Post from Samable

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Photo from 2018/2019

    "New year, new me". A sentence said by many, sometimes repeatedly throughout their lives, and now it is my turn. Or my year. 2024 is forecasted to bring many exciting adventures, changes, and hopefully improvements for me and my family, but before we get into that, I think I should start with where I've been. 

     Last year was a year of getting established and getting grounded. After the years of COVID, 2023 felt like the year of starting over or returning to pre-pandemic days. We went to several of our friends' weddings, went to baby showers, and started to experience life again. Roy started working again and quickly excelled while I returned to my true passion for fitness and recreation. New lifestyle changes, new apartments, new cars, and most importantly new adventures all to read about. The most exciting part about last year was our travels to Saudi Arabia. 

     Of course, if you'd rather skip the reading and see the picture timeline, you can see it on my Instagram, or you can see a quick highlight video on my TikTok.

     Let's start at the beginning; a month-by-month play-by if you will. At the beginning of the year, Roy started personal training again and is still currently in the process of building up his online presence. Readers, if you have some time we would both appreciate it if you could give his platforms some love: | Website | Instagram | TikTok | Youtube | He also does some training at a local gym and continues to enjoy training and building up his social media. 

     In the early spring, we took a weekend trip to the coast to attend the wedding of one of my friends. We took the opportunity to spend some time at one of our favorite towns, Lincoln City, and searched the shoreline for glass balls. Unfortunately, we didn't find any glass, but the weather was good and we made a fun road trip out of it. The wedding took place in Newport, so we also got to spend some time seeing the attractions of Newport. 

Red Sea

    A month later we packed our suitcases, checked our visa, and took a month-long trip to Saudi Arabia. Since the direct flights to Saudi were not available, we had to take a slightly longer route and a short detour. Our flight to Saudi Arabia went to Qatar first and we had a six-hour layover in Qatar. Since we didn't have enough time to leave the airport we wandered the Doha airport and enjoyed the beautiful indoor garden they have. Doha even has an indoor pool, but we choose not to swim, although, next time I might have to (just for the Instagram picture). We arrived in Jeddah late at night and went straight to our rental. 

     We traveled during the month of Ramadan and while Roy had informed me that the day would be quiet, I was surprised by how different observing Ramadan was in a truly Muslim country. Like many, we spent our days inside, resting and fasting, then explored the city at night after Iftar. However, I did drag Rowaid out of the house for a few days to go take Instagram pictures with me. Especially in Old Town Jeddah, Al-Balad. The beautiful architecture and experience of Arabian culture at night were busy, with people enjoying games, food, and re-enactments of life and other various Ramadan activities, but during the day, while everyone was fasting the streets were empty. Same with the beach. In the photo, I am along the beach at the Jeddah Corniche, a waterfront park with sculptures and events. Typically it is very busy, with lots of people enjoying everything to offer, but the first few days we were there during the month of Ramadan it was quiet and setting up for a festival. 

     For Eid, we traveled to spend time with Roy's family. I got to see other parts of Saudi Arabia and visit Roy's childhood memories. Other places we visited while in Saudi, included KAEC -King Abdullah Economic City and Thuwal. While in KAEC we visited more of Roy's family, swam in the sea, and explored the city. In Thuwal we went to the fish market. We got to select our fish, and after they cooked it to our liking we got to enjoy a traditional Saudi sea dish. The fish market was probably my favorite part of the trip. Not only is seafood a favorite of mine, but it was a great experience of the culture and a great bonding moment with Roy's family. 

Eid

     To return home from Saudi, we took the same flight route home, with an added layover in Seattle. Once we returned home, we quickly fell back into our routines and let life carry us away. My work became really busy, really fast and I let it consume most of my time. At the end of the summer, we were able to escape to attend our first Renaissance faire, and take another trip to the Oregon coast. On our summer coast trip, we had allotted ourselves a little more time and were able to make a week of driving south to Florence, and slowly driving back up north. 

