Valles Caldera Geology Tour

On Sunday we took a geology tour at the Valles Calderas National Preserve near Los Alamos, New Mexico. Like the archaeological tour that we did in July this one was also fantastic.


The van ride was quite an adventure by itself, but consider that each van had 12 people including the drivers and the tour guides. We started at 9:00 am and ended about 4:15 pm.



Frazer and Cathy, our geologists tour leaders kept us well informed of the composition and chemistry of each rock that we examined.


The ride back to the staging area from near the northern border of the preserve was about 40 minutes alone.

Goatheads, and Co.

I do not know the scientific name for them, but I sure know what "goatheads" do to my bike tires. I had an interesting dialogue with some people about the pluses and minuses of using sealant in tires or tubes for the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route ride this past summer. "I don't believe in sealant." "There are no cacti above 4000 feet." Personally, I use sealant in all my tires year round.

Most of the year I bicycle commute in the pre-dawn hours when much is heard and felt, but little is seen. Unless the wind is blowing too hard for me to hear anything else, I almost always know when I have a goathead taking a free ride on my tire. It is not unusual to have to stop and pick a half dozen of them off my tires to eliminate the clickity click click sound of the dried hardened ones trying to flat me out. Sometimes when I go off into some loose dirt I'll pick one up in my sidewall and I won't get the audible warning before the tire flats.

The nice thing about the sealant is that if I can remove the offending goathead or thorn, then all I have to do is pump the tire up and give it a spin. Pesto magic I am back in business again. When I finally remove a tube it is typically so full of punctures that it would take a dozen patch kits to seal all the leaks. It is easier to throw the tube away and start fresh.









"I don't believe in sealant?" Whatever.