Joining in on the mini-meme about trees. I thought about what beautiful trees I could think of off the top of my head. I love the ancient bristlecone pines, the tall coastal redwoods, the valley oaks and the massive sequoias, but this one tree along Highway 50, is the first tree that came to mind. It is not beautiful but interesting and is dubbed "The shoe tree". I first came upon this tree in 2004 during my field camp days at UNR. What would cause people driving, to pick this one random tree in the middle of Nevada to stop and throw a pair of old shoes within its branches? My first thought is that non geologists get bored traveling along the highway, which in no way is boring to a geologist. There is not many trees along this stretch of road in Nevada, so why damage the only shade for miles. My reasoning on why people can do something like this turn into puzzling and angry thoughts, it shows the great American way, if one person does it then another must and then another until you have a tree full of old shoes. This is disrespecting nature and in my views not needed, I don't care if is it in the middle of nowhere or next door to my house.
1 comment:
There is a story (or two) about how and when The Shoe Tree started - don't know the truth of the matter. It probably was the early 1990's like the story says - I don't remember anything but giant cottonwood tree and great place to stop before then!
Interesting tree; I've run across at least two other shoe trees, and maybe three - one is in California. The cottonwood tree is holding up pretty well, some kinds of trees really can't take the shoes people throw on them.
Geotripper and I discussed this a bit in the comments on my tree post.
Great photos of the tree!
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