A Taste of the Past From Williamsburg

I had the chance to make the two and a half hour trip down to Williamsburg, Virginia. We spent the day in colonial Williamsburg, which I was told was America's very first theme park, as it tries to recreate the feeling of being in the town during the time of the American Revolution. It is quite well put together, and they're still improving it, trying to make sure the clothing, tools, and architecture is as accurate as possible. The presence of trained and costumed actors and actresses really makes the park. We had plans to see more of the area, but we already didn't have enough time to see all there was to see in colonial Williamsburg!
Jessie (see below) and felt it reminded us a bit of "Austenland," except that we didn't get to play dress-up with the clothes. We did wear our charming purple scarves though, which marked us as 1) participants for one of the activities within Williamsburg and 2) the history nerds we truly are.

 This was actually at the nearby museum that evening.

 The obligatory photo from the stocks, which is next to the courthouse where we participated in reenacting an actual court case about religious freedom.

 This is the palace green. In the back you can see the Governor's palace, which was raided by angry colonists, and where Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson lived.

 One artisan demonstrated book-binding.

 We went to the coffeehouse for old-fashioned hot chocolate - a thick, bitter substance that included cinnamon, nutmeg, and cayenne pepper!

 A local musician serenaded us on the violin over lunch.

 I have always, upon reading Harry Potter, wondered what a beef pasty was. Now I know!

 They even had cats to set in the apothecary's window in colonial times!

 The governor's palace and gardens

 The harpsichord in the ballroom at the governor's palace

 This was at a plantation. Tobacco is being grown in the background.

 This is the kitchen, but the woman is dressed in working class garb. We had an interesting conversation  with the milliner about old-fashioned underwear. She told us that she loves wearing her stays (like a corset, but they're not designed to suck in, just smooth out), shift, gown, and skirts, because it is nearly impossible to look bad in 1760's clothing. They are also flattering, supportive, and force her to stand up properly. She said with a sigh that although we do many things better now than they did then, clothes for both men and women were far superior in those days.

 This is the pipe organ in the ballroom.

This was the entryway into the governor's palace, decorated with functional weapons on all sides, plus our tour guide, Scott.

Burn, Baby Burn

*This is an unpublished draft of a long-form story, so if you have any suggestions for readability, other relevant issues to investigate, or people to speak with let me know!

 

The Hellsgate, Arizona fire chief saw trouble in 1999, when the Forest Service announced the start of a fifteen-year drought cycle. Gary Hatch went to the board to request another brush truck to fight forest fires. They laughed then, but the Rodeo-Chedeski fire burned 468,638 acres in 2002, and they got the new truck.

The drought coincided with a Forest Service policy that has made the nation’s forests dangerously overgrown and increased fire size, leading to a funding crisis.

“The policy that they came up with basically set our forest up to burn,” Hatch said.

The problem began in 1910, just five years after the Forest Service was created, said Mike Ferris of the National Fire Center for the Forest Service. A 3 million acre fire burned across Idaho and Washington, and at least 85 people died. Firefighters gave up fighting or even trying to contain the blaze and simply evacuated whole towns.

After the fire, policy-makers developed the “10 o’clock rule,” and as the population grew, more land passed into federal management, and fire-fighting technology changed, firefighters were better able to get fires out – by 10 o’clock the next morning.

Over time, the number of fires increased slightly, which Ferris said is largely a function of more people living in the forests, but the size of the fires increased by as much as four times. Between 1985 and 1989, the average number of fires annually was 56,837, compared to 83,082 per year on average between 2005 and 2009. The median number of acres burned per year, however, increased from 2,719,162 acres per year during 1985-1989 to 8,689,389 acres from 2005-2009, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.

The fire size is increasing in part because the “10 o’clock rule” allowed the forests to become overgrown.

“Frankly not knowing better that we’ve suppressed fire for such a long time that there’s so much fuel build-up out there that will burn eventually,” Ferris said.

By the time the Forest Service realized the danger of the trajectory and changed course, the forests had become so thick that small growth, which in the 1800s would have burned off in small lightning fires every few years, had taken over by virtue of sucking water from the larger trees. This left the forest foliage both plentiful and dry, a recipe for large fires.

The problem became obvious for Hatch’s jurisdiction in the ‘90s because of both the drought and a successful environmentalist campaign to shut down logging operations, which Hatch had seen as the last force for keeping forest growth from getting out of control.

“In the Ponderosa forest, you should have a maximum of forty trees per acre, and we’ve got 800 per acre in some areas now,” Hatch said. “I’ve never seen the forest as scary as it is now.”

The Forest Service has now dramatically changed fire-fighting strategy to cope with massive increase in fire size and intensity. Now, limited resources mean that only the top priority land gets saved.

“There’s been a dramatic change in how we do things,” said Clay Templin, who has been with the Tonto Forest Service for thirty-three years. “Really what we look at is three questions, what’s important, why is it important, and how important is it.”

