Rocks

Took another hike in the granite dells near our campground and took these up close and personal pix of the rocks.

There are hundreds of balanced rocks in the dells, many appear so delicately balanced that a mere flick of the finger would send them tumbling.

Another balanced rock.  It's really tempting to give them a shove - but I didn't.

The patterns in the rocks are interesting, too.  Not being heavy into geology, I don't know what causes these striations and at the moment I'm too lazy to google it.

Bradbury SP, ME

Got rocks?
.
Along the Maine coast roads you frequently see open areas generously stocked with boulders and rocks.  It reminds one of the rural roads in Ireland.  On our drive here, we passed one of these rocky areas and I remarked, “Look at all those rocks!  There must be Irish folks around here.”  Sure enough, 5 miles down the road there was a road sign that read ‘Belfast, 12 miles.’  When we reached the Belfast outskirts there was a sign advertising a Celtic Festival.  Huh!  And here I thought I was just being a smartass.
.
What is it with the Irish and rocks?  I’m half Irish: am I supposed to love rocks?  I don’t.  I do appreciate mountains and colorful rocks and especially rock formations majestically sculpted by water and wind.  But - your average garden variety ho-hum rock - not so much.  My brothers and I picked tons of rocks in the fields of our MN farm when we were young.  It wasn’t much fun.  Furthermore, getting up close and personal with several thousand rocks did not endear them to me in the slightest.
.
If you know any Irish folks, best not tell them about my rock heresy.  I might be disbarred or excommunicated or defrocked - whatever it is they do with nonconforming Irish lads.  Oh!  It just hit me: they stone ‘em. 
.
Stick with me now cuz we’ll be following one of the many poorly marked trails that meander through my sick, twisted mind.  Fellow Minnesotan, Bob Dylan, sang ‘Everybody must get stoned.’  I’m guessing here but I suspect Bob is Irish, and that he doesn’t like rocks any more than I do, and that he found about the stoning thing and wrote that song about it.  And what did he get for his trouble?  He got stoned - over and over, if the rumors are to be believed.  The poor devil.

Hopewell Cape, New Brunswick

This shot and the 3 below are the Flowerpot Rocks at high tide.

Blow up this pix (double click) and you'll see kayakers in the lower left.

We’re camped on the Bay of Fundy which has the highest tides in the world at 40’ plus.  We visited The Rocks Provincial Park to see the Flowerpot Rocks, pictured above.  Trish went back after dinner to ‘walk on the ocean floor’ at low tide; I opted out on that, am not especially into mud.  They call this area of water the Chocolate River for obvious reasons.  The turbulent water stirs up lots of silt as it rises and falls.

The 3 pix below were taken at the same place as those above, but at low tide.  At high tide, the water surface would be 35' over Trish's head in the first picture.

The Bay is the home of the only tidal water power plant in North America, in operation since 1984.  It’s small, compared to the huge hydroelectric facilities and the big dams in the western US.  It’s actually a pilot project but still employs the largest straight-flow turbine in the world and produces enough juice to power 4500 homes.  We did a guided tour of the facility, found it fascinating.  Harnessing tidal power has great potential as a renewable, green energy source.

.
Today we return to the US, concluding the second leg of our travels, 2 short ones down, 1 long one to go.  First leg was LHC to Minnesota, second was MN to and through the Canadian Maritimes, third and last will be our journey back to AZ.  To date, we’ve logged 5000 miles; we’ll add another 4000 on the last leg but at a more leisurely pace.  It’ll be good to be back in the States.  Things are spendy in Canada, especially gas - our biggest expense by quite a margin.