“You keep samin' when you oughta be a'changin'
Now what's right is right but you ain't been right yet
These boots are made for walking, and that's just what they'll do
One of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you…
Are you ready, boots? Start walkin “
-Nancy Sinatra
Hello again, and welcome back.
In the previous post, I made mention of how I was inspired by the Joe Rogan Experience podcast (JRE) to go out and experience more of the world. Like most everyone else, I too have a bucket list of exotic travel destinations that I would like to visit and experience in person. However, after listening to a particular series of JRE episodes, I decided to start locally and plan a road trip/camping experience in my own backyard first. Here’s the beginning of my story why…
Back when I was in college, one of the most interesting experiences I had was during a weekend field trip offered by my Geology 101 course. Our professor gathered up a few vanloads of students and took us all out to central Washington state to pick for rocks and to see the evidence left behind by the glaciers. I had a blast during that trip, and learned a lot of new things, some of which were even about geology. However, one concept in particular refused to connect properly in my mind, much like the proverbial square peg in a round hole. And that concept was the whole story that “…Lake Missoula through gradual discharge of glacial waters over Millenia…” had carved out the landscape into what we now see today.
It just didn’t sit right.
What I remember (From more than 30 years ago, mind you.) was that everything just looked way too immense to have been caused in that manner. That was my personal “boots on the ground” assessment that did not jive with the narrative we were being presented. But hey, what did I know? I was just a Podunk kid from a small town, who was more than happy to be along for the ride.
Now, flash forward to the present where I am binge listening to the JRE series of episodes with special guest Randall Carlson. Randall is retelling his story to Joe about what he thinks is a great misinterpretation of the geologic record when it comes to the glacial floods that inundated North America at the end of the ice age. During these podcasts, Randall says that he feels the glaciers melted all at once, and the resulting floods that had ripped through Washington state happened over a period of only a few WEEKS, not the thousands of years of repeated yet gradual erosion we were all led to believe by our Geology professors.
And right then and there my mind was transfixed, as the all but forgotten, 30-year-old square peg suddenly went “clunk” and found that it could fit in that round hole after all.
Randall’s tale goes on and on, with great detail, through five separate JRE episodes. Ultimately including archeology author Graham Hancock and uber-sceptic Michael Shermer in an exhaustive deep dive into a revelatory and revolutionary retelling of cataclysmic past events which are now being confirmed through modern research. All the while, the underlying element of this story is the clash of boots on the ground – direct observational field work vs musty maps in the library – arm-chair academic theorizing.
After listening to all of this discussion, and subsequently scouring the internet for supporting evidence, I decided to retrace the steps of my college field trip with an upgraded mental model and try to see this part of my home state with new eyes. Once again, I had a blast during this new trip, and learned a lot of new things, some of which were even about geology. This awesome trip simultaneously anchored my corporeality and opened my mind. Along the way I was able to make some new connections between previously scattered ideas I have about Cascadia as a bioregion.
The rest of this particular story will take a while to tell, so I encourage you to gear up with some background information. Set aside some quality time to watch or listen to the JRE/Randall Carlson podcast series: JRE Episodes #501, #606, #725, #872 and #961
I personally think you can skip the argument podcast #961 as it doesn’t really add anything new to the story. But then again, you might want to see it just for the fireworks.
Meanwhile I’ll leave you with a few pictures from my trip to help establish a sense of scale:
Here is a picture of a muddy little rivulet. You can clearly see how the erosion of water causes these steep channeled edges and the meandering “valley” floor.
Now, here is a view down the valley of the Frenchman’s Coulee in eastern Washington. It’s the SMALLEST Coulee I visited on my road trip, but its features are exactly like the previous picture of the small rivulet: steep channeled edges, meandering valley floor… Only much, MUCH larger.
Thank you for reading my story so far, and I hope you come back for more. I really wanted to get this bit of it out there though…before the comet returns.