     The coast trip is one I hope to repeat again in the future, maybe in the opposite direction, but it gave us a good starting point for exploring our state. We started in Florence and spent two days between Florence and Reidsport, meeting a family friend and playing in the sand dunes before driving up to our favorite town, Lincoln City. We spent the days there relaxing and sitting on the beach before continuing up to Seaside. We went during the Hood-to-Coast race, so we enjoyed the various vendors and new attractions put up but left for Astoria before the crowds came in. 

    The final stretch of the year was filled with busy work schedules, a move to a newer, bigger apartment, and time to prepare for the new year. Now that it's 2024 there have been some big changes, the first being that I'll be starting a new job at the end of the month. We also have some big plans lined up, and if you haven't already guessed, my New Year's resolution is to get back to Samable and keep you all updated/entertained. Let me know what you want to read more of this year!

Sam Can Now be Found at Samable!

Hey all Geology Blues fans! 

    The last time I wrote on this blog I was in middle school (I had to double-check it was so long ago). Now I am here once more to shamelessly promote my new personal blog Samable. I made this blog this year to share all my adventures as a college student.

To catch everyone up on where life has taken me: 

    I am a student at Portland State University studying Health and Fitness. I chose this major after one year of being an architecture major. I enjoyed architecture and liked the creativity of designing, but I realized that my true passion was in recreation. Now I am working towards the goal of becoming a recreation program direction. If I achieve my perfect goal, it would be to develop more after school programs for teenagers. For the fall semester of my third year, I am actually taking a break from health classes and studying abroad at Hanyang University in Seoul, South Korea. The only class I am taking here is Korean. When I return to the United States I will jump right back into my courses and keep considering that I really want to return to South Korea for graduate school.
   Other fun events that have happened include my very interesting summer job in Minnesota on Lake of the Woods. I have spent the last two summers working as a Wilderness Canoe Guide for teenagers. This job has allowed me to combine my love for the outdoors with my passion for afterschool programs for teenagers. It has also left me with many stories and adventures to tell.

    I'm keeping this post short and sweet, but I hope a few of you will look at my new blog and follow my new adventures!

More Summer Trips

Ok, so its been a while since I have been able to sit down finish posting about our trips last summer. After our trip to Sumpter/John Day, we spent a week at the coast. Most of our time at the coast was spent playing in tide pools and seeing non-geology things, but I did take one picture of some barchan dunes on the beach below the Yaquina Bay Lighthouse.

On the trip back to the east side of the state, we took the scenic detour through the desert high plains. This allowed us a stop at Crater Lake, which Sam had been wanting to go see ever since we moved to Oregon.

Stanton at the Rim near the North Entrance

We got to the park about 1 hour to late to take the boat ride (next time Sam) so we did the obligatory drive around the lake. Sam's favorite stops was at Pinnacles, where the steam from fumaroles welded together the overlying pumice and ash into an erosion resistant hoodoo.

On the way back from Pinnacles, we stopped at the new trail in the park, a 2.5 mile out and back to Plaikni Falls. It was a nice little trail through the woods, and the falls at the end were a nice surprise (ok I knew there was a waterfall, but it was more impressive that I had anticipated). Sam, however was tired, so by the time we got to the falls she had transformed into a bit of a sullen teenager.

Plaikni Falls

I think overall, Sam was a little disappointed in the lake. (I found out later that, being who she is, what she really had wanted to do was go swimming in the Lake. She didn't expect only one access to the lake that was 2-3 miles down a steep trail to a non-existent beach that would have been hypothermia inducing cold at that rate!)

Just Refreshing All Y'all

I've been busy lately school, swimming, and all sorts of extra stuff. Now my dad has been keeping you guys caught up on all our trips but I was going through some of my pictures and thought to myself, hey why don't I do a post on some of our trips. That way you guys can here his geological side to our trips and my fun creative side. :-) Also I will tell you some more fresh stuff.

Now one of our trips he might have only briefly mentioned was in August after summer swimming was done we went to Newport, Oregon. On our way there we stopped at Bonneville Lock and Dam. I have already been there but since we brought along our cousins it was a unique experience for them and I had a good time.

We also stopped at Silver Falls. Which is close to Albany. We went on a hike called 11 waterfall hike. Both my mom and I enjoyed it, mostly for the nature scenes. I do think my dad enjoyed it but he was looking at more geological structures.

