Day 3

Hitting the road this morning, I found out that I had stopped less than a mile from Ohio.  I liked watching the wild flowers in the morning light as I drove by.  There were some that were a gorgeous light purple-blue.  As the day progressed, I noticed something disturbing.  There were dead trees, a lot of dead trees.  This trend actually continued through Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland and Virginia.  There would be large sections of the forested areas that were dead and dying.  They weren't all the same species of tree, or even all deciduous or evergreen.  Whatever is wrong with them attacks indiscriminately.  As I drove through the countryside, I came up with two theories.  The first theory was a drought.  However, the dead trees were not all in areas that would be first hit by low water tables.  Also, with a drought, some tree species would be more susceptible.  Then I remembered a story one of my professors told us a few years a go.  We used to use a lot of 'dirty' coal, coal with a high sulfur content.  When this coal is burned, it releases sulfides into the environment.  The sulfides combine with the water vapor in the clouds and create sulfuric acid.  This creates acid rain the comes down to the east of the power plants that burn dirty coal.  My professor told us that at one point it got so bad that the majority of the north eastern United States' forests were devastated.  I thought the story was from a long time ago.  I thought the damage would have been healed.  But here are trees that are obviously dying.  Could it be from left over acid water in the system?  Whatever is wrong, it is sad to drive through what would be a beautiful countryside only to have the rolling, green, tree-covered hills spotted with sections of brown.

I reached my parents' house just in time to sit down to supper with the family.  It was a full house tonight.  We were celebrating my sister delivering her first child.  We had a fair amount of both our immediate family and her husband's immediate family here.  We had a lovely summer-style meal with multiple kinds of salad and fruit.  Thus starts my time staying with my parents.  I'll be here a few weeks before I fly to Ireland to begin my internship.