Field of Science

A tropical interlude

It's single digit temperatures outside (and in F degrees that's really cold), and snowy, and with a huge wind chill factor making it seem even colder, and TPP still has a flu-like substance. What's needed is a nicr tropical interlude. Nothing gets your head straight faster, improves your out look, and cures what ails you faster than a trip to the tropics. Now why the heck is TPP still up north here?  He's retired! Why not move to the tropics? Well, there's a lot of reasons that isn't happening and won't happen, but a guy can still dream can't he?  Here's a view in one to TPP's favorite places, one of the beach communities north of Cairns (Qld).  What you see here is a coconut palm characteristically leaning out over the beach so that it's sea water dispersed fruits drop where a high tide will pick them up and float them away. Successful dispersal requires that the fruit gets deposited above the high tide mark, usually by a storm surge, but then if the palm didn't lean out the fruits would fall too far above the high tide mark. A nice beach morning glory is growing out onto the upper beach from under the shade of casuarina trees (maybe Casuarina equisetifolia). Notice the crowds. A couple months of this would just about fix me up. 

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