Surprise: it’s uranium!

While walking around the Mission aimlessly on June 2nd, Doc and I wandered into Carousel Consignment to browse their wares. There we found a full set of depression-era uranium dioxide glassware:

Ahh, that cheery uranium glow.

Since Doc and I don’t have much space, and don’t do much entertaining (these two points are actually related), we went in on the set with Jon, who was pleased to have something to finally test his Geiger counter on.

They’re nice and purdy, with or without a UV light, and they have become our “special occasion” glassware.

Now we just need to buy some tonic water, fill them up, and check out how the two fluorescent sources look together under UV.

Gray Whale Fossils in Marin

Low tide over Drake’s Estero; Inverness, California

Near Inverness in Northern California along the Estero Trail, there is a secret little beach littered with cetacean fossils that are roughly 7 million years old. These cetaceans were the ancestors of the modern day gray whale, and this particular area used to be their breeding ground. The whole hike is only about 9 miles round trip, and there is only a minimal amount of bushwhacking necessary to get to the fossils. Continue reading “Gray Whale Fossils in Marin”

Lassen Volcanic National Park: my debut, and my review

That there’s Lassen Peak, a member of the Cascades

Some buddies and I headed over to Lassen Volcanic National Park last Friday, and we just got back. None of us had ever been there, and to be honest we barely did any research. We fell back to Lassen because we decided against doing Mount Ritter again (due to weather), and we were curious about the place. It is a relatively remote park in the Cascade region near Redding, California. We just knew that we wanted to climb Lassen Peak – a volcano, of course. Continue reading “Lassen Volcanic National Park: my debut, and my review”