I used a photo I took of the rocket garden at KSC and combined it with some spacey pictures and got this










Wow, you made me discover a beautiful mineral.One last rockhounding trip to finish the year. Southwest Washington has some of the biggest and best carnelian I've ever seen.




What these trees go through is amazing. Especially higher up and on ridges, where they get wind-blasted and encased in snow.

It's impressive that they can withstand the weight. Snowy winters can be a serious problem for pines in Norway. Under a load of snow they will lean and get even more vulnerable to snow and eventually the top will snap and the tree might struggle to recover. Below is an image that I took a few years ago in early spring after a particularly snowy winter. Nearly every tree in this area had had its top broken off that winter. The snow depth was about 3 meters.