On the left is a picture of my favorite waterfall. On the right is a picture of me in a cave with a "well" on the ceiling.

When we got to Newport everyone was anxious to go to the beach. We had rented a little two housed building right across the street from the beach so during our down time it was fun to go play in the sand. Not everyone went swimming since we were in the upper part of Oregon we got ocean currents from the Artic Sea so the water was very chilly.
Well we were in Newport we saw a light house that had 107 steps all the way up. At the top you could get a little button that said "I survived the climb!" my dad got both my brother and I a button.

After we stayed in Newport for awhile we went to Crater Lake. We didn't do much at Crater Lake because it had been a long week and everybody wanted to get home but we did get to see these cool geologic structures. I don't remember the exact name. I do remember however that inside these is just air they are hollow.

All together it was a great trip and I'm looking forward to going back to Crater Lake (like my dad "promised") and hiking up Wizard Island. In tell next time.... peace out! :-)

Summer Trips

I know it seems a little backwards, but now that classes are back in session, I have some time to catch up and blog about some of Sam and my summer trips.

Toward the end of July, Sam had a swimming competition in John Day. So we left a day early to go hike and to try and see some new stuff. First we tried to get up to the Elkhorn Ridge, but the 4WD approach road was more 4WD than my pseudo SUV could handle.

Next, we tried going hiking at Anthony Lakes, but there was too much snow on the trail, and we weren't prepared for that. So we headed down to lower elevations and visited the Sumpter Dredge Site.

The Dredge on display is the last of three dredges built between 1912 and 1934. It was operated until 1954 and dug up more than $4 million in gold (at about $34 per ounce). The three dredges together worked over 8 miles of river and created 1600 acres of tailings along the river bank.

 Sam is not all that interested in History so she wasn't that into the Dredge itself  (though we did have a good discussion hypothesizing what the white door that opened from the second deck out into empty space was for.) Sam was interested in paying for her college education, and she noticed gold glinting in the river, so we got a gold pan and a permit and she panned for a little while

Turns out fools gold is aptly named as that was the only color we had in our pan.

We still had time so we went down to the John Day Fossil beds. We had been here before, and I take a field trip every spring. But she got the obligatory picture in front of the Sheep Rock Fault, and I got to do some reconnaissance for future field trip stops.

It was a good trip, and as a final note, she won all her races at the meet the next day.

Goblin Valley is Weird

When I lived in Utah, my sister would often come and visit. We would make excursions to Southern or Eastern Utah, and she would always remark how weird some of the landscapes are. To me the epitome of weird Utah landscapes is Goblin Valley State Park, just North of Hanksville. My first trip to Goblin Valley was on Halloween, where a number of friends gathered to play hide and seek amongst the "goblins" that evening.

Goblin Valley was also my first introduction to the term "hoodoo" which remains one of my favorite geologic terms. To me, the sound of the word "hoodoo" perfectly describes the eerie shapes of Goblin Valley

Goblin Valley Panoramic Collage

This past spring break I came back to the hoodoos of Goblin Valley and got some pictures of Sam as she explored them.

Sam and Goblins

Biology

In Science Class we are studying Biology and today we had a live lamb and a dead lamb brought in. We have a few class clowns and they wanted to name the live lamb Lamb Chops.


Oh and a fare warning if you do not like to see blood please do not look at the pictures. So as I said we brought in a live lamb and a dead one [Philip says - the science teacher's friend raises sheep, so the lamb brought in for dissection was one which did not survive the spring weather]. We also got to dissect the dead one. As we were dissecting the dead one we let the live lamb roam around the class room. But before we started dissecting we got to feed the live lamb.

Feeding the lamb

When we were done feeding we finally got to open up the dead lamb. After we opened it up we took out the heart then we took out the liver and gallbladder after that we got to feel around inside of it and I think some of my classmates went to extremes on that.

