The New River is a New national park

 

I just saw this today.  After reading it, I'm putting this on my destination list, and I can get there in approximately a quarter day (if I don't stop anywhere).  I've heard of it before, mainly because of the bridge over the gorge, but I'd never considered if I should try to visit.

I could make a long weekend of it and also visit Natural Bridge State Park in Kentucky.  That would make it a pretty long drive back, though.

New River Gorge: America’s newest national park is one of West Virginia’s hidden gems

"The New River Gorge is located in southern West Virginia, roughly five hours southwest of D.C. The new designations [as a national park and preserve] encompass 53 miles of the New River (locally called simply “the New”) and the rugged tangle of Appalachian forest around it, which is crisscrossed by hiking and mountain biking trails, railroad tracks, and winding country roads. The area has been administered by the National Park Service, which maintains several visitor centers on the gorge, since it was given conservation status as a national river in 1978."

There are great photos in the article;  here's another one I found.

 

Two excerpts from Biden's inaugural speech

 

These caught my ear (and also my eye when I went back and re-read them):

One:

"Politics doesn’t have to be a raging fire, destroying everything in its path. Every disagreement doesn’t have to be a cause for total war. And we must reject the culture in which facts themselves are manipulated and even manufactured."

Two:

"Recent weeks and months have taught us a painful lesson. There is truth and there are lies, lies told for power and for profit. And each of us has a duty and responsibility, as citizens, as Americans, and especially as leaders, leaders who have pledged to honor our Constitution and protect our nation, to defend the truth and defeat the lies."

I'm going to try and keep on defending the truth about the science of climate change, a truth that is becoming more apparent every day and month, and defeat the lies of skeptics and deniers, even as they defy the truth of data and their own senses.

Lighthouse of the Week, January 17-23, 2021: Castle Island Lighthouse, Acklins, The Bahamas

 

Location wise, Castle Island is a small island off of the much larger and better known (and more easily findable) Acklins, also an island of the Bahamas.  Confused?

To locate it more accurately, click right here.

To make things slightly confusing, there is also a Castle Island Lighthouse in Freeport, Bahamas. Or at least there's one according to Google Maps.  I'm not actually sure there is a lighthouse there, but there is a castle, called Cooper's Castle, which is both an occupied home and a tourist attraction, because it is a big, recently-built home that looks like a castle.

But that is not the subject of this post;  the lighthouse on the little island is the subject.

Here's what the remarkable Lighthouse Directory tells us about it:

"1868. Active; focal plane 40 m (131 ft); two white flashes every 20 s. 34 m (112 ft) round brick tower with lantern and gallery, painted white; 1st order Fresnel lens (1934)."

Wow, a first order Fresnel lens!  The Directory also informs that it might be endangered (i.e., not maintained well), and it that is used to have red stripes.

Since Acklins is one of the lesser Bahamian islands, there aren't a lot of pictures here, so it might be a nice place to get away to.

I also found a 3+ minute video, so enjoy your trip.

Salma Hayek has still GOT it

 

Salma Hayek has got a lot -- acting career, artistic accomplishment, offspring, wealthy and devoted husband, plus ...

regal looks and a still luscious voluptuous figure.

The Daily Mail is all over that.

Salma Hayek shows off her famous curves in a plunging green dress to celebrate 17M Instagram followers

Salma Hayek, 54, continues to flaunt her bikini body during lockdown as she meditates on the beach: 'We need to keep our cool

Superb and stunning, still Salma.

The problem with lakes and less (or no) ice

 

In my discussions with climate change skeptics and deniers on Twitter (and elsewhere) -- a pastime I plan to return to soon -- I've frequently brought up the trends in winter ice cover on lakes as a sure sign of warming.  I've not pursued, as much, the problems that the loss of ice cover can lead to.

The Weather Channnel did it for me.

Northern Hemisphere Lakes in Danger of Losing Their Ice

To watch the video, you'll have to click the link;  I can't embed that video here. However, here's the transcript of the video.

"The Great Lakes could go from this to ice-free by the end of the century; a new study looked at 51,000 lakes in the Northern Hemisphere using temperature projections to determine whether they would lose their ice. 

Researchers found that nearly 5,700 lakes are in permanent danger of becoming ice-free by the centuries end. 179 of them could lose their ice by 2031. The study also found ice on some large bays in Lake Michigan and Lake Superior could be gone by 2055, and even though no ice fishing would be a bummer that problem is much bigger than that.

Ice cover helps water in lakes from evaporating during the winter, so if it disappears the water disappears quickly too, and winter ice helps regulate water temperatures in the summer. If the water gets too warm, algae blooms like this become more frequent and more intense. Depending on the lake, changes like these could be disastrous; Lake Michigan alone supplies water to 10,000,000 people."

The video references a paper in Geophysical Research Letters; so I searched around and after a bit of playtime with search terms, determined that the paper was the one linked below.  It was intriguing because there are two other papers of interest about lake ice published in 2020.   I may investigate them, too.

Forecasting the Permanent Loss of Lake Ice in the Northern Hemisphere Within the 21st Century

by Sharma, S., Blagrave, K., Filazzola, A., Imrit, M.A. and Hendricks Franssen, H.J.

Further north in Chicago on Highway 41

 

As I said in the previous Highway 41 post, Chicago's Lincoln Park is featured in these StreetViews.

The bridge will get pedestrians from North Avenue Beach to the park.

It also has another statue of Abe Lincoln, as you might expect. There's also a monument to Benjamin Franklin, but I'll skip that.

The zoo is opposite the water at this point. The main thing you can see is parking.

Through the trees here I believe a couple of zoo structures can be seen.

One view inside the zoo (since we're trekking through the scenic highlights on or near the highway. This is the 'Swan Pond'.

 

Fullerton Beach is on the Lake Michigan waterfront here.

A tale of three icebergs

 

After Iceberg A68a briefly ran aground on the shallow shelf south of South Georgia Island, it broke.  Then it drifted southeastward, and broke again.  

Now, there's three main pieces.  The first small piece that broke off after it grounded on the shallows is still there.  The biggest piece is southeast of the island, but the narrow "finger" piece has taken off and is now northeast of the island.

Clearly and fascinatingly, this is related to the ocean currents in that region, and the depth that the various pieces of the berg reach below the surface.

Here's that situation on January 14: