Geo 365: June 5, Day 156: Walking on Broken Glass

Dana appraises the landscape as we walk the loop trail on top of the Big Obsidian Flow. I have never had a good idea what causes those obvious little hillocks of obsidian blocks. They are clearly broken, not contiguous blobs of lava squeezed up through holes. There may be more than one process at work. For example, the two on the right horizon look like they might possibly have been formed in the same way as the "lava balls" at Lava Butte. Others look too angular. This is a situation where reckless arm-waving and speculation is harmless and fun, as long as at the end of it, you remind yourself you just don't know.

Photo run through Paint.Net's autolevel routine. August 21, 2011. FlashEarth location.

Incidentally, my ER visit confirmed it was a urinary tract infection, which is now being eradicated. My diabetes is still detectable, but nowhere near as bad as it was seven years ago. My BP was terrifyingly high (210 systolic), but simply lying there relaxed for a couple hours brought it down to 160, then they gave me a pill that brought it down to 117 within another hour and a half. The odd and amusing finding is that I'm sodium deficient, so I'm supposed to eat more salt and drink less water, while at the same time, drinking more water to flush the UTI, AND consume less salt due to high BP. I Suspect the latter is a fluke, not a chronic condition with me. I *have* been drinking a lot of water the last couple weeks, due both to the suspicion of a UTI and because we've switched over to hot weather mode. Add to that a general lack of appetite over the last few days, and there's an explanation. I do avoid overly salted food, but as one who largely eats processed food and at restaurants, I'm pretty confident I generally get plenty of salt in my diet.