Mt. Zion conglomerate

An encore trip up Mount Zion. Four kids, two adults. The Lyre Formation rock exposures and lush understory makes for interesting trailside viewing on the way up.

Lyre Formation pebble conglomerate along the trail.

At the peak of Mount Zion: a geologic debate heats up. 

Why is geology so much more interesting with a rock hammer in hand?

Tubal Cain mine

On an absolutely beautiful day in July, with wild rhodedendrons in bloom, I finally made it up to the abandoned Tubal Cain mine. 

There are several old adits into bedrock along the hiking trail. Bementite, a manganese silicate, is the ore mineral that was mined. Mindat has more information on this mineral: http://www.mindat.org/min-621.html.

There was old mining equipment around at the primitive campground that is surrounded by lush streams. If you hike up past the camping area, above the tailings pile, you'll find the upper adit. This really is one of the most beautiful hikes to be had. 



Third Beach, La Push, Olympic Peninsula

Found my way to Third Beach, near LaPush, for Mother's day. The wind-whipped water turned beautiful shades of turquoise-green. I found dozens of pebbles of black and red orbicular jasper along the upper portion of the beach. Small patches of the beach were blanketed in black sand -- the sand grains made of tiny pieces of basalt that have eroded from the headlands. 

 
It's slow going mining pebbles out of the conglomerate.

Dosewallips Ho!

For Mother's Day this year, Kai took me camping to Dosewallips.

Dosewallips State Park is a nice, clean state campground on the west side of Hood Canal, somewhat north of Olympia. You don't have to have a reservation - some sites cannot be reserved - but I definitely recommend it.

Dosewallips beach (http://apps.ecy.wa.gov/shorephotos/scripts/bigphoto.asp?id=JEF0052) is a great place to go clamming, but we actually drove home Sunday morning to do that locally instead.



So for dinner, we got to have steamed clams with butter. Yum!

Holy Mammatus Clouds!

I picked up Kai from preschool in Port Hadlock and on the way home I couldn't believe my eyes! These giant mammatus clouds were plopping down from the sky. I've only seen mammatus clouds once before in Montana - they are rare on the west coast. This type of cloud is usually found trailing after the anvil part of a violent thunderstorm cloud. (Which probably was the case today, I just never heard any thunder or saw any lightning.)

We had a very cold front and rainstorm move through around 4:30 today. It was drizzling and dark when I went in to the school and when I came out these clouds were limping after the passing storm.

I raced home with Kai, grabbed my camera and told him that we were going "cloud chasing." The clouds were literally fading away on the horizon as I snapped these around 5:40 pm. It made my day!

Portland June 19-20

I travelled to Portland with Eric to attend his sister's wedding. On the way to the church I saw this sign and started laughing. It is so true.

Finland: Leaving Jtown, Helsinki or bust: Fri. Oct 5

As the winter rains are starting to settle in, Harriet, Kai and packed up to head south for the winter to Faster Barbro's apartment in Helsinki. This is the last leg of our 3-week trip (*sniff*).

I picked up my new Finnish passport yesterday afternoon from the Police Station in Jakobstad. It took 7 days to get (that's without a rush) and cost 46 Euros. Of course, getting passport photos from the photo studio in town cost 13 Euros - and the photo looks just as crappy as $2.00 ones from a photo booth!

This morning we visited Fammo and had dreamcake (drömtårta) and pepparkakor from Sjöberg's bakery in Jakobstad. Good stuff! Fammo gave us each a package to take home. Yummers!

Next time we'll be back is for her 95th birthday party in 2009. And Kai will be 4 years old!

What was really cute was that Kai is completely unaware that Fammo is 93. In this picture, he is eclipsing Fammo after climbing all over her. He tried to jump on her, get her to give him a horsey ride and yanked on her arms pretending he was falling. She survived! Meanwhile, I was a little worried and I asked if he was bothering her but she said no. I guess once you're a great grandmother you've learned how to play with kids and not throw out your back. I, however, am still learning that lesson.

