And cars. They deserved it. Who leaves their car parked in the path of advancing lava? It's another of those live and learn things.
Meanwhile tourists to Utah are unwittingly throwing dinosaur tracks into a lake.
Here is the story in video form. The worst kind of video except for the ones read by a robot. If you care to read it, turn off the sound, it's just empty near-music.
This kills me. The state owns a real treasure but cannot protect it. Colorado has a similar problem. They make scant minimal effort to protect their dinosaur trails. People usually honor the fence. There is a very thin indistinct line between freedom and protection of state property. But as tourism grows and these things are lost and citizens become angry, that line becomes more distinct. Utah must do something to protect these ancient impressions. Or they're gone.
This kills me. The state owns a real treasure but cannot protect it. Colorado has a similar problem. They make scant minimal effort to protect their dinosaur trails. People usually honor the fence. There is a very thin indistinct line between freedom and protection of state property. But as tourism grows and these things are lost and citizens become angry, that line becomes more distinct. Utah must do something to protect these ancient impressions. Or they're gone.
9 comments:
If you ever go to HI, take a look at the lava tubes. Lava rock so big and high, you can walk through the air bubbles.
I had a dream about that. It was so real, I recall it as if I had actually lived it. It was an adventure running though the lava tubes and using them for a hideout. Along with the surrounding sugarcane.
We spent the weekend at Zion National Park. Did some hiking and actually found ourselves alone in the woods for a lot of it, but I hate tourists, and when I'm one, I even hate myself. There is this thing where we all look alike in tourist locations. We're all couples, boring, mild, barely interested and certainly not excited by what we are experiencing, but we have to do something. The parks are all very controlled now with no self-driving inside, just buses and trams, gift shops and snack shops. Everybody sees the same shit, nobody's experience is unique, challenging, or special. It drives us to drinking.
In 2 million years, some robot tourist from Alpha Centauri will leave the hoverpath and find the fossil footprint of that car and chuck it into Lake Mercury. The robot will be docked one lifespan, but only if there's a Klingon Administration in place. If the Romulans are in charge, no one will care as they will be too busy making earth great again.
Some idiots pulled down an interesting rock formation out at one of the Oregon beaches a year or so ago. It had been developing for thousands of years. Gone in a few minutes. FUN! They didn't know they were on video while they were doing it. Idiots. Everyone agreed they were idiots. They probably even agreed, after seeing themselves on tape. Look, some people are bent from birth and some were just not raised right. By their parents, and then don't get me started on the daycare center for the damned which are our public schools. Our society has a lot more leisure time and more people are moving about, and more of those people are entitled and thoughtless, so this is going to happen. I say put them in park jail, make them empty the outhouses and clean up after bears and whatever other nasty stuff has to happen behind the scenes at the park. Have some real consequences. Vacation over. Like that. The libs who run the parks will have a field day. Park justice. Win win win!
Life is strange. In '72 I turned 18, and spent the summer working waitress at a country club. Since I was still living at home, I had very few expenses, and managed to save up enough to buy a ticket on TAP Air Portugal to the Azores. My older brother was stationed at the Air Force base there on Terciera, where the Galaxy C-5's--the transport planes that kneel, would stop to refuel on their way to and from VietNam.
One of the adventures I experienced there involved crawling through lava tubes. There were places so tight and convoluted, I wondered what would happen if someone got stuck. It's almost like a dream now, looking back, and hard for me to believe such an experience was part of my life. In retrospect, taking that trip and crawling through lava tubes seemed so easily done and seemingly care free, with little to no concerns on my end for how things worked out, or what I saw and did, and no safety features or regulations in place in the tubes. When my return flight took off and I saw that beautiful green island receding in the window, I cried, aware that I probably wouldn't be coming back to that place again while wishing I could do so. What got in the way of my return? The rest of my life. There's no turning around or going back once you enter the tube!
I think I found the Air Force Base at the northeast corner of the island.
After finding the runway, a very large one, I looked around for the telltale 3 swimming pools, the mark of their class system. All three pools are rather small and I didn't see any people using them, or any cars. Anywhere. As if the whole place is deserted. No planes can be seen either. Although there are individual planeports spaced evenly next to the runway that could conceal them from overhead view.
Yes, Lages AFB. I'd forgotten the name. I don't remember the month I was there, but the hydrangeas were in bloom--mostly blue and the fields were emerald green. I stayed in the apartment of a family that had gone back to the US on leave. The class system with the pools is interesting. I don't recall swimming in any of them but did go shopping with my brother at the BX.
Interesting to me is that fact that it was your mention of a dream seeming real that served as the prompt that brought the memory back clear enough to cause me to comment. It wasn't the initial mention of lava tubes (which clicked in a left brain yes I've seen them kind of way) , but didn't activate the right brain enough to stir its stumps until talk of dreams and things seeming real wafted in to the area. That's when the memory came back full force.
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