Artesian Springs, Hot Springs and Eletricity (Oh my!)

We did a hike recently to an area near Payson, AZ, called Fossil Creek. There's a good deal of interesting history in the area, though it can be difficult to come by an accruate account of what happened here. I finally found some good info, and thought I'd share it here - since that's what the blog is for, afterall.

Fossil Creek is a intermittent stream for much of its length from the Mogollon Rim to the Verde River in the valley below. However, approximately 7 miles from the river, the grade breaks through a limestone formation which caps a pressurized underground water storage tank (water has drained from the much wetter rim country above). The water gushes out of nearly 70 separate springs, releasing as much as 20,000 gallons of water per minute down the 1600' deep canyon. Such a reliable, plentiful water source is very rare in the desert southwest, and at the start of the 20th century the growing industry of Arizona did what any burgeoning population would do with such an amazing resource: the dammed it. (For a detailed account of construction including the facinating story of the woman who drove the efforts, look here)

Now, there are many pluses to hydroelectric power generation. It does not emit harmful carbon dioxide, there is no radioactive waste to store, and Homer Simpson is unlikely to mess it up with his lust for donuts. However, it does pretty well mess up riparian ecosystems. The Childs Power Station, built in 1909, necessitated the damming of Fossil Creek and the creation of a flume to divert nearly all of the spring water 7 miles to the plant on the banks of the Verde River. In 1914, the Irving plant was constructed in the Fossil Creek canyon itself. The power from these plants was originally intended to drive growth in the booming mining towns of Gerome, Crown King and Prescott, though it eventually got sucked into the Phoenix valley, just like every other resource in the state.

Historic Photos of the Flume and the Childs Power Plant

from the Sharlot Hall Museum Archives

The Irving Power Plant today

The power plant at Childs had a few interesting side-effects on the area. A twisting, winding road was built along the edges of Fossil Creek canyon and down to the power plant, and at the end of the road, a small community sprang up to support the new industry. This included development by one Prescott businessman of a resort near a set of hot springs along the Verde river. Verde Hot Springs resort, in its heydey of the teens and 20's, was a luxurious resort, with a number of bathing pools, electricity and heated accommodations (quite posh, for a place that had only become a state a couple of years before!)

The Verde Hot Springs Resort circa 1930 from the Sharlot Hall Museum Archives

Looking north along the Verde River from the area near the hotsprings

Through the 30's and 40's, Childs, Verde Hot Springs and the Irving Plant continued to operate as examples of how darned ingenious people in the rugged Southwest were, and the ecology of Fossil Creek continued to, not really exist (well, okay, there was an ecosystem, but it was sort of not the one nature intended).

So, the resort failed in the early 50's during an evident lapse in the public interest in hot spring resorts (who knew?). After being closed for several years, and a couple of failed attempts to re-open, the hotel burned to the ground - leaving only a few cement soaking pools and a foundation. Evidently you can still hike to the springs, where you'll find lots of artistic graffiti, some good hot spring soakin', and likely a few naked people. Camping is available about 1 mile down stream from the springs, but the area is increasingly popular, so the unmaintained camping area is overrun with trash and toilet paper, and nearly all the dead wood small enough to carry or within arm's reach of the ground has been stripped and burned in drunken bonfires (wasn't me this time, I swear!).

Environmental and native American groups continued to protest the travesty of the draining of Fossil Creek Canyon in the name of clean power. Coincidentally (?), the flume and the generating facilities were becoming increasingly obsolete and expensive to maintain. One, or the other, or both spelled the end for the Childs and Irving plants. APS (Arizona Public Service, or Arizona Perpetual Screwups depending on who you ask) surrendered it's rights to the water in 1999, and created a 10 year plan for restoring the watercourse that's supposed to serve as a model for other such infrastructure dismantling projects. Invasive, non-native fish and amphibians were eliminated from the waters below the dam, and native fish and other species are on a strict recovery system (similar to 12 steps). The dam was supposed to be lowered 14 feet (hasn't happened yet), water flow restored (has happened) and the facilities dismantled (the flume is gone, as is the plant at Child's but not at Irving) by 2009. The system has turned a fun hike into a great hike, and really created another crystal-water wonderland here in Arizona.

Recreation flourishes at the Old Fossil Creek Dam

Old Equipment on the old dam

An old structure with a remnant garden near the dam

Post is getting long, you say, but you haven't even talked about travertine yet! Well, folks, like Havasu Falls on the Supai Indian Reservation in the Grand Canyon, Fossil Creek is known for its crystal blue-green waters and gorgeous shelf-like waterfalls. The same agent is at work in both areas, and I'm not talking about one who takes 20% off the top. I'm talking limestone here - the kind that gets dissolved underground in that big, pressurized storage tank I talked about earlier, and then gets deposited along the course of the stream as it flows on the surface. This creates Travertine - a whitish mineral deposit which coats every rock, tree limb and leaf that sits too long in the pools. I think there could be a tourist or two in there as well. To make a long story short (too late), the white of the travertine reflects light through the clear water and poof, you have the gorgeous pools and waterfalls we see today (note that this white coating is also what makes Carribean and Polynesian beaches that same blue-green color, only it's sand instead of travertine)

The restored Fossil Creek - after 100 years of running dry, the ecosystem is slowly recovering.

