Geography 321, Chapter 14 - MexAmerica, the Borderlands in reality.

(The right lies Tijuana, Baja California, and on the left is San Diego, California. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexico%E2%80%93United_States_border)

The image of Mexican-American is shaped by boarder since Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848. The border lands covering the states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. The boarder today is continuous challenged by illegal immigration and drug smugger.  

U.S. Customs and Border Protection holds a key position. Mexican-American boarder is in middle of criminal traffic: drugs made by drug cartels in Mexican have to export into market in the U.S., and than the revenue from selling drug (mostly in cash) also have to transfer into Mexico, or buy weapons from gun shops in the U.S. have to transport into Mexico for drug cartels.

Although drug cartels tried to break the security for smuggling their drugs into the U.S., Customs and Border Protection intercepted most of the traffic by advanced sensors to detect the drugs hidden in varies of method of transportation.

Illegal immigration is different. Because the boarder lands in MexAmerica is hot, dry weather. Many of illegal immigrates risk their live to cross the boarder into the U.S.. They usually lacks water, food, and clothes to cross desert's hot daylight and cold night time so missing and death are very common for illegal crossing.


http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/21/us/immigrant-death-rate-rises-on-illegal-crossings.html?_r=0

Geography 321, Chapter 17 - Telescope in top of Hawai'i and the Pacific Islands

(https://www.flickr.com/photos/chanc/9104146473)

Mauna Kea Observatories is a famous astronomy observatory located on the summit of Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawai'i. The summit of 11,500 feet (3500 meters) is dry due strong temperature inversion keeps clouds  from climbing 4000 feet to 8000 feet (1200 to 2450 meters). In addition, there is no city on the Big Island make light pollution that can interfere the night sky observation.

(http://imgkid.com/mauna-kea-observatory.shtml)

One of the observatory is W. M. Keck Observatory, one of the largest astronomical telescopes in operation.

The Mauna Kea controversy starts recently due the Thirty Meter Telescope build proposal caused native Hawaiian protest. So far the telescope is temporary halted. It seems politics will become considering for Mauna Kea Observatories in future.

http://www.welivemana.com/articles/sacredness-mauna-kea-explained

Geography 321, Chapter 16 - Arcata at The Pacific Northwest

The California Geography Conference holds its annual conference at Humboldt State University in Arcata, California this May. It takes 12 hours drives from Northridge to Arcata by car. This is the highest latitude I have went for. The place is described as textbook: at north of California, cold ocean water body with mid latitude cyclones make Arcata as mild Summer, cold winter.

Nearly all year around foggy conditions is favorite for coastal redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens). This coastal redwoods can living 1,200–1,800 years or more. The The oldest known specimen is about 2,200 years old. 

(Chandelier Tree (Drive thru tree) v.s. modern truck)

Much of the counties at north of San Francisco is rural. More northern part of the California coast counties like Humboldt often referred to as the being located "behind the Redwood Curtain." The only way to breaching the Redwood Curtain is 101 highway. 

Arcata may looks like a small town, but the microbrewery produces some unique beers that we southern Californians never heard. Microbrewery in Arcata uses water from Mad river and takes the river name as their company brands. Surely Arcata is very remote, but I see a bottle of beer (or ale) is worth for 12 hours road drive.


http://www.conifers.org/cu/Sequoia.php
http://www.sfgate.com/travel/article/Behind-the-REDWOOD-CURTAIN-Humboldt-a-separate-2649310.php

Geography 321, Chapter 15 - California and the aqueduct.

(Terminus of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, November, 1913.)

If the man from Madison changed his mind, move to Los Angeles instead of San Francisco, he might catch up the construction of  Los Angeles Aqueduct which will complete in 1913.

If the man can get a job on aqueduct, working with dirt may sounds easy. But he have to faces the dryness and coldness of Owens Valley, and over timing works with steel pipes and dynamites. 

This hard finally ends on November 5, 1913. The man attended the opening day ceremonies of the Los Angeles Aqueduct with  30,000 people at Cascades.

The man hears his boss William Mulholland says "There it is. Take it." to him and 30,000 peoples. Then the man can looks for easy jobs like being a farmer at San Fernando Valley to raise citrus. He might plants some orange trees so the students of CSU Northridge can enjoy to pick them on decades later. 

(November 9, 2014. 101 years anniversary of L.A. aqueduct.)

