text: The Higgs boson (the particle that gives all matter its mass) — sometimes referred to as the “God particle” has recently made news. This particle was found by smashing protons together at high energy in the $10 billion Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland.
  “…This unimaginably small particle has never been detected, but would explain several unsolved mysteries about the universe – for instance, why building blocks of our world have mass.”Elizabeth Landau, CNN.
  “The Higgs boson is the last missing piece of our current understanding of the most fundamental nature of the universe,” Martin Archer, a physicist at Imperial College in London.
  Unlike the traditional IRA Roth conversion rules, there is no option to split your tax bill over two years. You will owe the entire tax on whatever amount you convert (remember, Congress is trying to raise some revenue here!).
  Both the Roth 401(k) plan and the conversion option must be included in your employer’s plan offering for you to take advantage of this strategy.
  Few sights on Earth—our grand and mostly liquid planet—are quite so bewitching as a waterfall. Freefall plunges off overhangs, horsetail falls rivuleting down slanted rock faces, whitewater cascades frothing through a long forest chute: There are many kinds of waterfalls, many shapes and configurations, and of course a vast size spectrum—from tiny streamers on a steep-coursed brook to immense cataracts such as Angel, Iguazú, Victoria, and Niagara falls. What’s remarkable is how even a little waterfall, or a drought-diminished one, retains almost magnetic appeal. Who knows: Maybe there’s something to the whole negative-ion effect said to be at play around these careening flows.
  The United States harbors countless magnificent waterfalls in all its corners, including some that rank among the most celebrated in the world. Here we’ll spotlight some of the best US waterfalls—“best” being determined based on both cold, hard facts (height, volume, etc.) and more subjective values of waterfall form, scenery, and the like.
  Speaking of subjective, we’re going to limit our focus to the conterminous US. Let’s acknowledge up front that Hawaii boasts the country’s tallest waterfalls (Olo’upena, Pu’uka’oku, and Waihilau, according to the fascinating World Waterfall Database) and among the globe’s most stunning; and that Alaska claims its own spectacular (and often super-remote) falls, including Brooks Falls in Katmai National Park and Preserve, modest in size but famously serving as a world-class fishing hole for titanic brown bears.
  We’re also leaving off a ton of fabulous falls in the Lower 48. Rather than any kind of exhaustive list, think of this roundup of some of the best waterfalls in the US as a geographically representative highlights reel.
  Well, let’s get this titan—the biggest waterfall in the US—out of the way first, shall we? This 85,000-cubic-foot-per-second (cfs) cataract is by far the most voluminous in North America, and its nearly 4,000-foot span on the US-Canada border certainly makes one of the continent’s most iconic landmarks. Niagara Falls comes shackled with an unfortunate degree of development, but the massive power of the Niagara River—modified as it is by hydroelectric management—remains awe-inspiring.
  A view of the American, Bridal Veil and Horseshoe Falls from the Presidential Suite of the Sheraton Fallsview Hotel, Niagara Falls, Ontario Canada by Saffron Blaze
  What with Niagara, Cohoes, Taughannock, and others, New York isn’t skimpy with its heavy hitting waterfalls, to say the least. Kaaterskill Falls is another: a double-tiered, 260-foot fall in the Catskill Mountains that has been celebrated for centuries as a picture of wild American beauty. And we mean “picture” literally: Kaaterskill stars in more than a few Romanticist paintings out of the 19th-century Hudson River School.
  Screw Auger Falls is definitely a case in point that waterfalls needn’t be gigantic to take your breath away. It’s a 15-foot drop into a grottoed plunge pool within the gullet of one of the great canyons of the Northeast: Maine’s Gulf Hagas. This gorge is a fine place for waterfall lovers, as more cascades and plunges lie along Gulf Hagas Brook: Check out this New England Waterfalls profile for more info.
  The streaming descent of the Passaic River over basalt cliffs marks both one of New Jersey’s most impressive natural landmarks and a fascinating piece of American history. The town of Paterson arose here from a vision of Alexander Hamilton—yes yes, that Hamilton—who was inspired to establish the first planned industrial city in the US around the Great Falls’ hydropower.
  Wisconsin’s mightiest waterfall ranks among the most scenic in the Midwest. At Big Manitou Falls, the Black River flows off the old basalt of the Douglas Range into a rapids-strewn sandstone gorge; the smaller but also-impressive Little Manitou Falls roars upstream. They’re the scenic centerpiece of Pattison State Park just a stone’s throw from Superior.
  Broad and elegant Tahquamenon Falls, stained rusty by Northwoods tannin, stands tall amid the prodigious wilderness scenery of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. During spring snowmelt Tahquamenon is one of the burliest waterfalls in the East, while autumn visitors get to savor its shimmery splendor against a canvas of fall colors.
  As the Falling Water River drops off the Highland Rim in central Tennessee, it forms a series of gorge-set waterfalls, the last and most spectacular of which is Burgess Falls. This 136-foot cataract is one of the natural wonders of a state with no shortage of gorgeous whitewater plunges and streamers.