So, there you have it. In a nut shell: how Arizona was cool, uncool, and then took a step to being cooler. Awsome.

Good News from the Archives of Internal Medicine

A note to all those folks (many of them doctors or medical professionals) who get uppity about weight being an automatic indicator of health:

A new study has shown that many overweight and obese people are metabolically healthy, while large numbers of slim people have health problems typically associated with obesity. A study of some 5000 American adults showed that over 50% of overweight individuals (and 35% of obese individuals) were actually metabolically healthy, based upon measurements of blood pressure, “good” cholesterol, triglycerides, blood sugar and an inflammatory marker called c-reactive protein. 24% of thin, or normal weight adults posted unhealthy levels for at least two of these risk factors.

It has long been held that it is healthier to be overweight and fit than sedentary and lean. And though many doctors still want to harp on the "you have to get your BMI down" bandwagon, there are many more every year that are coming to accept that people come in many different shapes and sizes - and that your hip-to-waist ratio doesn't always determine your physical health.





So, when I start to get that very annoying "you need to loose weight for your health" statement, I can ask those skinnie minis if their blood sugar and cholesterol is as good as mine - it might just not be! Then I'll drag their butts up to Mica Mountain with a 35 lb pack and see how their health compares!

Pam Nelson - a big, fit personal trainer

MMMMMMMMM......

Found this online today: thought it sounded really yummy. I might make some this weekend for my own enjoyment:

Frozen Whiskey Sours
1 12-ounce can frozen orange juice
1 12-ounce can frozen lemonade
1½ cups sugar (or to taste)
5 cups water
3 cups whiskey (or 2½ cups whiskey and ½ cup apricot brandy)
Ginger ale
Mix all ingredients except the ginger ale together in a large bowl, then place in a container in the freezer for 48 hours. The mixture will form a slush. To serve, spoon out slush into a glass, break up with spoon and top off with ginger ale — roughly 1 part slush to 2 parts ginger ale or to taste. Feel free to spike with additional whiskey.

Here's the blog entry on it...if you're interested.

I've Looked at Clouds from Both Sides Now...

With all that's happening in the world - the Olympic Games, war in Georgia, western aid workers getting bombed in Afghanistan and Paris Hilton entering the presidential race - I figured it was a good time to talk about something pressing and timely.

Like clouds.

Oh - you say - clouds are hardly at the forefront of the news media. Maybe you should pick a hotter topic, like Hugo Chavez or the death of the world's tallest woman.

Contre mon frere!

You see, clouds are cool, anytime. And it's much more than just the cumulus or cirrus - there are some rocking controversial cloud formations out there.

Take the "Lenticular" Cloud (or "lens shaped" for those of you who like plain English). It forms as a result of the wave-like action of moist air as it surfs over mountain peaks and valleys. These clouds are actually the crests of the wave, as it peaks high enough for the moisture to crystallize. They are like the rock-stars of the cloud world - they have their own paparazzi, photographers who scan the skies above mountain peaks everywhere hoping for a glimpse of a Lenticular Cloud hanging with Barak Obama or doing a bowl with Amy Weinhouse...





from here

Then there are "Mamatus" Clouds (and yes, the term is related to mammaries). An email that was circulating a few weeks ago had photos of these clouds taken in Hastings, NE be Jorn Olsen (evidently got a LOT of press for these amazing photos):









There is still a great deal of debate about how mammatus clouds are formed, though many of the theories involve instability and variable conditions within larger clouds. They seem to occur most frequently during the summer, when warm, moist air further destabilizes clouds. There is also some debate as to whether the shape of these clouds (so similar to the breasts of a human female) is offensive to children, and if they should be forced to wear modesty patches.


Then, we have "Noctilucent clouds" (from the Latin night shining). These are late sleepers - they only appear right at dusk, as a result of the low angle of the sun's rays hitting clouds that are very, very, very high in our atmosphere. Like, wow, they can't even get weather balloons that high. Although there have been a number of theories for how they're created, since conventional wisdom says that clouds shouldn't exist at those altitudes, the prevailing theory is related to global warming (which seems to be the catch-all theory of the decade - last decade it might have been deforestation, and the one before that, the Russians).





And, just for fun, here are some more amazing cloud pictures from the web:

A lightning cloud in a ash explosion of a volcano in southern Chile

A massive super-cell thunderstorm in Texas

Called a 'Hole in the Sky' - this is caused by downdrafts.

New Way to Share My Photos...