The Forest Service will fight all fires that begin with human accident, but the many summer fires that start with lightning strikes are less certain, Ferris said. Sometimes they will focus on saving urban areas but let the wilderness-area fires burn as safely as possible, both from a desire to thin the overgrown forests and a lack of resources to fight the fires.

The budget is no longer enough even for this priority-based action. The first year when total fire-fighting costs exceeded one million dollars was 2000, but this has occurred every year since then with only two exceptions, according to the Department of Interior.

Funding this upward trajectory has required creativity. The smaller fires that can be contained with a day or two are fought and funded entirely at the local level, but the larger fires pay no heed to political boundaries or varieties of land ownership, and they are federally funded.

“Typically what we do, and this year is no exception, is we bring out a lot of resources from other parts of the United States where they’re not quite as active,” Templin said.

These out-of-town crews bring their own equipment, but they bill their extra hours fighting the large fires to the Forest Service’s fire suppression fund of $1.4 billion. During seven of the last ten years, fire-fighting costs have exceeded budget, by as much as $999 million in 2002.

“Because we had an active fire season last year, we exceeded and came over $400 million,” Ferris said.

When this happens, the Forest Service responds with a fire transfer, which means all its agencies send unused funds for the rest of the fiscal year toward fire-fighting.

This means that projects scheduled during the last few months of the fiscal year risk being pushed back to the next year, Ferris said.

This scenario is what prompted Senator Wyden of Oregon to introduce a bill that would change how the large fires are funded. If passed, the Wildfire Disaster Funding Act, which is currently in committee in both the Senate and the House of Representatives, would fund the large fires as if they were natural disasters via the Federal Emergency Management Association.

For now, local agencies bear any delay.

“They’ll submit their billing to the system, and it could take anywhere from 20 days to several months,” Ferris said.

All of the fire suppression billing goes through a single pay center in Albuquerque, but until that money comes through, the local taxpayer dollars have to support the fire stations, in addition to the costs of operating that they pay. Some of the receipts Hatch has submitted have taken up to a year to come though.

“Our cost of operating has doubled, and we haven’t had a raise in eight years,” Hatch said. “It’s killing us.”

The Io Jima Memorial at Rosslyn, VA

This last week, I decided that I needed to explore Rosslyn, where I work, a bit more. Rosslyn is the part of Arlington, VA just across the Potomac River, but because it consists almost totally of office space and seasonal food trucks, its delights are largely unknown to the world. Now that I know them, however, I am sharing them with you. Enjoy!

 The above photo is the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington Cemetery.

 This photo shows the beautiful Marines Memorial.

This is a view of Arlington Cemetery from the outside. It gives you a sense of how the beautiful rolling hills are covered with white tombstones.

 I found a hobbit hole!

 This carillon bell tower and the sphinxes were a gift from the Dutch people to say thank you for liberating them during World War Two. The sphinxes were a nice place to sit and look across the Potomac River at the Washington Monument and the Capitol while listening to the hourly carillon concert.

This is a rooftop garden that celebrates the end of the Cold War and the Berlin Wall coming down. The office where I work is in the second from the front.

And in case you've made it this far down, feel free to check out my most controversial post yet at work.

Independence Day From the Capitol

I ignored the advice of many well-meaning Washington, D.C. natives on July 4 and went with a group of friends from the ward to the Capitol proper. We sallied forth determined to brave the crowds, and we're glad we did. Although it was crowded, everyone was in good spirits, and it was very well organized -- they even had the National Guard out directing traffic!

The day began at 9:30 AM in front of the National Archives (I had come just a day earlier to see the Declaration of Independence and Constitution) for speeches and such. We were surprised that during the patriotic musical medley, we heard "America" from "West Side Story." We also saw a dramatic reading of the Declaration of Independence by the characters of Benjamin Franklin, John and Abigail Adams, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and others. It was a good crowd, and we all cheered and booed at the appropriate times. Then came the four-time international whistling champion with "God Bless America" (I know--I had to hear it to believe it!).

We watched the parade and then set up camp on the National Mall. It was nice to have a large group, because we spent the better part of the day there, but we could trade off holding our places to go see other things throughout the day. This meant that we saw the new "augmented reality dinosaur exhibit" at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, the astrolabe at the Air and Space Museum, and the telescope set up at the observatory to look at the sun.

The Hindu Krishnas had some tents set up, so a whole group from our ward went and chatted with them--they taught us how to meditate, which was nice. I also introduced everyone to my friend Shareef, an Egyptian who works at a food truck, which, ironically enough, sells Mexican food. It was certainly an American melting pot experience!

The weather was nice, because although it was sunny, Hurricane Arthur had blown all of the humidity away. I must say, I had been assured that humidity would have some benefit to make up for how unpleasant it is - healthier hair or skin, for example. Lies, all lies!
Anyway, the fireworks display was marvelous. It was not long, but it was lovely to be in the crowd and see the fireworks --even the letters "U-S-A" at one point-- go off beside the Washington Monument.