First Day Off After Nine

Early morning: This was my rousing view of clouds and the foothills of Winnemucca Mountain when I awoke this morning. This photo now seems to represent what was a somewhat inspirational beginning to what turned into a busy, erratic day. Perhaps the day was also a bit like the clouds: scattered.
Early evening: It was a hectic day, seemingly, and I'm finally relaxing with a cold beer — a Rotator IPA in a Ruby Mountain Amber pint glass. I think the only reason the day seemed hectic was that I did things other than what I planned, things that weren't on my TTD list, so I felt as though I didn't accomplish anything. Instead of relaxing and blogging (both were on the list), I did a modicum of unpacking, a bit of arranging, and quite a bit of rearranging. I did get two things on my list done, including having a relaxing hot bath. And, for things not on the list, I accomplished the hanging of a peg strip near the front door of the apt, which now looks like this (sign compliment of furnished apt):
By the end of the day, prior to beer, I didn't find a Father's Day card to my liking. Whereas it seemed that the cards in our moved-away-from town were dorky and quite repetitive year to year, it seems as though the cards in this new town, while ostensibly or superficially quite varied, trend overall either toward the overly sentimental (for either myself or the way I view my dad), or they are raucous musical and noisy things that I'm pretty sure he wouldn't like. Consequently, because I'm already late in mailing anyway, I'll probably dig through the many cards I have on hand, which I've bought for myself not to use but to look through and enjoy (art cards), then I'll pick one out and hopefully get it sent by tomorrow afternoon when the mail gets picked up at our nearby apt-based boxes. With any luck, the card will arrive in AK by Monday, only one day late.

In the meantime, I'm expecting a phone call from MOH. He's on his northern adventure, checking out oil fields and small towns in northerly areas that I've never visited. (I'm jealous, in a way, but am getting daily pictures of campsites, rivers, and the way my old truck currently looks as a mini-RV. One thing I've learned is that the Yellowstone River is quite beautiful, though a long way from here.)

And now, my beer is still cold but needs to be refreshed with a new one, the sun coming through the open-to-the-freeway window — open to let swamp-cooler air on high out — is warm. After beer I'll have a dinner either of mint chocolate cookie ice cream or mini-ravs and milk. That will be the end to what I now see as a good day.

P.S. The "our town" tag refers to the old place in the hinterland of eastern Nevada, and the "wnmca" tag refers to a uniquely named town in north-central or north-western Nevada (depending on how you view Nevada geography).

P.P.S. I am finding myself, as I've mentioned before, considerably shorter on time for blogging while working the industry-wide normal 10-hour days and having a door to door driving/riding time of 45 to 60 minutes, depending on particular logistics. These logistics create what are actually 12 hour days, longer than my previous 10-hour work days plus 30 to 45 minute max round trip times (10.5 to 10.75 hour days compared to ± 12 hour days). I'm still adjusting, rather slowly, to my lack of blogging time. I'm not awake enough in the morning to do much serious (or very good) writing or link finding, and the short evening is often crammed with brief winding down, dinner, getting ready for the next day, enjoying a netflix-streamed old TV series episode or two with MOH when he's here, OR just crashing, OR reading the internet but not blogging. Haven't figured all that out quite yet — and I haven't quite scheduled time in for any excercise besides what I get at work, walking up and down metal-grated stairs and walking back and forth down my rubber-padded cement-based core-logging lane.

P.P.P.S. Wrist and elbow overuse pain (started in one arm, is now also in the other becuase of using the other almost exclusively at times) has also limited what I have been able to do on the computer. The pain, soreness, inflammation, whatever it is, is better. It all probably began from packing and lifting/carrying boxes; consequently, any unpacking I do puts me at least slightly at risk of a longer healing time. (RICE: REST, ice, compression, elevation — need the former, acheiving very little of the latter - how does one raise the elbow without using it or other possibly compromised muscles? Meh.)

Hummingbird Moth in Chocolate Mints

Yesterday I received an email while at work telling me that there was a hummingbird moth in one of our two pots of chocolate mint, which are sitting outside on the front porch. MOH thought the moth might still be there when I got home, and sure enough, it was.
It didn't move when I approached as close as I wanted with my camera, but it was dark in the shade of the mints, and several pictures were a little blurry.
Here's its cute little face, sharpened somewhat by photo processing.

This is the same kind of moth (Hyles lineata) as seen here between Goldfield and Beatty, Nevada, about three years ago, and these are the same mints that came from overseas and made a first appearance on the blog mid-summer of 2009. The mints have been subdivided and passed around amongst family; the moth has moved on. This particular type of hummingbird moth tends to be nocturnal, so maybe it was just in the mint to sleep for the day.

