Confessions of a cranky vacationer....

[pat]

(I went the whole of my vacation without posting on LJ once. brian1789 did a lovely series of travelogues, however. I will be posting the pleasant things from my trip tomorrow, when I'm in a better frame of mind, but tonight I'm just grumpy. I hate coming home.)

Some very grumpy observations:

Trains* bore me silly.

Military aircraft* bore me even sillier.

You cannot pay me enough money to ever step foot in a mine again.**

Lake Tahoe is incredibly beautiful -- it's a shame that somebody had to slap the towns of Stateline and South Tahoe on it. Planning, it's a wonderful thing.

After traveling through the Sierra for five days with a geophysicist, and visiting several geologically important places, I can now (sort of) tell andesitic from granitic rock, and state how andesite, granite, columnar basalt and tufa form. For me, however, at the end of the week, they're rocks. Very pretty rocks, for the most part (even the tufa). Big honking rocks, usually (except for the tufa). But rocks nonetheless. (I think I exhausted every shred of my scientific curiosity at Devil's Postpile.*** )

(True story: as we were going through the Eastern Sierra, heading down from the Reno-Tahoe area towards Bodie State Park -- an incredibly lovely drive -- and brian1789 was explaining the roadside geology, I was thinking "Too bad mactavish isn't along on this trip -- she'd really like all this geology". Just then, he stopped and said "You know, I wish mactavish were here. She'd really like this.")

However, lest anyone think I did not have a good time -- I did, and learned a lot of new things (and yes, even the geology was pretty interesting, I will admit) -- I just want to state for the record that brian1789 was a saint for allowing me to subject the entire family to days upon days of the "Broadway" (i.e., show tunes) channel on the satellite radio.

Which brings me to my last observation:

I don't care if Mama Mia! plays every damned theatre on the Great White Way, "Dancing Queen" is no show tune -- it's ABBA.


* I need to make a distinction between the objects (which bore me) and their historical or human significance (which does not). At the railroad museum, I could not have cared less about the engine specifications for the locomotives on the Virginia & Truckee Railroad, but I found the exhibit on the lives of Chinese rail laborers fascinating. Similarly, at the Castle Air Museum, I glazed over completely when reading about the aircraft, but I found the exhibit of military memoribilia in the indoor area really interesting.)

**A mine is a very bad place to discover that you have latent claustrophobia.

***I'm pretty sure this is a temporary condition, and that I will return to being insatiably curious soon.

Comments

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

I had a hard time learning to drive safely, because I'm so constantly sticking my head out the window to check out geology and biology. And my interest in geology started with a high school teacher who knew 395 intimately. Thanks for thinking of me, and for sharing. :)