my challenge to you:

The closest mileage estimate to the actual number of miles I drive wins something. I don't know what; a souvenir from the Corn Palace maybe? Your very own paleosol carbonate? Email or post your estimates.

I don't guarantee an unbiased contest and I'm not above being bribed.

To help get started, I drive straight to Powell, Wyoming, stay there for a few days, and the head to Nephi, Utah on June 27th, by way of Salt Lake City to pick up my field assistant. That is ~1600 miles.

Squeezing in some porch time in Santa Cruz:

End China

Here are some last photos: random rock shots for the geologically inclined, and some more tourist shots from Beijing.

Salt pits in the Qaidam basin:

Some good-looking ripples

The modern china conflict: construction vs. history

I like these guys:

Dallying in Dunhuang

So, Brian and Brad returned to Golmud on the 8th, we drove to Dunhuang yesterday, and will head out tomorrow. It is hot and dry here, on the edge of the desert and the air feels thick. Maybe thats just the influence of phlegm...

The drive through Qaidam is pretty incredible. It is this vast basin with small peaks along the perimeter. I've never seen alluvial plains on this kind of scale. The peaks look as though they're being swallowed by their own sediment. The geologic equivalent of drowning in your own tears?

I'm feeling much better, slowly getting over the cold and finding ways to kill time in Dunhuang. I'll probably check out the buddhist caves this afternoon; last night we had a great dinner in the night market and entertained ourselves haggling for things we didn't really want to buy.

Anyway, I'll have a day to kill in Beijing and then back to the States on 13th.

A good pun...

Just to pass the time, and because I love puns, here is a great one that presented itself on the road a few days ago. There will be a picture to go along with it.

We drove by three monks walking down the road, on their way to Lhasa. Each one was pushing a little hand cart in front of him.

Did we just see the Dolly Lamas?
(Photo by Pete Lippert, Pun by Brad Ritts)

Slightly broken

I'm back in Golmud, a little earlier than expected (supposed to be back on the 10th). The four of us in the field crew were managing the elevation change fine (minus the usual wheezing), but I came down with a cold on Monday. Worse was the cough that came with it. I spent the day in Toutou He resting, hoping maybe the cough would get a little better, but colds just don't improve when you're sleeping at 15,000 feet. And there is a good chance the cold will escalate into something worse, like pneumonia, bronchitis or AMS. So, I rode back down to Golmud with Lau Zhong Zhifu (one of the drivers), who hadn't been dealing well with the elevation.

So, that's it. Pete is with a solid crew, so he'll get lots of samples to bring back to stuff into a mass spec back in Santa Cruz. I'm kind of bummed. It is hard to think about all the time and money that other people put in to get me there, essentially for nothing. The early days in the field were initially to check the outcrops and plan the later half, so all the sample collecting is going on now. It isn't much fun feeling useless, but I guess that is kind of how it goes out here too. Anothere reason to be grateful my field area is right in my backyard.

At this stage, I'm playing the waiting game to find out how I will be getting back to Beijing and eventually home. There is a chance I'll get back early, but who knows. In the meantime, I'm sleeping a lot and set my self little mini-adventures (where is a phone to call the US? where is the internet?) to keep myself entertained. There isn't a whole lot to see in Golmud....

Ganbei!

Here in Golmud, the jumping off point for field work. Yesterday (the 1st) I flew to Dunhuang, met the crew (Pete, Brian and Brad, and our drivers and interpreters), got in a jeep, and we drove to Golmud.

Today, we celebrated my er-shi-chi (27th) birthday with a trip up to Kunlun pass (there is a big monument to the Kekexili nature preserve and the man who spearheaded the effort to save the Tibetan antelopes from poachers - if your curious, see the movie Kekexili, Mountain Patrol, it is filmed in the area I'm in now).

Highlights:
I logged my highest elevation ever: ~15570 feet, set in India in 2001. Kind of cheating since we drove most of the way to that elevation, but nonetheless, the slow, slow slog the additional way up was suitably wheeze-inducing. I guess that is to be expected going from sea level to 15000+ in less than two days. Mostly feel fine, minor headache and thats about it. Diamox is useful....

Second hike of the day (the theory being we would get our blood pumping high and sleep low for one more night - Golmud is ~8000 feet) sent us up a nice glacial outwash valley, and there was plenty of great geology for us all to geek out on, including the glacier.


Dinner and Piejo (beer) - we had special birthday dumplings, a number of great dishes, a goat leg for each person (yum!) and batter-fried eggplant with sweet & sour sauce with sprinkles for my birthday cake. And many shouts of Ganbei (cheers!. I also learned my chinese numbers (well, only 0-7 and 27) playing a table game involving toothpicks.

We're off to the actual plateau tomorrow to get started so there will likely be no posts until I get back to Golmud or Beijing (~10-12th). Although, now that the amazing Lhasa-Golmud train is running, who knows. One constant in China is how rapidly things change.