On Sunday, we left our hotel in
Orem, Utah, at the south end of the Salt Lake Valley and drove to Salt Lake City to visit our friends Adrian and Christen
Grell, who have lived in Salt Lake City since moving from Monticello, Arkansas, five years ago. They now have a three year old daughter Ella--in the picture above, I'm sure Hope is providing some deep wisdom on parenting while sitting in their backyard...After our short visit with the
Grells, we drove north to Idaho. Along the way, we made a stop at
Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument (
http://www.nps.gov/hafo/). This site preserves a bunch of mammal bones preserved from several million years ago. Below is a waterfall along the highway near the site:
This fall tumbles over volcanic deposits that dominate this part of Idaho, and is probably dry most of the year--it has been particularly wet this spring and summer. You can't see much of the actual
Hagerman fossil site--we stopped in their visitor center for a while, and then drove along a highway for a little ways before stopping at an overlook that highlights the finds across the river from that spot.
We arrived in Boise (where my meeting was to be) around supper time. We settled into our room, ate supper at the hotel restaurant, and went to bed early after our long drive. I attended my meeting Monday through Thursday, and Hope and the kids visited a bunch of local museums and parks as the weather permitted. On Wednesday, I participated in an all-day field trip to a US Forest Service experimental forest in the mountains about an hour east of Boise. In the picture below, my boss is the guy with the yellow helmet in the front (eating yogurt with the spoon in his mouth). The man on the 4-wheeler is Dr. Russ Graham, the Forest Service scientist in charge of this experimental forest (he rides a 4-wheeler because of a degenerative disease that keeps him in a wheelchair most of the time). The bulk of the crowd are national forest
silviculturists and other staff, including some administrators from our Washington Office headquarters.
The forests of this experimental forests are primarily
ponderosa pine, with a large component of Douglas-fir.
This area tends to have a lot of drought and fairly poor soils, so
ponderosa pine is the preferred species. Much of the work on this experimental forest is geared towards the restoration of open pine stands, with many of the small pines and Doug-firs removed to help reduce fire risk:
My meeting ended Thursday afternoon. Tomorrow we leave Boise and head to southeastern Idaho, with plans to stop at Craters of the Moon National Monument on our way to our hotel in
Rexburg, ID, for Friday night. Then, Saturday brings--Yellowstone National Park!!
On Sunday, we left our hotel in Orem, Utah, at the south end of the Salt Lake Valley and drove to Salt Lake City to visit our friends Adrian and Christen Grell, who have lived in Salt Lake City since moving from Monticello, Arkansas, five years ago. They now have a three year old daughter Ella--in the picture above, I'm sure Hope is providing some deep wisdom on parenting while sitting in their backyard...After our short visit with the Grells, we drove north to Idaho. Along the way, we made a stop at Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument (http://www.nps.gov/hafo/). This site preserves a bunch of mammal bones preserved from several million years ago. Below is a waterfall along the highway near the site:
This fall tumbles over volcanic deposits that dominate this part of Idaho, and is probably dry most of the year--it has been particularly wet this spring and summer. You can't see much of the actual Hagerman fossil site--we stopped in their visitor center for a while, and then drove along a highway for a little ways before stopping at an overlook that highlights the finds across the river from that spot.
We arrived in Boise (where my meeting was to be) around supper time. We settled into our room, ate supper at the hotel restaurant, and went to bed early after our long drive. I attended my meeting Monday through Thursday, and Hope and the kids visited a bunch of local museums and parks as the weather permitted. On Wednesday, I participated in an all-day field trip to a US Forest Service experimental forest in the mountains about an hour east of Boise. In the picture below, my boss is the guy with the yellow helmet in the front (eating yogurt with the spoon in his mouth). The man on the 4-wheeler is Dr. Russ Graham, the Forest Service scientist in charge of this experimental forest (he rides a 4-wheeler because of a degenerative disease that keeps him in a wheelchair most of the time). The bulk of the crowd are national forest silviculturists and other staff, including some administrators from our Washington Office headquarters.
The forests of this experimental forests are primarily ponderosa pine, with a large component of Douglas-fir.
This area tends to have a lot of drought and fairly poor soils, so ponderosa pine is the preferred species. Much of the work on this experimental forest is geared towards the restoration of open pine stands, with many of the small pines and Doug-firs removed to help reduce fire risk: 
Today (Thursday) Hope took the kids to Celebration Park, billed as Idaho's only archeological park (http://www.visitidaho.org/thingstodo/parks/celebration-park.aspx). This site also has a lot of petroglyphs, like these "pecked" onto the rocks below: 
My meeting ended Thursday afternoon. Tomorrow we leave Boise and head to southeastern Idaho, with plans to stop at Craters of the Moon National Monument on our way to our hotel in Rexburg, ID, for Friday night. Then, Saturday brings--Yellowstone National Park!!
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