This painting is on the  cover of my American History class textbook. It's titled Fur Traders Descending the Missouri painted by George Caleb Bingham (1845). I love the cat and that the painter put a lease on it. Cute little details.

Bucket List

Some of the things and places I hope to see one day

At the very tip top of my list is Machu Picchu. Ever since I can remember its been on my places to see list.

I would love to get the chance to take six months out of my life and hike the entire Appalachian Trail. Georgia to Maine, 2000 miles of backpacking. I've never actually backpacked before, but I grew up hiking and camping, and I think this would just be amazing. 

Mount Everest and the Himalayas. I don't have the urge to summit Month Everest, but just to stand where that person is in the picture would be awe inspiring. Fun fact: Did you know the Himalayans continue to grow (4-10 cm/year!) as the Indian plate continues to crash into the Eurasian plate? 

These are just a few of what I would like to experience, but all three have been on my mind lately. School started two weeks ago and I'm taking Physical Geology lecture and lab and have been immersed in plate tectonics and the landscape of our planet including mountains and how they are made. And I have found it all so interesting and fascinating. I have found my calling in life and it's the best feeling. I can't wait to take more geology classes and learn everything there is to know. 

trash

I posted this article on my fb page the other day, and I'm kind of surprised no one commented on it.  I'm surely not the only one who is disgusted by the lack of urgency there is about all the trash humans have made and how we're going to get rid of it.  Litter/trash is everywhere I look.  I don't understand how thoughtless everyone seems to be about littering. Houston is covered in litter, it's gross. I can't believe the fourth largest city in America does not recycle as a whole and has no street cleaning system in place! I grew up in LA and every tuesday and every wednesday on my street if you slept in past 10am and did not move your car to the other side of the road you would get a ticket because those were our street sweeping days. Signs are posted on every street saying no parking on this day from this time to that time because a big truck is going to come and clean all the gutters, pick up all that litter. Here in Houston trash just builds up at all the curbs and then it rains and the trash gets washed into the storm drains and then eventually makes it out to the Gulf. It's horrible. And I don't even want to get started on what's happened because of this lovely system, Great Pacific Garbage Patch anyone? Makes me so sad thinking about how this is killing our lovely oceans and all the awesome creatures that live in them.
When I moved back out here two years ago I was surprised that our apartment complex did not provide a recycling bin of some sort.  You are in charge of taking your recycled goods to the recycling centers and there aren't very many around town. Why doesn't this city care more? Maybe because Texas is a Republican state and they have other more important issues they need to focus their time on like letting everyone own guns and trying to make abortion illegal.  Its hard being a Democrat out here.