  Burgess Falls, along the Falling Water River at Burgess Falls State Park in Putnam County, Tennessee By Brian Stansberry
  The impressive breadth of Sandstone Falls and its backdrop of lovely forested highlands puts it right up there among America’s great cataracts, shallow as it is. Here the New River foams down a broken ledge some 1,500 feet across to muscle its way through the Appalachian Plateau via the New River Gorge.
  Perhaps the biggest waterfall in the US Rockies, the Lower Falls surge more than 300 feet into the pinnacled Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone to create one of the defining landmarks of the world’s oldest national park. A wonderland scene if there ever was one…
  Another spectacular cataract of the Yellowstone country, Upper Mesa Falls is the broad and powerful tumble of the Henrys Fork of the Snake River over a layer of tuff deposited by an eruption of the Yellowstone hotspot. You can appreciate this fluvial majesty as well as the narrower Lower Mesa Falls on the Mesa Falls Scenic Byway through the Targhee National Forest—an easy and rewarding addition to a trip to Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks.
  The second biggest waterfall in the US after Niagara, Willamette Falls in Oregon (Mountain House’s home state!) is a huge crescent-shaped basalt cataract on the Willamette River, edged by the Portland metro towns of West Linn and Oregon City. The Falls were an important fishing ground for the Kalapuya, Molalla, and other American Indian peoples, and still serve as a tribal lamprey-harvesting site; just downstream, meanwhile, anglers compete with sea lions for salmon amid leaping white sturgeon. The industrial setting of the cataract has long limited up-close views, but the in-development Willamette Falls Riverwalk will provide better public access to this surprisingly underappreciated landmark of greater Portland.
  Willamette Falls, Oregon looking upstream. Photo taken with a DJI Mavik Pro drone on July 19,2017. By Mrgadget51
  Speaking of those Missoula Floods—a truly profound influences on the landscape of the Pacific Northwest—they’re also responsible for this amazing waterfall in southeastern Washington’s ethereal Palouse country. Here the Palouse River hurdles nearly 200 feet clear into a plunge pool within a chasm scoured out by multiple Ice Age megafloods over thousands of years.
  The Yosemite Valley on the west slope of the northern Sierra Nevada is such a haven for gobsmacking waterfalls roaring off gorgeous and monolithic granite faces that we can’t restrict ourselves to just one. At 2,425 feet, Yosemite Falls is the tallest, and indeed one of the tallest in the country; it’s composed of multiple plunges and cascades, mightiest of which is the 1,430-foot Upper Yosemite Fall. May and June are prime time for appreciating this singularly beautiful waterfall, as it diminishes significantly in the summer dry season, sometimes drying up completely.
  Just about as famous is 620-foot Bridalveil Fall, which helps paint the classic introductory vista of Yosemite Valley that bowls visitors over past the Wawona Tunnel.
  Other Yosemite Valley stunners include 1,000-foot Horsetail Fall off El Capitan, famous for its infernal “Firefall” glow during February sunsets; nearly 2,000-foot Sentinel Fall, another of the nation’s tallest; and the year-round-flowing, postcard-perfect double-whammy of Nevada and Vernal falls.
  Arizona’s Grand Canyon is so unbelievably immense that it can take a much smaller-scale feature to sort of anchor the scenery. Havasu Falls in the depths of the canyon on the reservation of the Havasupai people is one of those magical places that focuses the beauty of the entire monumental landscape.
  This entry was posted in Nature and tagged nature, waterfalls by Kelli Martinelli. Bookmark the permalink.	
  Crown’s XLS Series stereo amps employ a PureBand crossover system where users can select crossover points (with or without PeakX limiting) from 50 to 3k Hz for matching most bi-amped speakers. Power (at 4 ohms) ranges from 350 to 775W/channel. Integrated DriveCore technology provides the highest level of performance as though a power conditioner was built directly into the amplifier. Weight is just 11 pounds.
  As if my looming SANIME surgeries aren’t enough to mess with my training, I am now dealing with exercise-induced hives.
  At my yearly dermatology appointment with the ever lovely Dr. Beightler (have I ever mentioned she saved my life? cause she did. it’s just one of the reasons i lurv her), I told her that I have been experiencing hives after running. At times they cover about 1/3 third of my 5’9″ frame. My hives are so impressive, bees are jealous.
  She listened sympathetically, as I described my ginormous welts, using hand gestures and googly eyes to drive home my itchy point.
  But don’t get me wrong, I’ll take that diagnosis as long as it doesn’t include the nitro-bottle-of-pain pointed in my direction.
  She explained with the weather being coolish and warmish and then you mix in adrenalin (just what an already revved up gal like me needs…MORE ADRENALIN!), plus a history of hives, then BOOM! exercise-induced hives.
  She advised I could take an antihistamine, or let them run their course, which is what I do. They are extremely itchy and annoying, seem to spread by just looking at them, but usually resolve in 30 minutes or until I pass out from the drinking. (i keed, i keed)
  The worst part of this? I took pictures! But, I decided not to post them because I gotta draw the line somewhere, right?! Seriously, who wants to look at a pasty white gurl’s hives? Or her jiggly bits?!
  WAIT! Just remember when gazing upon the fishbelly that you mustn’t linger. I hear it could put an eye out.
  P.P.S. if you must refer to my belly pooch as you shame me, please note it has a name: Chipotle. cause it’s hawt. for reals.