Presently the Floods Break Way

The New River can be seen in the background

Bisset Park is reopened (though many of us had been using it anyway) after the epic January flooding, and on Sunday we took Petie & Pepper to the dog park there for the first time since. While the city has cleared away all the debris, it's stunning to see how much the landscape has been altered; the paved and grass-covered riverway park resembles a sandy coastal beach. It's still unclear how much blame exists beyond that of the weather, but one thing is clear: it could be a very long time before the landscape will be the same, if ever.

For now, though, The Girls are enjoying playing in the sand.




More Thoughts on Place, Specific Ones

Speaking of nostalgia...

In Googling something yesterday, I ran across a couple of online photo albums of some guys' trip to Mt. Whitney, a trail which begins where I lived and worked in Sequoia National Park, and continues through the park's backcountry along the High Sierra Trail. Seeing those photos makes me remember exactly why that place was, is, so amazing to me. Naturally I feel compelled to share (some of the photos are duplicates, but they're all worth looking at!):

• First album and trip journal
• journal with photo links;

Incidentally, this is the view from the porch of Bearpaw Meadow Camp , where my brother worked for several summers. imagine getting up and being able to look at THAT every morning!

Also incidentally, nearby is Precipice Lake , subject of a slightly-obscure ansel adams photo titled "Frozen Lake and Cliffs, Kaweah Gap" . During many years it never even thaws out enough to see the truly astonishing colors . I have a photo I took of this same lake in 1992 that, not to sound boastful, is way better than the pictures i found on Google!

Sigh.

Some Thoughts on Place

Amusing interaction:

Me: Poor M [one of the few co-workers I like]. As I was jumping up and down sharing my news of getting to quit, she told me that her partner got into Duquesne Law School, and she'll be stuck here at least another four years.

J: That sucks. She's not a Pittsburgher, right? Isn't she from Pennsyltucky?

Me: Um, 'scuse me?

J:[holds up right hand] Yeah, you've got Pittsburgh over here, [holds up left hand] Philadelphia over here, and [gestures wildly with both hands] everything else in between, Pennsyltucky.

Me: [falls down laughing] HAHAHAHA!

J: Hmmm. I suppose now we're moving to Virgintucky.

Seriously, though, I was musing on and talking with J. about some of the things we were discussing in LJ recently. I was meditating on just what it is, specifically, about particular landscapes that makes them un-appealing to me, why I prefer certain places over others. And J. said something really insightful, something that really gets at the heart of the issue, in light of his trip to VA, his initial impressions that that place, while pretty, just doesn't *do it* for him.

And here is the common thread: The places that don't resonate with me seem to not do so because they're disturbed landscapes. It's definitely not exclusively a geographic issue, not that I can only fully appreciate Western Places (though those are clearly my favorites). Because I can adore say, the NJ Pine Barrens, the all-too-few-remaining longleaf pines of GA, the murky swamplands of FL. No, often the places that don't feel *right* to me are degraded landscapes. Western PA has bazillions and bazillions of trees and forests, but they're all forests that have been clearcut, probably several times. Iowa has been completely leveled and cleared of its lovely, prairieland to make room for corn and soybean and corn and soybean and corn and soybean crops.

Maybe I have an overly-romanticized attraction to pristine places, native places, landscapes that do not bear the obvious mark(s) of human impact. Maybe I'm stuck on this notion of "wildness," whether that be here or in the South or someplace out west.

I'm sure this whole idea could use a LOT more meditation, that this is only one small part of the larger picture. but it's interesting to have isolated something more concrete than just a sense impression, a feeling.