Mount Fuji From a Distance

 When I visited Japan in 2015 I hoped to see Mount Fuji.  Not up close, as time wouldn't permit, but hopefully from a distance.  On our last day, up in the Sky Tree, Mount Fuji was silhouetted in a rose colored sunset.  That was such a beautiful sight.

This last trip a visit wasn't planned to see Mount Fuji up close, so I hoped weather would be fortunate enough for a distant view.  Sure enough, last Wednesday, after getting off the Shonan Monorail in Enoshima, there stood Fuji, proud and strong, albeit a little hazy.  But still I saw this beautiful mount.

Of course the above pic is a close up, zoomed in shot.

This is what Mount Fuji looked like from the balcony.

So small!  And I had to squint a little!

But I still saw it.

I saw this iconic beautiful death trap ready to spew lava at any moment.

It's an active volcano.  Volcanoes make me nervous.

Even so, I still hope to one day see her up close.

Paris Flood, Counting My Blessings, and listening to Nature's Cycles & Warnings (Earthquakes and Supervolcanoes)

(I took this photo April 12th)

I was in shock this morning, listening to the news on the radio, willing my brain to wake up when I heard the Seine River in Paris France was flooding, and that the Louvre and Musée d'Orsay were closed in order to save precious art.

An article from The Independent showed humbling photos of the floods and the high level of water of the Seine, the same river I walked along over a month ago.

On May 10th, 2016, we drove back from Issoudun to the Charles De Gaulle airport, driving along the A10 through Orleans up to Paris.  Even on that day it was raining really hard.  It was pretty scary, cars zipping by driving over 120 km an hour (74 mph) on standing water.  Really dangerous, especially after the experience my Mom and I had last March driving along the I-15 to Nevada when an SUV lost control in the rain and almost hit us.  The article in The Independent states: "The main A10 motorway from Paris to the south west remains flooded north of Orleans.  On Wednesday, 650 motorists and truckers were stranded after the motorway turned into a river.  Amphibious army trucks were sent to rescue them."

From what I've read the flooding of the Seine happens every century, the last happening in 1910.  Current water levels don't match the level reached in 1910, though with more rainfall predicted it's possible the situation will get worse.  The RER C train, which I took to Versailles, is closed.  If the water level rises a few more feet the subways will be affected.  The situation is grim.

I'm praying Paris will recover, as I pray everyone surviving the Texas floods will recover, where there's 31 Texas counties flooded.

It's important to listen to the cycles and patterns of nature, stretching hundreds, thousands or more years.  Living in the Western United States we have our own patterns to watch for, many of which are pretty terrifying.  The super-volcano Yellowstone, a six hour drive from here, is overdue.  The Wasatch mountains have about a 47% chance of Earthquake in the next 50 years, with great devastation predicted (Utah Valley floor dropping 15 feet, liquefaction due to fine soil sediments, floods from Salt Lake and mountain lakes,etc). San Andreas is 60 years overdue.  The overdue Earthquake that's the stuff of nightmares is the Cascadia subduction zone, which will not just affect California, Washington, and Oregon, but Japan as well, and will be overwhelmingly devastating due to the nature of this Earthquake running along the pacific coast.  The Cascadia subduction zone erupts every 240 years.  The last one took place 316 years ago.  It's due.  And it will be terrifying.  Far worse then San Andreas.  Oh, and there's another super-volcano near Mono Lake in the Eastern Sierra Nevada's that's showing movement, so there you go.

I didn't write the last paragraph to scare anyone, especially since mostly everyone I love lives in the Western USA.  I'm not moving anytime soon.  I love Utah, and I know this is where I'm supposed to be, but it's important to be aware of the dangers that surrounds us and to prepare accordingly.  A lot of dangers we can't prepare for, but for those in which we can, we should.

We shouldn't live in fear as fear merely robs us of our present and future.

With everything I've thought about today thus far, I'm thankful.  Every moment I'm alive I'm thankful.  And I'm thankful my Mom and I got to experience France and come home safely.  It's humbling.

And I'm praying for all of those living through natural and unnatural disasters/tragedies throughout the World.

Old Volcanoes in Utah

(Public Domain.  Source Info found here.)

Back when I was in school I would stress over general education classes.  I was actually excited for most of them, but was absolutely dreading Geology, which was required for my Earth Science class.  It ended up being my most favorite class of all time!  It helps having an energetic teacher.  (And it's fun to admit that on one of the tests I was the only one to get 100% out of her 150+ students . . . and those tests were hard . . . proving once again I'm a geek.)

What made the class so much fun is all the time we spent studying volcanoes (we skipped the section on dirt so that we could spend more time on volcanoes.)  It wasn't until a few years ago that I realized there used to be so many volcanoes in Utah.  There's 4 main volcanoes that represent 3 types of volcanoes.

In certain places along the I-15 you can see volcanic rock.

Both of these photos were taken near Cove Fort Utah on the I-15.  I was told you can see an old volcano from the interstate, and I was told the below hill was the volcano, but I'm starting to have my doubts as I've been doing a bit of research and can't find any evidence.  

From what I've read all the volcano's are dormant.  Though there was apparently some volcanic activity 600 years ago in the Black Rock Dessert in Millard County.

It is strange driving on the I-15, knowing that thousands and millions of years ago these volcanoes shot out lava.  These dormant volcanoes are a time stamp of the past.  An image of what was.  How things change and not to take anything for granted.

Sarah