Even so, the man later will feels he deserve to get a cup of water from aqueduct and condemns the saboteurs from Owens valley farms to destroy the aqueduct he was worked for.


http://waterandpower.org/museum/Construction_of_the_LA_Aqueduct.html
http://waterandpower.org/museum/Opening_of_LA_Aqueduct.html

Geography 321, Chapter 12 and 13 - The railroad that crossed the Rocky Mountain Region and the Intermontane West

(The Central Pacific's engine Jupiter and the Union Pacific's engine No. 119 meet on May 10, 1869, at Promontory Summit, Utah. http://railroad.lindahall.org/essays/brief-history.html)

If a man who lives in Madison city make up his mind to seek his own manifest destiny to the west after the Wright Brothers made their first flying machine into air, he has better chance to success than early American pioneers who took their wagon into the unknown Rocky mountains and the wild west.

After preparation done, the man go to railroad station to take a train to Milwaukee, Chicago, and then transfer into a Union Pacific's train that depart from Omaha to San Francisco. 

He may tired the flatness of the great Plains before train drives into Utah. The man could amazed from the train crosses the Great Salt Lake by Lucin Cutoff. Roughness mountains in Nevada might cause the man feels sick. He will be feel comfortable when train drives flat route in Sacramento. He can finally arrives San Francisco after the last hilly route.

(http://www.trestlewood.com/page/1020/)

The man's journal may ends on San Francisco, but his experience from The Transcontinental Railroad will pass down into his descendants. His descendants will amaze peoples at the beginning of the Century of Flight could crossing the Rocky Mountain and the Intermontane West.

Geography 321, Chapter 11 - Tornado alley in “Great Plains” and Madison.

(http://www.koco.com/weather/the-many-faces-of-tornado-alley/25726746)

As I typing this sentences, the tornado outbreak sequence is occurring in Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas since 5th May. Tornado alley in the Great Plains is very famous in every Geography textbooks. Even today's tornadoes have developed more strike zone eastward by climate change, the classic Tornado alley in the Great Plains stills stands high occurrence rate for continental United States.

Tornado usually formed by several thunderstorm, or super cell. Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas located in border of differential air masses and the path of strong jet stream from Rocky mountains. In general, tornado comes from strong thunderstorm, so other region outside than the Great Plains can have tornado. The places like Los Angeles in southern California and Madison in Wisconsin could have Tornado strike, but the latter city has higher chances. According my mother's memory, my family had two Tornado warnings and went to shelter during my live in Madison city. Since I lives in Los Angeles in 2004, I heard a few Tornado warnings from SoCal beach cities and small damages in local residential buildings. For Madison city, its quit normal have Tornado strikes, but for Los Angeles it is still rare for all Angelenos! So the imagines from Hollywood's mind, "2012" is totally B rated fancy movie but "San Andreas" might have better fit for Angelenos' theater.

(The best vortical action can be seen at 3:04 and 7:04.) 

(The most recent Tornado strike in L.A.)

Geography 321, Chapter 10 Coastal South

(http://dahrjamail.net/gulf-coast-fishermen-challenge-us-government-over-dispersants)

In the coastal south there have many primary economic activities. The leading producing of large volumes of citrus fruit and sugar cane from Florida are famous in American's supermarket. However, commercial fishing is a part of Coastal South's important industry.

In 2012, commercial fishers in Louisiana  landed 1.2 billion pounds and garnered $331 million in revenue and Mississippi landed 263.6 million pounds. The economic report said commercial and recreational fishing nationally supported about 1.7 million jobs in 2012.  

However, this Coastal South's industry impacted by man-made disaster.

On 20 April 2010, an offshore oil drilling rig Deepwater Horizon got explosion and sank. The rig's drilling site caused over 210 million gallons of crude oil leaked into the Gulf of Mexico.

Coastal of west Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, east Louisiana and fishing areas in the Gulf were closed for one year due crude oil spill. furthermore, crude oil can divided into smaller droplets and enter the gulf's food chain through zooplankton. The toxins from oil spills can cause fish hearts into cardiac arrest.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/more-than-three-years-later-oil-from-the-deepwater-horizon-persists-in-the-gulf-180948063/?no-ist

http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-tuna-hearts-oil-spill-toxins-20140213-story.html

Geography 321, Chapter 9 – The Inland South

Inland South is consists most parts of southern states of the U.S.: Virginia, West Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, northern and middle Mississippi, Kentucky, Arkansas, southern Missouri, northern Louisiana, eastern Oklahoma, and eastern Texas. Georgia is the largest state and Atlanta is largest city in inland south. Atlanta is not only as host city for CNN, other television corporation such as The Weather Channel also choose Atlanta as host city.