Lamb insides

Lamb Heart

After a while of letting people feel the lambs inside we cut open skull to see the brain. As we were cutting open the skull you could hear it crack every time we moved the knife. Then we let people feel the brain and after (almost) everyone felt it Mr. S asked what it felt like and if we could describe the difference between the brain and the intestines. They all answered that the brain was hard and not as "squishy."
Lamb's Brain
After people got to feel that we took out an eyeball. When I got to hold the eye I observed that it was hard and not as soft as the intestines or stomach. Which surprised me because I always thought an eye ball was softer than that.
Lamb's Eye

When we had to go clean up I decided to get a pic of my hands

My Bloody Hands

Science today was really fun and I hope that the sixth grades next year enjoy it to.
Sam

Arches

For Spring Break I went to Utah, but I didn't just go anywhere, I went to Arches National Park for two nights and Goblin State Park for one night.

At Arches, we went on three hikes. The first hike was to Devil's Garden where we we saw several arches. One of the first two arches was called Tunnel Arch, but we didn't get a picture of that one. The second was Pine Tree Arch. We took a picture that made it look like I was holding it up, but acutally the arches was three or four times my height.

After Pine Tree Arch, we went to another part of Devil's Garden where we saw three Arches. The first was called Landscape Arch, it is the biggest Arch in the World! On the trail there was a sign that talked about a day when a piece of the arch fell and someone got a picture of it!

Then my Dad and I hiked up to Partition Arch and Navajo Arch. From Partition Arch you could look through a window to Landscape arch, but my favorite arch was Navajo.

On the way to Navajo Arch there were some wind pockets in the wall that you could hide in

Sam Says

I haven't blogged for awhile, because I've had yearbook after school and Saturday I had softball try-outs, I don't know how I did yet, but everyone says I did really good. This weekend I have a swim meet in Spokane. But most importantly for spring break (18-27) I'm going to Utah and if the national parks are open we are going to go look at some of the arches and one other thing my dad mentioned but I don't remember what it is. Well I'm there I will be sure to take lots of pictures and blog about it, and I'm sure my dad will too.

Favorite Geology Picture -AW#32

In a post about Multnomah Falls and Columnar Jointing, I posted this picture taken of Sam at Devil's Tower a few years ago. It remains one of my favorite pictures of geology (and Sam) as it provides such a great image to show several geologic principles at ones. Aside from the geologic signficance of the tower itself, the promionant geologic feature is the massive hexagonal piece that 7-year old Sam (for scale) is leaning against. Behind it, you can see the joints extending up the tower with clear hexagonal blocking roofs, allowing one to recognize the block as having weathered and fallen off the tower.

The picture also has trees and shrubs growing in the fractures below the main part of the tower. These fractures are not the columnar jointing of above, and so demonstrate a different condition of cooling for the base of the tower. The fractures below also have trees and shrubs growing amids the fractures illustrating yet another form of mechanical weathering.

Sam's Science Chat

In science we have a thing everyday called "interesting science fact of the day." this week all of them are based either on electricity or lightning which technically speaking are the same. Even tho lightning bolts have electricity the charge is brief so you couldn't use it to have a reading lamp on for thirty minutes. Lightning is an electric current ( electric current is the continuous flow of electrons within a conductor.) Within a thundercloud, many small bits of ice bump into each other as they swirl around in the air. All those collisions create an electrical charge. After a while, the whole cloud fills up with electrical charges (usually with a negative charge closest to the earth). Since opposites attract each other, that causes a positive charge to build up on the ground beneath the cloud. The ground's electrical charge concentrates around anything that sticks up, such as mountains, lone trees, people, or even blades of grass. The charge streaming up from these points eventually connects with a charge reaching down from the clouds, and--zap!--lightning strikes.

Have you guys heard of the Chaiten Volcano in southern Chile that erupted on Sep. 22, 2008 if not please click the date erupted and you will find a article. This volcano has lightning in its ash cloud.

