Introduction
Two months ago, my wife Toni and I planned and paid for a fall break vacation that we completed last week. This semi-epic trip was a seven-day journey to the great state of California.
We planned and experienced two different things, and I think changing climatic conditions might have played a part in our misadventures.
Along the journey, it occurred to me that aspects of my global warming work were apparent right before my eyes. Since I have been thinking about global warming work for years, I thought it would be interesting to blend real-world conditions into this story as I tell it.
Finally, I have decided to explain my latest global warming work in a series of small articles, rather than writing long-winded, deep research-like articles that nobody will read. I need to make this work fun and interesting to read.
I want this story to be told so that my ten-year-old son Jett can understand what I have learned and be interested in reading it. I encourage everyone to come along on this journey by subscribing to this blog via email, and it will only take you a couple of minutes per article to follow along. I promise that you will learn a few things along the way, just like I have.
The Planned Vacation
We planned about a 1,000-mile clockwise loop around the Sierra Nevada Mountains, starting at the LAX airport. Figure 1 shows the planned route. We planned on seeing Sequoia National Park (NP), Kings Canyon NP, Yosemite NP, the ghost town of Bodie, Mammoth Lake, Mount Whitney, Death Valley NP, LA sites, and the coast around Santa Monica.
That is a lot to see and do in a week, but when a geologist is leading the way, anything is possible.
The Actual Vacation
Thanks to a devilish Mother Nature who was in a really bad mood, we had to take a slightly longer counter-clockwise loop around the central valley, as shown in Figure 2. The bad news is that we had one uncooperative hotel in Bishop CA that refused to give us a $400 refund, while another hotel did business the right way and refunded our money in total (>$600). Can you guess which hotel we will be sure to visit next time we visit?
What Happened?
You will have to see the next installment of this series to understand how mother nature threw us a series of really wicked curveballs. If you have never tried to hit a curveball, let me tell you that it isn’t easy to do. Please stay tuned.
