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Memorial Day weekend
May. 27th, 2013 09:28 pmNot a bad weekend. Saturday we went to Mesa Falls. It's high spring right now, which means everything is brilliant green and the mountains are blue and white. Yesterday I read/finished four books! Today was our day to time the mile run again (every two weeks, to encourage our one scout to get this merit badge done), so we didn't want to do a large hike. Instead we drove down to this funny rest stop near Blackfoot that is like a mini trip to Craters of the Moon. There's a lava trail where you can see lava tubes/caves, large cracks in the ground, pahoehoe lava (the ropy stuff like in Hawaii), and basalt columns. There's a rift valley slowly tearing Idaho apart, and so we get that on top of the Yellowstone hotspot that ripped through here a few million years ago.
It's just not every rest stop that features a lava trail, yanno?
No, that is not concrete. It's lava.
Lava cave/tube:
Cracks in the ground:
My mom grew up near here and when she was small, all they had to play on was lava fields. It's a miracle she and her siblings didn't fall in a crack and get lost forever.
Then we drove home surrounded by this sort of thing:
I also finally watched a Japanese anime movie I've had out forever which is finally due tomorrow. The thing is, there are cultural aspects I Just Don't Get when it comes to Japanese storytelling. Visually, it was really lovely to look at. Not Studio Gibli, but still nice. But...I don't know if it's partly a translation loss or just cultural assumptions I'm lacking, but it always feels to me that the events that happen carry a meaning beyond what's obviously presented in the story, and I'm missing it. Like this one. A guy in the teen girl's class (not a love interest or anything--just a random classmate) has been harassed by other guys outside of class. They spray him with a hose. So next time, he has a fire extinguisher and is spraying them down. The girl yells for him to stop--and he is INCREDIBLY incensed that she is "ordering him" that he goes crazy (more than before, I mean--and she wasn't ever one of the mean kids) and he throws the whole can at her. I can see getting ordered to do something could be a freakout moment for a character--if there is something in the story to indicate that it's a trigger point. But this sort of came out of nowhere? And there were other things like that, where the words or actions of a character created a MUCH larger response than I would think necessary, given the story as presented. The plot aspect was different, too. 2/3 of the way through, there was a major plot twist. It did work with what had been presented so far, which made it interesting--but it also added some significant complications. Five minutes to the end, I was still wondering how they would be resolved. Well, they weren't. It just...ended. And now I'm not sure I ever did understand what the point of the plot was--it wasn't episodic, but it seemed to change in a not-entirely-logical way.
Tomorrow is back to busy, but--NO SCHOOL. So at least we don't have to do homework and we don't have to get up at the crack of dawn. Hurray!
It's just not every rest stop that features a lava trail, yanno?
No, that is not concrete. It's lava.
Lava cave/tube:
Cracks in the ground:
My mom grew up near here and when she was small, all they had to play on was lava fields. It's a miracle she and her siblings didn't fall in a crack and get lost forever.
Then we drove home surrounded by this sort of thing:
I also finally watched a Japanese anime movie I've had out forever which is finally due tomorrow. The thing is, there are cultural aspects I Just Don't Get when it comes to Japanese storytelling. Visually, it was really lovely to look at. Not Studio Gibli, but still nice. But...I don't know if it's partly a translation loss or just cultural assumptions I'm lacking, but it always feels to me that the events that happen carry a meaning beyond what's obviously presented in the story, and I'm missing it. Like this one. A guy in the teen girl's class (not a love interest or anything--just a random classmate) has been harassed by other guys outside of class. They spray him with a hose. So next time, he has a fire extinguisher and is spraying them down. The girl yells for him to stop--and he is INCREDIBLY incensed that she is "ordering him" that he goes crazy (more than before, I mean--and she wasn't ever one of the mean kids) and he throws the whole can at her. I can see getting ordered to do something could be a freakout moment for a character--if there is something in the story to indicate that it's a trigger point. But this sort of came out of nowhere? And there were other things like that, where the words or actions of a character created a MUCH larger response than I would think necessary, given the story as presented. The plot aspect was different, too. 2/3 of the way through, there was a major plot twist. It did work with what had been presented so far, which made it interesting--but it also added some significant complications. Five minutes to the end, I was still wondering how they would be resolved. Well, they weren't. It just...ended. And now I'm not sure I ever did understand what the point of the plot was--it wasn't episodic, but it seemed to change in a not-entirely-logical way.
Tomorrow is back to busy, but--NO SCHOOL. So at least we don't have to do homework and we don't have to get up at the crack of dawn. Hurray!
