Sounds like a nice bit of travel. I hope you can cover as much as you would like in your available time, but it sounds rather ambitious to me. How much of this travel will be driving, and how much other forms of transportation?
I visited TR Nat. Park (North Unit) last year, at about the time you would be there. Quite an awesome place.
Here are a couple frames from the three days I was there, just to pique your interest further:
http://richmason.com/utne/bison.jpg
http://richmason.com/utne/balls.jpg (cannonball concretions)
We had bison foraging through the campsite in the middle of the night. They liked to scratch themselves on the picnic tables.
Feel free to ask me any questions about the park--off-list perhaps. My knowledge is somewhat limited, but I'll answer anything I can.
You may wish to go a little farther south in search of Aurora Australis (the Southern Lights) in the middle of July. Here's why:
Begin civil twilight 01:37
Sunrise 02:41
Sunset 20:09
End civil twilight 21:13
data from http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/RS_OneDay.html
That's the amount of dark sky you'll have in Churchill (or as I computed it at longitude W95.0, latitude N58.0, though I wasn't sure of the time zone there) on July 15--about 4 hours. I don't believe the Northern Lights are as active in the summer anyway, but someone can correct me on that if I'm wrong.
Great site for "space weather": http://www.sec.noaa.gov/today.html
Polar bears hang out near Churchill in the summer. You might want to see if you can take a tundra tour while up there.
Cheers,
Rich Mason
On Tuesday, June 8, 2004, at 11:23 PM, trevor cunningham wrote:
Hey gang,<image.tiff>
I'm returning to the States this summer for a bit of a North American tour with the old lady (she's Canadian). I fly out of Cairo early in the morning on the 20th of June and arrive later in the evening in Raliegh, NC to spend about a week or so with the rents. Then north to Kalamazoo, MI for more familial interaction and possibly some excursions here and there in the Great Lake State. Then, if I can pull myself away from the Kalamazoo Brewing Company, off to Chicago for more family and friends. From there is really a big question. I'm interested in seeing the Badlands, but may be strapped for time in such a way as to limit me to one of the Dakotas. I'm leaning towards TR's national park in North Dakota (Andy, I lost the address for your late colleague who was the biological photographer...I'd really like to see that body of work again). After that, I'm off to Winnepeg to meet her family. We're considering going far north to Churchill, Manitoba for some Beluga whale diving and northern lights. We've received a great deal of conflicting info on the Lights, and I have a few experiments I'd like to try. If anybody has some accurate info on the Aurora Borealis, that would be killer. Also, I've been looking into Noctilucent cloud formations and am really excited. Apparently, late July is prime season for these and I should be in the proper latitudes if anywhere near Churchill.
If anybody has some input as to places to check out (I think by now you guys can recognize that I'm interested in bizarre geological and natural phenomena) that would be great. Or, if anybody corresponds with the itinerary, I'd be interested in putting a face to any of the names here.
Cheers,
Trevor Cunningham
"The optimist believes this is the best of all possible worlds.
The pessimist fears it's true" - J Robert Oppenheimer
http://www.geocities.com/tr_cunningham
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