Landform of Inland South contains Atlantic Coastal Plain, hilly eastern by Appalachian mountians , North American central lowland on center, and independent mountains of Ozark and Ouachita. Climate of the south is hot and humid due Maritime tropical air mass. No dry season. Abundant precipitation causes flash flood occur often.

Unlike nothern states, Inland South very dependent on agriculture. Cotton, tobacco and sugar were economical crops for the south. Cotton cultivation was majority export to europe for the south and it was heavily dependent on manpower so the south has rooted with slavery until Civil War.

Geography 321, Chapter 8: The Corn Belt and Madison

Photo: Randen L. Pederson "Wisconsin Farm" September 12, 2007 via Flickr, Creative Commons Attribution.

Madison does not contact to Great Lake region, and it has own lakes nearby. However, Madison is located within the corn belt; the manufacturing core of cash-grain farms that grow corn, soybeans, and other crops that are sold directly to food processing companies. Also these grains used to feed cattle and hogs to producing meat. 

(http://www.wicci.wisc.edu/agriculture-working-group.php)

Dane county is where Madison located on south/south-central part of Wisconsin. This area's soils are created from glacial drift and they are generally very deep, well drained, and loamy.

Geography 321, Chapter 7: Madison’s Place in the Great Lakes Megalopolis

(Madison is on top left edge of circle)

Today 240 thousand of people lives in city of Madison looks not like a big metropolis. In fact, near Madison is connected with Great Lakes Megalopolis.

The Milwaukee-Chicago corridor which located southwest of Lake Michigan is nearest megapolis that easily access by highways. Interstate 94 is straight access to Milwaukee and also can goes down to Chicago in south.

Midwest High-Speed Rail Association plans to provide another ways of access. If  this purposed high-speed rail system builds in the Midwest Megaregion it would become fifth largest in the world, behind only the U.S., China, Japan, and Germany. (http://www.america2050.org/2011/04/study-midwest-hsr-network-to-create-118-billion-in-wages-and-nearly-300-billion-in-business-sales-ov.html)

Geography 321, Chapter 5: Periphery of Madison

(https://socinnovation.wordpress.com/2011/01/07/madison-social-innovation/)

As from Chapter 1, Detroit’s periphery consists of the four lakes. Lake Mendota at north of Madison and Lake Monona at south are the largest water bodies nearby. Yahara river on north is major water source for Lake Mendota. 

The University of Wisconsin–Madison campus is located along the southern shore of Lake Mendota. In the early 20th century, Chancey Juday and Edward A. Birge founded an influential school of "limnology" there as a component of the university.

Much of the shore of Lake Mendota is lined with expensive luxury homes and condominiums. The banks of the lake also contain protected natural areas and parks, including James Madison Park, as well as university housing. 

The Lake Mendota used by surrender residents for recreation. The lake is filled with water sports in the summer, including fishing, water-skiing, wakeboarding, tubing, canoeing, wind-surfing, kayaking, and sailing. In the winter, sports enthusiasts uses the Lake for ice-boating, ice-skating, ice fishing, cross country skiing, ice hockey and snow-kiting.

The Lake Access Permit is required for all designated launch sites in the City of Madison, City of Monona, and Dane County Parks. Lake Access Permits are required year-round. 

(http://www.engr.wisc.edu/cee/cee-technical-areas-environmental-engineering-and-science.html)

Picnic Point is a nearly mile-long peninsula along Lake Mendota's south shore. It is among Madison's most distinctive features and the most popular destination in Madisonians. 

(Family photography, Winter of 1986-87)

Lake Mendota can be forzen at winter. Average duration for forzen Lake Mendota is 105 days and usually forze from mid December to early April. The record for longest day was 161 during winter of 1880–81. (Soruce: http://www.aos.wisc.edu/~sco/lakes/msnicesum.html)

Geography 321, Chapter 4: Political Economy of Madison

(UW-Madison Campus Isthmus, https://biochem.wisc.edu/medialab/clip-art-media-lab)

Although Madison locates near Rust Belt and within Corn Belt, Madison's economy today is evolving from a government-based economy to a consumer services and high-tech base. Wisconsin state government and the University of Wisconsin–Madison remain the two largest Madison employers. Technology companies in the Madison include Google, Microsoft and other minor brands of companies. The contract research organization Covance is a major employer in the area.

(http://www.surroundedbyreality.com/Businesses/Industry/Oscars.asp)

At least one American famous brand of grocery store’s item manufacturing in Madison. Oscar Mayer, an American meat production company original in Detroit, Michigan, and Chicago, Illinois in late 1800s. Oscar Mayer built plant at Madison in 1919 and then it became the permanent corporate headquarters. Today Oscar Mayer is owned by Kraft Foods Group since 2007.

