Rewriting posts is hard II

We've reached the inside of the volcano, for starters when we climbed over the ridge into the volcano the geiger counter we brought along started ticking up above the "normal" background radiation. So I'm guessing it was definitely correct that some of the nukes hit yellowstone... Go humanity and mutually assured destruction?

Anyway Fiske kinda went bonkers when we got here, for anyone curious that's the ecologist, he gave me the ok to mention his name after he calmed down after finding some kind of algae living in one of the thermal springs, he thinks it died after being removed from the hot water.

I'll be honest, there's more plant life inside the caldera than I anticipated. Nothing more complicated than a shrubbery like thing though... it's kinda looks like western manzanita, burns like manzanita and the leaves are like manzanita, buuuuut the leaves are a dark red instead of grey green. Kinda reminds me of the "red weed" from War of the Worlds a little. On a whim I actually slipped one of the leaves under my tongue, I know if my mom reads this she'll be calling me an idiot for doing that, coulda died, possibly poisonous etc... tastes like singed manzanita and does more or less the same thing though, agitates the saliva glands tricks the mind into keeping you from drinking as much water.....well that's what I learned as a kid camping anyway. also make decent toothbrushes in a pinch I guess. going to see if I can find some of the berries to bring back to the druids in SLC... actually now that I think on it they might actually want some samples of everything... I'll need to make a note of that.


Had to fish Fiske out of .... 4 different holes in his exploration, managed to keep him from falling into the lava about 7 times, doesn't help that a lot of the soil is unstable and collapses every now and then. We're set up on a rock shelf off near what we think was  Old faithful... or it might be the morning glory spring... hard to tell with a lot of the basalt formations and lava that got pushed up with the eruption. I'd describe it as a lava cake made to look like the devils post pile, cut up and chunked a little bit..

Spent the rest of the week keeping taking turns with Eivan keeping him from getting too close to the lava pits, rained earlier tonight and knocked down the ash clouds enough that and we could see some of the stars again... pretty neat really.  Weatherproofing by Fry's worked much better than I anticipated.... so that's pretty good, sandblasting during an ash storm, water from the storm... all survived so far. Though if it's raining here might need to consider wrapping up this since it might mean snow off at the edges of the ashlands.

Can't think of much else to mention right now.