Author Archives: Administrator

Desert plants wear varied quantities of snow after a snowfall. Joshua trees wear very little, but this plant’s flowers covered themselves with snow caps. The stems must be sturdier than they appear to bear the weight of the wet, heavy … Continue reading →

Peregrine fille, my 1982 Vanagon Westfalia, and I went on our first camping trip together over the weekend, along with students from a course I teach where weekend hikes and camping trips are part of the syllabus — but not … Continue reading →

On a recent weekend outing with students and teaching assistants from my course “Wilderness and Human Values,” I paused on the trail to the top of Cowles Mountain in San Diego to ask: “I wonder if we’ll be able to … Continue reading →

Lest anyone think I’m confused about the meaning of “academia,” I confess to enjoying – yes, enjoying is the right word – just a scosche of irony when I lump it with the Southwest and other places.

At the top of this blog is a photograph with five primary elements: mountains, sky, pine trees, a big meadow full of sunflowers, and a road. Of the sky, I will say nothing at all. Dickey Betts said all that … Continue reading →

There are, crudely speaking, two kinds of science. One kind is all about the boundless nothing in particular. These sciences are well-funded and well-regarded. They make up the bulk of the science done on the campus of the University of … Continue reading →

“‘Do you keep a journal?’ — So I make my first entry to-day.” Ralph Waldo Emerson asked the question before the dash. Henry David Thoreau answered with this entry in his journal. How many bloggers have alluded to this quotation … Continue reading →

Peregrine fille is a 1982 Volkswagen Vanagon L Westfalia. She started life as a diesel-engined bus, until one of an unknown number of DPOs (damnable previous owners) replaced the underpowered 1.6 liter diesel engine with a slightly less underpowered, but … Continue reading →