Well, I’m back. I was off-planet since Tuesday, which explains the silence. Needed peace, quiet, seclusion and a new routine in order to get some thinking and writing done. Spring break allowed this to happen.
Where did I go? Somewhere where there are no web connections, and no mobile phone signal. Importantly, it takes me only a bit over three and a half hours in my little spaceship to get to this excellent place. Wonderful!
“So where was he?”, the three of you reading this are wondering.
Was he on the surface of the moon?
Hmmm, no. That place has clouds and coloured sky, so clearly there’s a substantial atmosphere.
How about Middle Earth?
How about Tatooine?
Ok, none of the above, although in a sense the latter is closest. Well, I’m refreshed, and now have to read a hundred or more emails.
More about the trip off-planet later.
-cvj
March 18th, 2006 at 7:25 pm
Those aren’t the Kelso dunes are they?
March 18th, 2006 at 7:28 pm
No. But thanks…I did not know about those until you asked!
-cvj
March 18th, 2006 at 7:43 pm
This must be the lowest and hottest place on the continent… DV
March 18th, 2006 at 7:54 pm
Tease.
March 18th, 2006 at 8:02 pm
janet:- yep… that’s me!
-cvj
March 18th, 2006 at 8:15 pm
I have a close copy of that last picture picture myself. The Tatooine gave it away. I had a nosebleed from the dryness when I was riding my bike not far from there. A great place! Except when 10000 offroaders converge somewhat nearby, hope you didn’t go that route.
March 18th, 2006 at 8:30 pm
These photos look like the same place. Look forward to hearing about the trip.
March 18th, 2006 at 10:01 pm
[...] Sean « Off-Planet [...]
March 20th, 2006 at 2:39 pm
[...] This one’s for Caolionn. She was collecting signs like this on her blog at some point, if I recall. I spotted this on a hike in the canyons on my trip off-planet (click on it for detail): [...]
March 21st, 2006 at 2:37 pm
Magnificent desolation. Has to be death valley? I did’nt know people where allowed to go there though so maybe not? Having seem lots of movies, sci-fi and otherwise, one of those pictures does look familiar, like the shot from Star Wars where the robot/droid heads off towards the mountains. Where is that famous slanted outcrop of rock that you keep seeing in tons of old tv shows and films? Vasquez rocks? I know it is somewhere near LA. Captian Kirk fought a tyranosaur-like alien called a “Gorn” there (=bloke in rubber suit in desert heat). Anyway, tell us more.
March 21st, 2006 at 5:08 pm
Yes, Death Valley. Wonderful place. More later.
-cvj
March 22nd, 2006 at 7:50 am
Nice pics. Were those from a digital SLR, or compact camera? At first, I thought it was Anza Borrego (just east of San Diego).
Death Valley is one of my favorite places, I’ve been there several times since I goto Offroad Races in Nevada. I was there 3 times last year, the last of which was in July. It was 122 deg there & I slept in my van in Titus Canyon:
http://www.desertrides.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4507
[ if you look closely, you can see a white fold-down satellite-DSL dish on my van, where I can get Internet access. I made the later posts on the above thread using it. Technology has made it impossible to ]
I took an offroad trail near Beatty, down thru Titus Canyon into Death Valley. An unconventional approach. I also went up the road towards Telescope Peak (11,000 ft), & got some pics/video. I went up to 11,000 ft back in ’90, it was like 39 deg..whereas it was 120 deg in the valley. Pretty dramatic temperature differential. Supposedly, there is an abandoned bus belonging to the infamous Manson gang along that road.
A favorite place is Dante’s View (a look out at ~5k feet, down to the valley), but it was closed due to flood damage. Did you hike up to the highest sand-dune? I was there.
Mark wrote:
Hey, I resemble that remark!
Are you talking about earthy offroad dudes like these or these. Spring Break flavor. See below.
Last week, I was in San Felipe/Baja Mexico for an offroad race..the desert scenery against the backdrop of the Sea of Cortez is pretty interesting. You have sunrise & offroad race trucks. You can see race videos here, available over iPod/iTunes. BTW, CV should start blogging video, & syndicate a feed to iTunes as a video-podcast.
I’m leaving in 2 days to Egypt for the March 29 solar eclipse: Libya/Egypt border. Hopefully, I get results like I did in Turkey ’99 (a CV girl reader in Italy is going to Turkey, some of my eclipse-chaser friends are going there). Turkey is a great place for tourism, very friendly people.
Sahara Desert, WWII minefields..I’ll be going in a 4×4 (Alexandria lawyer who is an offroad motorbiker), trying to find a spot in the middle of nowhere (avoid the insanity of crowds, much like CVJ’s motivation). As a backup, I have a reservation in the scientist-area (plateau west of Sallum/Egypt), where there will be hundreds of scientists running their experiments. See the link above for some interesting articles, & some solar-scientists doing some public-outreach (Culture & Astronomy Series/Alexandria, Egypt).
