Thursday, September 6, 2007

Being a journal of our trip for those interested in the travels of some Unholy Rollers


Being a journal of our trip for those interested in the travels of some Unholy Rollers . . . for those who don't know, two couples (Webb's and Pfeifer/Hill-Pfeifer) are setting off for the Fall Colors of New England, and the monuments and museums of Washington, D.C. with various side trips to see relatives or friends along the way, always with time for an interesting side trip as well.


On our first day we went only out to Coulee City, WA so that we could learn about the Grand Coulee Dam and see the Laser-Light Show. The show was spectacular, created by lasers focused on a "wall of water" coming over the dam. The narrative history of the dam was highly educational -- conceived as a project to employ some of the unemployed during the Great Depression, while at the same time creating: a) electric generating capacity of huge dimensions, b) irrigation capabilities for thousands of acres of previously dry (untillable) land, c) recreational facilities (fishing, boating, swimming, etc.) for thousands, d) a flood control facility for the mighty (and previously wild) Columbia River. This also has a political side which I'll explore below. On our second day we were dragged over to what is called "Dry Falls" -- a phenomenon we had never heard of before -- dragged by Terry who had seen it before on a motorcycle trip. Back several tens of thousands of years ago, a lake formed over Western Montana, dammed up by ice to the point that it covered the area to a depth of thousands of feet -- when the ice melted enough to let go, a tremendous catastrophic flood was unleashed, creating formations that look like they had once been the underpinnings of waterfalls -- hence the name "Dry Falls."Actually this flood theory is the work of a geologist named Harlen Bretz who began studying the area in 1922, trying to understand how the topography came to be that way. Although accepted geological theory at that time allowed only slow, gradual changes to be postulated, he "could find no other theory" to explain what he saw in that area. His theory was rejected by everyone, but he persisted, and finally in 1952, on his last trip to the area at the age of 70, he found "great ripple marks" which were incontrovertible proof of his theory, eventually accepted by the International Geological Congress some years later. We escaped Washington on the third day, getting over to Libby, MT and truly out into the boonies near Libby Dam and a Corps of Engineer's Campground where the price was definitely right. A lovely evening dinner from the grill, a morning glimpse of a bear cub swimming in the river, almost total isolation -- as near heaven as a Unitarian can envision . . .Venturing further into Montana, we spent that fourth night just inside the west entrance to Glacier National Park where we went to an evening Ranger Program on the shores of MacDonald Lake. That program was a real kick -- put on by an 81-yr old Summer Ranger (of 48 years experience at Glacier) who loved to compose and recite poetic doggerel on the wonders of wildlife in the Park. He evidently doesn't worry too much about his job because he even ventured perilously close to political action speech -- his topic was "National Parks Give 'Once-in-a-lifetime' Experiences" and he admonished the audience to "elect Legislators and a President who will care for and protect our precious National Parks!"This morning when we left the Park, we stopped by the Visitor Center and there he was, telling tourists what hikes or drives to take to enjoy the park. The way that I heard the story that night was that FDR, on being confronted with the economic devastation of the Depression, decided, for whatever reason, on a strategy of public works projects which would a) employ many of the unemployed, and b) serve a useful and sound public purpose. To my twisted mind, right at that point, the message was clear -- only a large and pro-active federal government (i.e., a liberal government in the sense of "liberal" as actively working for the public good as opposed to a "starve the government, the feds screw up everything, the government should do nothing other than defend the nation, etc." government, i.e., a classic conservative government) could do such a thing -- which ultimately turned out to be a huge benefit for the country -- economically, in agricultural development, in energy development (which helped immensely when WWII came along), and, perhaps biggest of all, in public recreation. This certainly underscores the need for the protection of college professors contained in the concept of academic freedom (and its job guarantee of tenure) -- an ultimately proven theory fought for for over thirty years until the rest of the "geology establishment" caught up with him.

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