Utopia

An imaginary place where life is perfect. Each person's would be unique. What would yours look like?

Here's what the site of mine might look like:

More important, how would it feel? What would I do each day? Who would share my utopia with me? Each person would answer those questions differently.

Look the word up and you'll find descriptions of peaceful societies or communities governed by rules that treat all members fairly, often with communal living arrangements. This wistful notion has roots in the lost Garden of Eden and the Golden Age of Greek mythology, and is reinvented in every period when men dream of a different and better life. Sometimes in various countries they even try to create it.

Keep reading and learn of American "utopian communities" that failed. I have visited the remnants of several: a Shaker village in Massachusetts, the Amana colonies in Iowa, and New Harmony, Indiana. Most are now gone or museum sites, some on the National Historic Register.

But a new effort is under way. In August, 2013, the Huffington Post published an artricle describing nine "alternative modes of living" which are open to new members:  9 Utopias That Really Exist

They are located in several countries with six in continental US, one in Hawaii, a group of 25 "elevated structures" in Costa Rica, and the incredible modernistic city New Songdon in South Korea on Incheon Bay. It is built from scratch, like Dubai, and scheduled for completion in 2015! It's a "far cry" from any in the past, but Who Knows? Maybe this one will succeed:

Flickr: Nicolette_Mastangelo                  

Sierra Nevada (aka What's in a Name?)

In Spanish the word sierra can refer either to "mountain range" or to "saw". That double meaning is known as "disambiguation" (a new word for me), but let's not go there! We are interested in a mountain range, and translate Sierra Nevada in the western US as the "Nevada Mountain Range".

But wait - we're not done. Nevada in Spanish means "snowfall" or "snow clad" in English. So the full meaning of Sierra Nevada is roughly "Snow-Covered Mountain Range". I think that is beautiful. (If Spanish-speaking readers are cringing I hope they will put a correction in the comments.)

That's the end of the cultural vocabulary lesson. I set out to write a little something about what I call the Sierra Nevadas but immediately ran into all that information. I share it with you because I feel that knowing the "back story" of anything adds a dimension.

So "without further ado" I introduce the Kiersarge Pinnacles of the Sierra Nevada, named for the 1861 Civil War vessel USS Kearsarge, which was named for Mt Kearsarge in New Hampshire. 

There are dozens of pictures showing the beauty of the range, but I was drawn to the one above for its eerie "other-worldly" feel. For geographical interest as well as beauty some examples are . . .

         Mt Whitney, highest peak in the range            and                    Yosemite Valley  

The mountain range encompasses a vast area of land, much of it owned by the Federal government. It includes 3 national parks and 2 national monuments, plus many towns and communities such as Carson City, South Lake Tahoe, Truckee, Grass Valley, Mammoth Lakes, Sonora, Nevada City, and Portola.

* * * * * * * * * *

Finally, a bit of geologic history:  20 million years ago there was major volcanic activity in this area. (Granite from that period is visible in places.) After millions of years, a crust began to form which tilted slowly westward. Rivers cut deep canyons on both sides, some of which filled with lava, and over time eroded to "table mountains".

Then the earth began cooling. Glaciers carved out U-shaped canyons, while the tilting or "uplift" never ceased. The result is two opposing forces of nature, invisible to us but forever reshaping the landscape. This uptilt makes an especially dramatic view on the eastern side as seen in the "Sierra Escarpment" below.  Measurable only with scientific instruments, the relentless movement is often responsible for today's earthquakes.

Rainbow

Getty Images has 82 pages of rainbows so the choice was hard but very enjoyable.  

When I lived in Santa Fe there was one in the western sky each day around 5 pm above Los Alamos in the Jemez Mountains. Sometimes there was a pair. But if you want to read something poetical about the beauty of a rainbow you're in the wrong place. My nature is more scientific, so here you'll get as brief an explanation as possible.

A "rainbow" occurs when sunlight shines on and interacts with drops of water. The keys are that . . .

• Rain and sunshine must be in different parts of the sky, 
• The observer is between the rain and the sunshine, and 
• The angle of light hitting the raindrops is between 40 and 42 degrees. 

When those requirements are met each raindrop will be refracted to produce one color, slightly different from all the rest. Together those millions of raindrops produce a rainbow in its well-known cascading shades.  That's all there is to it.