We caught the intercity train leaving Jakobstad at 15.30. Kai and I played in the second story kids playground in one of the wagons. What a great idea to put one of those in. I even went down the slide too.

Faster came and met us at the Helsinki train station and we took a taxi back to her apartment on in the Dromsö neighborhood. Tomorrow I'm off to Åbo (Turku) to relive my youth (I lived there for 4 years while working on my master's degree in geology).

Finland: Kokkola...Archrival of Jakobstad: Thurs. Oct 4

Today, we entertained the enemy and visited the city center of the neighboring town Kokkola. The Swedish name for Kokkola is Karleby, and I'm not sure how the Jakobstad and Kokkola became rivals, but I've heard many a joke about "Kokkola bo." (Residents of Kokkola.) Unfortunately, none of the jokes are fit to print.



(Here is a photo of the pedestrian street that runs through the town's shopping district.)

In Kokkola, we visited the Rukka factory outlet and H&M. I didn't even know they had an H&M "up north" here. True to form, it carried precisely the same stuff as the Helsinki store.

My mom was excited since there was a Robert's coffee where she could procure a latte, and Kai and I rode the escalators ad infinitum. Turns out that kids can do that...if they have their parents along.




(Here's Kai sitting on a bench. Notice the Rapakivi granite trim underneath. In the U.S., this building stone is known as "Baltic brown.")

I've always had a soft spot in my heart for Kokkola. When I was 5, I spent a week in the hospital there and I remember the nurses were very nice, that in the surgery room there was a picture of a red and white mushroom that a kid had drawn, and that there was an awesome gameroom down the hall where Mike got to play - but I didn't!

Afterwards, we went to visit Fammo. She seemed very cheerful and had been out for a long walk with another lady. Kai and I actually walked past them on our way to Fammo's apartment, but we didn't recognize Fammo and she didn't recognize us! Overcoats, hats and sunglasses will do that. The weather, though crisp and a bit windy, was downright balmy today, peaking around 13 C (about 55 F).

Tonight is our last night in Jakobstad. I picked up my Finnish passport from the police station today and tomorrow we leave by train for Helsinki. It's been a great stay here in Jakobstad - even the trees in town rolled out the red carpet with the best fall foliage that's fit to see.

Finland: Lappajärvi ho! Wed. Oct 3

Kai's first impact crater!

We made it to the big impact crater! It was a fun day. Between the meteorite museum at Kivitippu hotel and driving around the central uplift island of Kärnä, it was a rock star kind of day. I think my mom and Kai had fun too. Here a few pictures.

View of foggy Lake Lappajärvi from the southern tip of Kärna Island.

At the meteorite museum at Kivitippu, there are some great display boards, dioramas and evena real meteorite that landed near Borgå (Porvoo).

The impact crater diameter extends beyond the

lake's boundaries. The impact crater is 19 km long - Finland's biggest.

A vast layer of melted bedrock, which geologists call suevite, is present in the Lappajärvi area. Locally, this rock is called kärnite and is mined for use as a beautiful building stone.

This photo is of the floor at the Kivitippu Resort. You can see the blocks of unmelted host rock in the grey melted matrix. The grey material got so hot it was glass!

The island of Kärna has beautiful birch forests, in addition to an exciting geologic past.

Finland: Nykarleby adventures: Tuesday Oct. 2

Today we explored Nykarleby. I got so excited when we parked next to a sign that read "WALLENDAHL."

I had forgotten that Åsa's (my second cousin) dad owns a paint store in Nykarleby. I told my mom that we should go in and see if Rolf was working. He was! It was fun to talk to him - he plays saxophone in Jakobstad and is part of the Jazzoo (http://www.jazzoo.fi/). (My mom and I have one last chance to check out Jazzoo here in Jakobstad before we head down to Helsinki on Friday.)

After the paint shop, we checked out a yarn shop, took some pictures of the Nykarleby church. Then we had coffee and a green frog princess cake and then came home. A great day - all and all. For dinner, Bitti cooked up some delectable elk meatballs with mashed potatoes. Yum! Really, what more can you ask for? :)