I went on to google.com to see why there is lightning in a ash cloud and I found this on answers.yahoo.com they had what they called "the best answer" which is this...
The same process that goes on in any thunderstorm, rising turbulent warmer air causing static charges because of friction in the air, is being artificially created around the warm rising turbulent air from an eruption. Not only is ash rising, but huge amounts of hot water vapor is released as well. As the water vapor cools in the upper atmosphere, not only do you get lightning and thunder, but it also is likely to rain heavily which makes the ash fall even worse when it falls on top of buildings, by adding a lot of water weight to the ash. I saw a documentary on Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines recently on National Geographic and they showed the whole process. This only happens when there is a violent eruption. The low, slow flow like that in Hawaii does not cause any local weather effect as a violent explosive eruption does.
So that is a little bit about lighting and volcanoes.

Inversion

So I had to take Sam over the hill today for an orthodontist appointment. As we left this morning, we both noted the morning fog was pretty dense, and as we climbed up on Cabbage Hill, Sam got out her phone to take pictures of the fog in the valley's, she said it was pretty. I was thinking "inversion."

So on the way home, we stopped I kept track of the temperatures as we came back down off the anticline. We stopped at an overlook just pass Dead Mans Pass an elevation of about 3600'. The temperature was 42F, it was mostly sunny and you barely could see Mt. Rainier 180 miles away.

As we drove the 5 miles or so down Cabbage Hill, I kept track of the temperature on my dashboard thermometer, not great but usually good to within about 2F. At the road cut into the Patawa Creek drainage at elevation about 2800 feet, the temperature was 46F, and as we reached the top layer of the clouds at an e elevation of about 1600 feet, the temperature was 48F. This fits a normal environmental lapse of about 3F per 1000 feet.

We entered the Fog bank appropriately to Pink Floyd's "Is there anybody out there" track off The Wall, and with in a mile, the visibility dropped to less than 1/4 mile, and the temp plummeted to 34F.

 The long and short of the science is over the past few days High Pressure has been building over the Columbia Plateau, generating stagnant air warnings in the Portland and the Columbia Basin. In the morning, the cold air gets trapped in the valley where it meets the warm moist air that comes up the Columbia River creating a fog. That fog prevents sunlight from warming the air keeping the cold air inverted under the warmer air above.
 
On a final note, when we got home, there was even drops of rain falling on the driveway. I pointed out to Sam that it was weird given how sunny it had just been on the hill. She looked at me and said "its not rain, its the water moisture that makes up clouds coming out [condensing] on the tree branches and then dropping." When I noted she was correct she added, "just thinkin' like a scientist!"

Sam's Science Chat

Sorry everybody that I haven't writen any thing for a long time but i found something that i think is pretty cool info. Well I live in Oregon with my dad and I know a lot of people who are so prde because we have the deepest lake in the U.S.A in Oregon. So I wrote on this thing for school:

So you all know that Crater Lake is the deepest lake in the U.S.A but do you know what the deepest lake in North America or the deepest lake in the world is? Well I can tell you. The deepest lake in North America is the Crater Lake.
Sorry, but you are wrong. The deepest lake in North America has always been Great Slave Lake in the Northwest Territories, Canada. Why do some people have a difficulty in acknowledging the fact that this title belongs to Great Slave Lake? Crater Lake will always be the runner up for the title.
The deepest lake in the world is...
Lake Baikal (Baikal) in Siberia, Russia is the deepest lake in the world measuring 1620m deep at its deepest point. This makes it not only deep but also the oldest lake in the world estimated to be around 25 million years old.

Sam's Science Chat

This week in science class we talked about physical changes and chemical changes. One of the chemical changes was we put this alcohol on the desk and lit the desk on fire, the change was liquid to flame, heat, and light. We did this experiment three times the first time we only put a little bit on the desk, the second time we put some more, and the third time we put it all over the desk. The next day we had an assembly, it was the OMSI ( Oregon Museum of Science Industries) one of the things they did was show us what happened to the Hindenburg and he made "elephant toothpaste". On friday we saw a video of this guy with a big tub of murcury and he was talking about how dense it was so he showed us by dropping a cannonball in it to show that it floats.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rm5D47nG9k4

Sam's Science Chat

Sorry I'm late this week I went to my best friends house for the weekend. This week in science we studied matter, and that the two laws of matter are you can not create matter nor destroy matter. with those two laws Mr. S showed us a "magic trick" he put the stuff that is in diapers in a cup ( I am sorry I don't remember the scientific term for it ) and then put water in the same cup. Next he moved them around and made us guess what cup the water was in, but when he flipped the cup upside down nothing came out. Then he had us hypothesize what happend to the water one kid in my class suggested he was a witch. When he told us what he did he showed us how fast it turns a liquid to a solid.

