The District (well almost)

Continuing on with catch-up goal... I took advantage of my first field-trip free weekend for the quarter and went to DC to visit my grandparents. A pile of United miles and my parents also visiting might have played a small role as well.

So, I caught up on some sleep, graded some papers, ate lots of Grandmama's excellent food and enjoyed the family. Pretty relaxing. The excitement mostly came from the cancelled flight out of San Jose, which ended as well as it possibly could. They threw many of us on a direct flight out of SFO and while I got to DC 3.5 hours later than I was supposed to, I did get to watch the new Harry Potter as a result.

On Saturday morning, we went into the city to see the Natural History Museum. The last attempt at this failed because the basement had flooded during 3-4 days of intense rain that flooded the basement of many of the Smithsonian museums and some Metro stations. I haven't been to the museum since I was a kid, and figured it was high time to stop in again. We saw a special nature photography exhibit; among other things was a nice set of arctic photos with skinny polar bears and some pretty skinny-looking glaciers. Then off to "Geology, Gems and Minerals." Mom liked the Esterville meteorite (we always drove by the crater during visits to NW Iowa) and I like the musical seismic stations, that make a sound everytime there is seismicity somewhere in the world. After that we met up with Malea, her boyfriend Eric and her dog Areck (spelling?) for a sun-filled fall Sunday lunch (the theme of the weekend seemed to be food). Sorry no pics, I didn't have my camera.

This weekend it's off to the field for the last time this quarter, which is good because I think the recent in-and-out of town is taking its toll on my ability to figure out the days of the week. I tried to put the trash out on Wednesday night, and only when I got the cans to the curb and realized there were no others, did I realize it was actually Tuesday night. My housemate then informed the next morning, that I must have gotten the month wrong too because it isn't my turn for the garbage. Oops.