I plan on blogging from Egypt. Here is my equipment being prepped for some test-runs of my eclipse-program. I break it down, & pack it up tomorrow. Note my collection of physics books (you can make out Feynman’s Lectures on Physics, & Thorne/Wheeler’s text on Graviation). Also, a nearly complete Springer-Verlag “yellow-book” collection, & tons of Dover science/physics/math books.
Weather is looking good for Egypt/Libya, & southern Turkey:
Eclipse weather prospects look very good at this stage – too good, as there is only one way to go now. It’s 10 days out and the models have time to go off in a different direction entirely.
“Current models show a high pressure ridge over north Africa with light winds and clear skies everywhere. Turkey is more of a problem, but Antalya looks like it may escape the worst of it if the models turn out to be right. The trend over the past week has been to better weather in the forecasts, so we’ll hope the trend continues.”
– from official NASA eclipe meteorologist, yesterday
I plan on sleeping under the stars in the sand-dunes, like I did in the Thar Desert/India ’95. Thar Desert is the 2nd driest desert behind the Sahara. I still remember the beetles crawling out from under the sand, while I was sleeping. I think there is a poisonous spider in Sahara, hope I don’t run afoul of it or a land-mine:
“Crossing of the border [ to Libya ] can only be done by land from Salum/Mussaed. Desert or other passages are a big no no. You will be shot at if you survive the mine fields. My recommendation is very unfortunate (for a company operating in Egypt): Travel to Libya and experience the event over there. At least it might be a bit more organized.”
– 4×4 operator in Egypt
“The most important thing is that you must never go alone beyond the areas signified by the authorities without a professional desert guide, usually from the tribes that live there. The whole area beyond Saloum is planted with WWII mine fields. Any attempt to go alone in the desert will be a serious threat to your life without taking the necessary precautions.”
– Cairo resident
March 23rd, 2006 at 5:19 pm
I am posting from LAX (Verizon wireless card w/Powerbook). See blog here for latest entry. More pics on mobile blog here.
I just got an email a couple hrs ago from the official NASA eclipse weather forecaster. It is for the benefit of the CV girl (Italy) who is going to Turkey:
> A broad high pressure system lies across the southern Mediterranean on an
> east-west axis. The high is centred north of Matruh, about
> mid-Mediterranean. A north-south oriented low pressure trough lies over
> eastern Greece, approximately through Athens. A second weaker trough lies
> over Turkey, just east of Antalya. A weak warm front stretches from the
> trough over Greece (near Athens) southward to Crete and to Matruh. The
> front
> is nowhere very strong, but weakens south of Crete.
> Antalya: The upper level winds will be downslope from the very high
> mountains to the west of Antalya. These mountains are very successful at
> breaking holes in the cloud cover and eclipse seekers in the area should
> favour the Antalya direction in searching for holes in the cloud.
>
> The forecast described above is probably the most pessimistic for Antalya
> of
> the three available to me at this time. The European model moves the
> system
> toward Greece a little more slowly for instance, so that Antalya is a
> little
> sunnier at eclipse time. No model indicates any significant problem for
> African sites at this time.
Good luck to everyone trying to see the eclipse.
I will be on Egypt/Libya border in a 4×4, trying to dodge mine fields but get clear skies
March 23rd, 2006 at 5:39 pm
Hey! Have fun! point us to the picks on your blog when you get back.
-cvj
April 7th, 2006 at 6:47 pm
[...] I was talking with a friend over dinner last night about Death Valley (she’s leaving for a trip there soon) and this reminded me of the fact that I was supposed to do a few more posts on my recent “off-planet” trip to the same place. So here goes: [...]
February 7th, 2007 at 2:40 pm
[...] Peterson’s central thesis is that the nitrogen is playing a similar role to that of water here on the earth’s surface, with regards some of the features you can see on the surface of Triton. He uses Yellowstone National Park as his model for several features, showing us pools of water surrounded by ice/snow, with steam rising out of them due to heating from the earth below. The surface temperatures of Triton are such that you have a lot of the same things going on, but with water replaced by nitrogen. He also spent some time looking at comparisons between various surface morphological features on Triton with those you can find in lots of local geological features (see photo above). He used the “Devil’s golf course” in Death Valley as one of his examples. This was amusing to me since last Spring I’d been planning to do a post or two on CV on the patterns you can get in drying mud, based on my last trip to Death Valley. You may recall that I was near the sand dunes. I intended to do a post on some shapes I saw in the sand dunes, and also some of the lovely mud shapes that were right nearby. Circumstances changed, and so I did not do the post in the end, so I’m glad to be reminded of those photos. I’ll dig them out sometime, since I’ve some thoughts about shapes and length scales that you might like to read about. [...]