Fossil Day

Today is national fossil day, so I thought I'd share a fossil from my teaching collection and let Sam tell a story about it.

One day in the fifth grade, my dad came to talk about fossils. After showing us a number of fossils, he passed this one around but he didn't tell the class what it was, so they had to guess.

While my dad was talking, one of my classmates K, was examining it very carefully holding it close to her face and smelling it. The boy next to her said "give it to me before you lick it." Pretty soon another girl in the class said she though she knew what it was, she said it looked like Dog Poo so she thought it was fossilized poo. When my dad said that is what it was K got out her 3 oz GermX bottle and dumbed it all out on her hand and began to rub it all over her face and hands.

-Sam

The fun thing for me as an educator was that it definitely created a memorable moment for the class. At the end of the year the students in Sam's class each wrote what their most memorable moment of the 5th grade. Two of the students wrote that they remembered the day that K almost ate dinosaur poo!

Sam's Science Chat

This week in science, Mr. S let us watch a Planet Earth video and we saw a part were the vine grew in fast mode.

We also saw a video called Toilets in Space. there was an astronaut who was talking about how instead of rely on gravity but air to take away the waist. We watched that video because the interesting science fact of the day was "Astronauts can not belch in space because there is no gravity to separate liquid from gas in their stomachs."

Sam

Sam's Science Chat

This is my first blogging about my science class in school. I will try every week to blog about something that happened in science class, but I have soccer almost every day after school so might not have time with practice and the games. I will call it Sam’s Science Chat.

My science teacher is Mr. S. Mr. S showed us an unborn baby deer this week. It was lying in a jar and had no fur.

Also, every day we get an interesting science fact, my favorites this week were that a giraffe only sleeps 30 minutes a day, they also have seven vertebra in its neck, the same as a human.

- Sam

Switzerland

I went to Switzerland to visit my Uncle and his family. While I was there we saw castles, mountains, and the Rhein Falls. Here are some pictures from my trip.

After we hiked up a mountain to have lunch, Grandpa and I rode down the mountain on these scooters!

This is a cow that I encounter on one of the mountains. So I got close enough that I was able to pet it, but before I got to pet it, the cow licked my hand and its tounge felt really weird!

This is a picture of a mountain with a lake in front of it. My Dad says that there is some cool geology of folding rock layers that can be seen

When we were hiking up a mountain to go down in a cable car we saw this sign which in Swiss German says "Kids must be on Leash" because it is steep. I though it was a good laugh.

This is the Matterhorn behind me. It was really cloudy that day so the most we saw was 2/3 of it.

Sam

Memorial Day Weekend in the Columbia River Gorge

So Sam had a series of softball games in Hood River on Saturday. I was excited about this because this was an opportunity for me to get into the Columbia River Gorge. Despite being in Oregon for almost 2-years, I had only been in the Gorge once on a return trip from Ape Cave on the southside of Mt. St. Helens. And on that trip it was dark and I was the only driver so I did not get to see much geology.

On this trip, either because she was more awake or because she knew I would be looking at rocks, Stephanie drove down to Hood River, so I got to gawk. I tried taking pictures from the car, but most did not turn out, but I did get one that showed the "cake layers" of the individual flows. This picture was taken at about mile marker 79 and shows the Washington side of the Columbia River. Unfortunately when I got the shot there were no cars (or better yet trains) on the other side for scale.

On the way home, I got this shot from the Columbia River Gorge Discovery Center Museum in the Dalles (exit 82). It does not have the same nice layers as the previous image, but it does show the layers dipping towards the river (SE) and it has a BNFS train for scale.

Oh  yeah, the softball game....  Won one, lost two (both by 1 run), Sam went 1 for 6 with her one hit being a nice line drive into center field. She made it to third when they missed the throw and tag at second, but in the end was left on base.

Philip