Some Old Rocks, Where Are You Taking Us?, and Other Stories

When my parents were here, we visited the Hunebedden, megalithic structures built 5,000 years ago by the very ancient Dutch.  These dot the countryside, so to visit them, we had to head far from the big cities.

On the way from the bus stop, we pass an interesting tree.

Multi-layer!

Many of the roofs in this town were made from thatch, similar to what was even used thousands of years ago!

While some like to mix modern with age-tested.

Finally we reach the first, and largest, Hunebedden   These rocks are all that is left.  5,000 years ago, the inhabitants of the area would search out large rocks.  When they found them, they would move them over a series of logs and compose a man-made cave, sort of like a mini-stonehenge, where the large rocks were placed on supporting rocks.  Cracks were filled with smaller rocks, and then the entire thing was covered in dirt.

Inside the Hunebedden.

This is what the chamber would have looked like thousands of years ago.

They were used as ancient burial chambers.

At the museum, there was a reconstruction of what a house of members of this community would have looked like.

It reminded me a lot of similar dwellings that we saw in Wales.

A really gneiss rock.

Sorry for my geology humor.

When the Hunebedden were made, rocks were transported by rolling them on a series of logs, like this.

After the museum, we head out into the country-side (on foot) to find more Hunebedden!

My dad begins to question whether I know where the heck I am going.

Of course I do!  Muuhahaha!

The local wildlife.

Before too long, we find a few smaller Hunebedden in a cluster amid the trees.

This one has a huge tree growing around it today.

And a point if you can name the name of the people who made these Hunebedden 

Heading on our way back,

and even passing more windmills!

Windmilli?

New York Round Up

All in all, we really enjoyed our weekend in New York City.

Everybody dance now!

We took a ferry to pass by the Statue of Liberty, which is still closed due to the hurricane.

But we could see it from a distance.

Along with Ellis Island.

On our way back, we saw something a bit frightening.  This ferry, much like ours, was listing wildly to one side.  I was happy it didn't tip over!  A point if you could guess what would cause such a big boat to tip like this.

Approaching the spectacular skyline of New York.

Within the concrete jungle.

Bram, thinking about something deep, I'm sure.

We also walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, afterwards eating pizza in one of the many famous Brooklyn pizzarias directly under the bridge.

The view of Manhattan from Brooklyn.

Who better to spend the weekend with?  He's a special guy for sure.

Mini-New York

Inside New York is a smaller version of New York, made of plastic blocks.

And within Lego-New York is a Lego store with an even smaller New York.

Standing on one of the buildings in Rockefeller Center, Batman keeps watch.

While on the streets, chaos reigns.  A group of construction workers try to free a waiter, buried up to his waist in concrete.  It's still unclear how he ended up in this predicament.

A Lego Atlas, almost as tall as a human being.

Most impressive of all, a Lego dragon winds his way through the store.

Other icons of New York duplicated in block form:

In other words, we visited my husband's version of heaven.

The Return of the Raptors

Another visit during our New York City trip was the Natural History Museum.  They had some pretty impressive specimens.  For example, this is the jagged inside of a lava tube.

This is a black smoker - a hydrothermal vent brought up from the bottom of the ocean.  These spew out geothermally heated water and support entire ecosystems of life around them entirely different from anything else on Earth - giving us an appreciation of how little we know on the origins of life.

This meteor has deep indentations from it's semi-molten past.

Another massive meteor.

This is a core sample from Antarctica - each of the dark and light bands corresponds to another season in Antarctica, and like tree rings, can tell us about climate change.

Kind of like this tree, that was over 2000 years old when it was cut down.

Imagine being the grad student who counted these rings.

Bram takes some time to taunt the kitties.

This is a very impressive nautilus shell - mineralized into a rainbow.

The skeleton of Lucy, who lived over three million years ago!

And now, on to mineralogy!  Very  impressive rocks indeed.  This one is bigger than me:

Beautiful inclusions.

Bram told me he wanted this for Christmas: the Star of India.  Um... yeah.

A really neat geode.  I had once cut open and polished a geode that looked very similar to this one - but this was much larger.

The museum even had a complete Loch Ness Monster skeleton!

Here I am standing next to a prehistoric thunder turtle.

Check out that tail!

A T-Rex terrorizes the locals.

Ceratosaurs - extinct.  Carnosaurs - extinct.  Ornithomimids - extinct.  Maniraptors - not extinct?!?!!?

Time to brush up on raptor awareness!

Is it a dinosaur?   Or is it an ostrich?

Prehistoric thunder armadillos.

The amazing specimens continue: these imprints are of tiny dinosaurs  but the most amazing part- you can see imprints of feathers.

Another incredible specimen: this one is a fossilized fetus of a dinosaur, still in an egg.

And this is a mummified dinosaur, still with skin attached!!!

And where does this rock come from? (one point - no google!)