NH Summer Update: Vacation, Ark Encounter and Coming Attractions

The past month has been quite an adventure.  It has been good to get a break from my job and this blog, which was starting to feel like a job.  Hopefully I am refreshed and bring some new perspectives – and photos – to share with you in the coming months.  Below are a couple of highlights from the last month and some of what I am hoping to write about in the near future.

I attended a stimulating multi-day workshop where I was able to interact with many great science and faith speakers and writers.  Hopefully I have learned to be a more effective communicator and I will be applying some of what I learned here and in future speaking opportunities.

In a large 6150.1 mile loop from Ohio out to Wyoming and Colorado I spent three weeks with my family visiting many national parks and monuments and hiking in the desert and high mountains.    Before I left I wrote that I had a 4th grader in tow so we had free admission to almost every place we visited.  We missed all the excitement of the opening of the Ark Encounter which I wish I could have written about at the time.  However, on the day of the big opening we were happily climbing sand dunes at Great Sand Dunes NP in Colorado and enjoying God’s real creation.  Other highlights included Yellowstone NP, Devils Tower, Badlands NP, Grand Teton NP, Fossil Butte, Dinosaur NP, and Great Sand Dunes NP but there were many additional smaller sites that were also pretty awesome.

On the trip I took over 7000 pictures many of them with this blog in mind. We collected or observed fossils in nearly a dozen locations and I have documented the context of those fossil finds and will explore those with you in the coming year.

More coming attractions:

1. I intend to finish up my series of posts on the Lost Canyon of Egypt with what I believe is a particularly powerful critique of young-earth geology.
2. I will likely visit the Ark Encounter in Kentucky in the next few weeks. This is partly because I am contributing to a talk that will be presented at this years GSA (Geological Society of America) meeting that addresses concerns about the Ark Encounter.  I also intend to write my own review of the experience.
3. I intend to write more about the confusing mixed messages AiG is sending to the public about the mechanisms and pace of evolution.
4. I am going to share some of my nature photography from my trip out west.
5. Other topics on my to-do list are: creationism and the nature of thorns and thistles,  YEC and prelapsarian natural selection, an analysis of the YEC view of the physical and biotic appearance of the pre-flood world,  addressing intelligent design which I have long ignored on this blog. I also have several other recent geology and evolution stories I want to respond to.

So there is plenty to talk about and unexpected events will surely take me in new directions.  I can make plans for the future but I don’t have exclusive control over my future. I look forward to seeing what God has in store for me over the next year.