(http://www.kraftcareers.com/en-us/locations-madison)

Geography 321, Chapter 3: Historical Settlement of Madison

(Madison WI, 1787 / http://www.davidrumsey.com/maps4956.html)

Human begins have lived in the Madison area for nearly 12,000 years. The first settlers of southern Wisconsin arrived from Asia shortly after the retreat of the glaciers on 12,000 years ago. Most of the human lived there were ancestors of today's Native American.

Between 300 and 1,300 AD Native American "mound builders" occupied Madison. Of the thousands of effigy mounds that built at the lakes only a few remain today to remind us of their exists.

After the War of 1812, three permanent military outposts were established by the U.S. military in Wisconsin: Fort Crawford at Prairie du Chien (1816), Fort Howard at Green Bay (1816), and Fort Winnebago at the portage between the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers (1828). Besides offering protection to settlers, these early military posts sponsored much civilian activity. During early 1800s native Americans, the Ho-Chunk Nation lived at this area. They were forced to move west of the Mississippi River after the Black Hawk conflict of 1832.

James Duane Doty, a Wisconsin territorial Judge and land speculator, traveled through Madison's Isthmus between Lakes Mendota and Monona in May 1829 and then he bought 1,200 acres of swamp and forest land on the isthmus for $1,500 and platted a grid of streets. 

After the Territory of Wisconsin was created in 1836, Doty lobbied the territorial legislature during meeting in Belmont (a small town 50 miles southwest of today's Madison), he lobbying aggressively for Madison as the new capital, and offering buffalo robes to the freezing legislators and promising choice Madison lots at discount prices to undecided voters.

Doty named the city Madison for James Madison, the fourth President of the U.S. and one of Founding Fathers of the United States who had died on June 28, 1836. Doty named the streets for the other 39 signers of the U.S. Constitution.

Territorial legislature voted on November 28, 1836 set Madison as its capital. The Capitol started to build in April 1837.

When the Village of Madison was incorporated in 1846, the population of village had reached 626. Wisconsin became a state in 1848. Madison became a city in 1856 and boasted a population of 6,864. The first settlers were Whites from the eastern states. They were soon followed by German, Irish and Norwegian immigrants. Italians, Greeks, Jews and African Americans also found a home here after the beginning of 20^th century. Today the population of city of Madison is 233,209.

http://www.historicmadison.org/Madison%27s%20Past/madisonspast.html
http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Content.aspx?dsNav=N:4294963828-4294963805&dsRecordDetails=R:CS308

Geography 321, Chapter 2: Environmental Settings of Madison

(http://www.city-data.com/forum/wisconsin/1836099-wisconsin-thoughts-midwest-high-speed-rail-4.html)

 Madison sometimes described as The City of Four Lakes: Lake Mendota ("Fourth Lake"), Lake Monona ("Third Lake"), Lake Waubesa ("Second Lake") and Lake Kegonsa ("First Lake"). The four lakes region was formed by the glaciers when they retreated about 13,000 years ago. Only Lake Mendota and Lake Monona are nearby and these lakes created Madison as Isthmus.

(Wikipedia)

Lake Michigan and Milwaukee is distanced more than 100 km east.

Madison has a humid continental climate hot summer with high humidity level [Dfa, Koeppen]. Although Madison has significant precipitation during summer, it still get moderate to occasionally heavy snowfall on cold winter.

Most of Vegetation around Madison is Grassland with Eastern Temperate deciduous forest. Majority of agriculture in south Wisconsin is very active and it is a part of "Corn Belt"

Geography 321 Chapter 1: Introduction of Madison, Wisconsin

(Wisconsin state capital, http://taggmagazine.com/lifestyle/travel/expanding-summer-horizons/)

Madison is the capital of the State of Wisconsin and home to the University of Wisconsin. Madison locates on enter of Dane County that places at south of Wisconsin. Census 2010 measured 233,209 peoples lived in city of Madison.

Madison has a humid continental climate;
cold winter and hot summer with high humidity level. although Madison has significant precipitation during summer, it still get moderate to occasionally heavy snowfall on winter.

Madison locates between two lakes; Lake Mendota at north of Madison and Lake Monona at south. University of Wisconsin–Madison is famous campus locates south coastal of Lake Mendota. UW–Madison was ranked 70 among national universities by Forbes (Cal State Northridge ranked 441). My father was studied Engineering at this UW–Madison during late 70s to late 80s. I and my brother were born at that time.