Think Cool

It's summer in the northern hemisphere! Many parts of North America have been experiencing  hot weather. Is it hotter than other summers, or is it just that when we hit a certain temperature our bodies begin to protest?

How it affects us depends on what we're used to, but we all have our  limits!

My friend Jamie, who works in Joshua Tree National Park in the deserts of southern California, just stopped by to tell me that she observed a temperature of 122 degrees F in the Pinto Basin a few days ago. "Well, that's what the thermometer inside the car said," she explained: "I didn't get out to check." I'm not surprised, 122 would take your breath away.

Here in Vermont it's hovering above 90 degrees daytime, with humidity 50% and more. That's hot and uncomfortable here unless you're on the beach, and Vermont has plenty of wonderful beaches.

What's it like where you are?

Here are two ideas for bringing your body heat down - mind over matter:

1. Reflect on these two questions:

Which two national park units lie north of the Arctic Circle?

What's the largest glacier in Yosemite National Park?

2. Close your eyes and visualize a large bucket of ice water being poured slowly over your head, soaking you from head to foot . . . mmm . . .

Think snow!

My Park Story

The National Mall, Washington DC
- cared for by the National Park Service

The National Parks Conservation Association, which is the voice of the parks, has set up a new web page to gather personal stories about the parks.

Do you have childhood memories of visiting National Parks? Teenage adventures? Did you discover an unexpected story in a park near your home?

Did you fight a fire? Help rescue flooded artifacts? Paint your best picture? Take that stunning photograph that still graces your living room?

You can contribute your story at: myparkstory.org

Turn your special moments into virtual postcards to share with others and with legislators, to let them know that these memories matter. These places matter. These are the Treasures On Your Doorstep!


Artist's Palette, Death Valley National Park, California
 - incomparable and irreplaceable

Time and Tidal Pools

Sully Island, Wales

Unexpected childhood memories exploded around me as I checked the tide tables the other day. It was a kaleidoscope of memories: sailing with the tide; deciding how long we could sit on the beach; being able to walk around the point dry-shod; avoiding mythical jellyfish. But the most vivid flash-back was a recapitulation of my fear of being swept away when crossing the causeway to Sully Island.

This was - still is, I suppose - a somewhat romantically swan-neck shaped stretch of land that lies off my childhood coast. The causeway was exposed for a short time at  every low tide, providing a way to reach the island by foot, but with the turn of the tide the incoming water swept suddenly and fiercely through the narrow gap between land and island. Consequently, our mothers scared us silly with stories of children being swept away by the tide. The result of these stories was that my friends and I never actually dared to walk the causeway ourselves, so it remains to this day on my bucket list

No such worries, thank goodness, hung over me as I checked the tide tables for Cabrillo National Monument. I just wanted to be sure I’d be there when the rock pools were revealed. 

Limpets cling like - well -limpets!

 The pools provide a glimpse into another land, another life, more exotic than any Welsh island. It’s a glimpse of the underwater world of kelp and crabs, fish, limpets and anemones. A miscellany of these creatures is marooned twice daily in the rock pools of the Monument, which sits on Point Loma in San Diego, the southern tip of southern California.



 

Jewels among sand.

Magic spirals

 

 

 

 

Is there, I wondered, a panic in the underwater world as the tide begins to go out, a panic similar to ours at the thought of being swept away at Sully Island?  It’s SpongeBob scenario: “The tide is turning” whisper the hermit crabs, “Better scuttle out to sea”. “The tide is turning” gulp the anemones, “Better take cover”. “The tide is turning” burble the fish. “Don’t get caught – the tourists will ogle you!”

 And ogle I did – who could resist?



With a hundred others, I wandered and marveled at the creatures living at the edge of the Pacific. Life on the edge is always both exciting and dangerous. Rock pool and causeway, both are ever-changing, ephemeral, and sometimes explosive, like childhood memories.



Life on the edge: a boulder sits on the very brink of the Pacific.