So I think I'm gonna switch the way I do my photos to have them hosted by Picasa. Snapfish is wonderful, but too many folks have complained about having to register to view the pics. With Picasa, I can also do some slick stuff like embed photo slideshows in my blog, like this:

You even get to see the captions as you view the slideshow! What a great world we live in!

So - if you're in witness protection, if you're considering copyrighting your likeness and don't want people peeping at it for free, or if you have some other lame reason for not wanting your mug all over the web, better tell me now. Otherwise, you might find yourself pasted all over the internet community.

Off Shore Oil Drilling and Politics

Okay, so the boys and I got into another delightful political debate over drinks a couple of weeks ago - and I got a little crooked in my craw because they told me I had my facts wrong. Now - I'm all for healthy disagreement, and I know that we had a philosophical "difference of opinion", but when you tell the Queen of Useless Information that her facts are wrong, you better be able to prove it. Otherwise, ugly things happen.

So the issue, as the title hints at, was the fact that the Bush administration (which is currently running in close second to Indymac in my shiteliste) is trying to get Congress to lift the ban on offshore oil drilling. Without going into reasons why I think this is a bad idea, or lapsing poetic on the delightful nuances that is the petroleum industry - my bone here is the reasons why they want to lift this ban. I believe that the Bushies are trying to get their oily grubs on more oil, and make the American people see them as heroes in the process. 'Ah' - they're saying, 'We can bring down the price of oil which is crippling your family and bringing the economy into a pit - all we need to do is get at those vast reserves of oil off our coast and under ANWR!'

But the boys disagree. It's their stance that no one is trying to say that the price of gas will go down - that I was wrong about the tactics of the Republicans.

Well - I must swallow at least one bit of that and admit that my research says that no one in the Bush Administration and the Repulicans in Conress have said that the price of gas will drop if we drill America's oil reserves. They're only hinting at it, implying that it's true and leading people to believe that it will happen - while their "official" stance is that they are aware that it really won't. Yeah. They're not trying to mislead anyone...

Ha - the boys are thinking - this is all conjecture, opinion. It's miss I-know-it-all playing her political side and just making things up. Well, I'll let the readers decide for themselves. Do any of these statements ring of someone trying to convince someone that American oil drilling will help the economy by reducing the cost of oil/gas?

At a welding plant in Ohio, Bush spoke of his desire for Congress to lift the drilling ban:

• "Now it's up to the United States Congress to make a decision as to whether or not you're going to continue to face high gasoline prices at the pump,"



• "If we're worried about your gasoline price and recognize that it's high because of the price of crude oil, and it's possible to find more oil right here in the United States ... doesn't it make sense to try to find that oil? I think it does."

In his radio broadcast this week, Bush chastised House Democrats for not acting:

• "The sooner Congress lifts the ban, the sooner we can get this oil from beneath the ocean floor to your gas tank."



• "By opening up new resources at home we can help bring energy costs down."

Senator McCain - who I don't normally like to pan because there are some issues that we used to agree on - in a television ad attacking Obama (as an aside, McCain opposed lifting the drilling ban in his 2000 presidential election, and did not reverse himself until June of this year):

• "Gas prices -- $4, $5, no end in sight, because some in Washington are still saying no to drilling in America. No to independence from foreign oil. Who can you thank for rising prices at the pump?"

A Letter from Senate Minority Leader John Boehner to Nancy Pelosi when Congress was discussing the idea of suspending shipments to the Strategic Petroleum Preserve (which I oppose, btw) is a little less subtle:

• "...though estimates of recoverable deepwater resources along our Outer Continental Shelf are notoriously outmoded, the 80 billion barrels of oil we believe is there right now would constitute a price reduction several times larger than redirecting oil from the SPR."

Republican Whip Roy Blunt also introduced the Republican plan for helping American's who are hurting from high gas prices, including the bills (from Blunt's text):

• "-- H.R. 6108, Deep Ocean Energy Resources Act of 2008 (Week of July 28)Reduces the price of gasoline by enabling the United States to responsiblyexplore its own deep ocean to produce American energy. The bill would grantcoastal states the authority to keep exploration 100 miles from theircoastlines and it would also allow states to share in the revenues received."


• -- H.R. 6107, American Energy Independence and Price Reduction Act (Week of July 21)Reduces the price of gasoline by opening the Arctic Energy Slope (ANWR) to environmentally sensitive American energy exploration. Exploration would belimited to 0.01% of the Refuge, and revenue received from the new leases wouldbe invested in a long-term alternative energy trust fund."

Now, I'll let you all do the research on why so many experts believe that this kind of drilling will have little or no long-term effect (let alone short term effect) on the cost of gas in America. And I'll let you all do your own legwork on the Democrats' equally bad idea of draining the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

And I'll leave you with a happy note, because no one's gonna read my blog if it's even more frustrating than talking to me in person.

How To Steal Gas A funny sketch about how to steal gas and get away with it. Of course you will need a friend who is about 2 feet tall to pull this off. If gas prices go any higher we might all have to find a friend who is that short. LOL