Busy Days!

I haven't been blogging much, and there is a reason — well, there are several reasons, a major one being the move I've been involved in since at least late April, another major one being my new job with it's longer drive time that results in essentially 11.5 to 12 hour days: leave our new place at 5:30 in the morning, arrive back sometime between 5:00 and 5:30 in the early evening, depending.

Here we are on our first U-Haul van trip, driving past some Ely Limestone on the left and right side of Highway 50 near the turnoff to Ruth, NV, with a reddish hill of Rib Hill Sandstone (??) in the sunlight straight ahead:
And we're not done with the move yet, although we're getting closer to our goal of being out of the old place and entirely ensconsed in the new place, which will entail unpacking, reorganizing, and making preparations for a related new adventure that is more MOH's than mine, but which will involve completely cleaning out and refurbishing my old truck.

The caravan on our first trip, in Jakes Valley.

Our caravan this trip will not be quite as complicated, nor will it involve my old truck or the Prius.

And here's a shot of the van with Prius in tow heading north on S.R. 278 toward what *might* be a ridge of eastward-dipping Eureka Quartzite.
Maybe we'll have time to stop and take a look at the supposed quartzite today or tomorrow or whenever we get out of town — or maybe not.

For now, back to packing, cleaning, packing, more cleaning, calling utilities et al, loading, last minute packing and more loading, driving and driving, arriving, unpacking at storage and new apt, reorganizing, trips from apt to storage and back, and whatever else I've forgotten.

Location shown below is the approximate location of the last photo.

Wedge #45: Geological Pilgrimage

Having been provoked by a recent online coversation, I've decided to take a quick moment to post a (late) addition to this month's Accretionary Wedge topic, a geological pilgrimage to "a single place, which is 'geologically' unique, relatively remote, and requires some difficulty to get to.'" I had thought I wouldn't post anything, because I'm not sure of making it anywhere besides, possibly, Midas, Tuscarora, and the Galápagos Islands, all of which I've put off for years, but which are all still on my list. But, taking a page from Ron Schott, I'll post briefly about a place I'd really like to see, though I have no particular plans or prospects of getting there: the South China Karst, also here and here. I don't really know why I find the area fascinating, but here is one video showing some of the lure, with some alluring music:

Early Morning View of the Midas Trough and Jake Creek Mountain

Just a quick post showing a photo I took about two weeks ago at 5:50 am, on my early morning ride to work. We're looking easterly at a broad, generally flat-topped sloping part of the southern Snowstorm Mountains. The entire mesa-like, gently north-dipping hill may be called Jake Creek Mountain, or perhaps only its highest peak, barely visible from this angle, is called Jake Creek Mountain. Part of the abrupt slope to the south is called the Owyhee Bluffs.

The low area immediately south (right) of the central flat-topped mesa or mountain is at least locally called the Midas Trough. Tectonically, the trough is a somewhat complex graben, sharp edged on its north and south sides, bounded by ENE-trending faults (MSRMaps topography showing the Midas Trough; also see this Google Maps image). References to the Midas Trough are mostly found in the gold exploration literature and on related company websites, but was referenced in the tectonic literature at least as early as 1980. I also found a Santa Fe Pacific Mining Company reference to the fault along the north edge of the Midas Trough, which was called the "Midas road fault," presumably because it more or less follows the graveled road to the tiny berg of Midas (the date on the map says 2005, but mapping was done in 1988-1991, and Santa Fe Pacific Gold was bought by the "Evil Empire," Newmont Mining, in 1997). I'll visit Midas (the town) someday, and report back about whether Kirby's Midas Bar is still in business, the way it was during the boom days of the 1980s.

North (left) of the mesa-like Jake Creek Mountain, the next low spot is referred to as the Jake Creek graben, at least in the report accompanying Santa Fe's map. Farther north, the next hill -- also part of the Snowstorm Mountains, which trend NNW parallel to the Northern Nevada Rift, even though its southern sub-parts trend ENE parallel to the Midas Trough -- is called Kelly Creek Mountain (or at least its high point is called that; I can't get on MSRMaps at the moment to check the old topos for names).

A couple references:
Laravie, J.A., 2005, Geologic Map of the Kelly Creek Area, Humboldt, Elko, and Lander Counties, Nevada: Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology Open-File Report 05-1 -- Text, Plate 1 with the Midas road fault, Plate 2, with a more readable map explanation.

Zoback, Mary Lou, and Zoback, Mark D., 1980, Faulting Patterns in North-Central Nevada and Strength of the Crust: Journal of Geophysical Research, v. 85, p. 275-284.


Location shown below is the west end of the Midas Trough.