I know I said no more driving....

So, I'm getting back in the car tomorrow, to meet the 'rents on the Oregon coast. So I'll get a little bit of vacation. Then back in SC for a day, then to Nevada for one last field work hurrah before the quarter starts. Then no vacation until Christmas, nose to the grindstone, pedal to the medal, burning the candle at both ends, you get the picture.

And more transience. I'm coming to grips with the transience. Considering how much advance planning I don't typically do, I feel like I'm starting to see how the next 2 years map out. It evens seems possible that I'll spend more time away from Santa Cruz than in it. But that is jumping off the bridge before I get to it.

Anyway, I'll post some Oregon coast pictures when I get back. In the meantime, we had an unprecidented number of people in the lab, working away today, and were entertained by this episode of the This American Life called "Running After Antelope." which is mostly the story about a man chasing antelope. According to Kena, this man's brother (referred to throughout the story) is a big-whig in the animal morphology world - Kena's students are often entertained by hearing about the lizard that can't breath when it runs. Give it a listen if you have samples to weigh out or plants/rocks/animal parts to crush. Or any other brainless activity to do. Or want inspiration for a new training regime (the campus deer, perhaps?). We were all rooting for the guy to catch the antelope.....

Home soon...

Just a quick post to say I should be home late Sunday night or certainly by Monday, and should be done with work in South Dakota by Friday night. Saturday and Sunday promise to be LONG driving days. Santa Cruzians: see you soon!

Iowa

The three-day tour of Iowa started in Ames. I stopped there to pick up a selection of clam shells from folks in the biology department; this inevitably means a trip to a basement room full of odd bits of preserved animals. In this case, many jars of amphibians and snakes!
Then, a quick wander through central campus:
I then headed south, towards Madison county/covered bridge land. I hadn't realized those bridges aren't actually in use anymore (well, at least the one I saw), so the road has been built bypassing the old covered bridge. I pulled in late to a campsite in the SW corner of the state, and started the whole process again the next morning. Soil and river water sampling got me as far as the northwest corner; I also stopped in Sheldon and visited the DeJong graves there (mom's mom's family). I couldn't find great-grandpa Peterson's grave though. Stayed the night near Spirit Lake where it rained all night and all morning. Stopped in Ruthven, saw a few more graves: and then grabbed the last Iowa samples in the north central region before heading to Minneapolis.

Pork Plasma?

So, as I waited to pay the toll in Decatur to cross the Missouri River into Iowa, I saw a tanker trunk in front of me. I wouldn't have payed much attention except for this warning on the back: "Inedible...something non-food grade something.....pork plasma.

First of all, when was the last time you wanted to order up some pork plasma for dinner? In fairness, I did eat pork blood in SE China, but it is served in little rectangles with a tofu-like texture and is tasty and salty, but still not common in american cuisine.

Which leads to the second thought that crossed my mind. Let's say you did have a hankering for pork plasma. With or without the "inedible" warning, would you really walk up to a tanker truck full of the stuff and try to get a swig? Curious.

And the third thought. What IS non-food grade pork plasma used for and for that matter what is food-grade pork plasma used for?

The googling effort on this will just have to wait.

Nebraska Hospitality

Cranked through Nebraska in four days. I kind of like it; especially the northwest and northeast corners. Maybe I just happened to drive through them at the right time of day (dusk, clouds)...

I won't bore you with too many details, because modern soil pictures are even less exciting than fossil ones (I know, hard to imagine). But, the Nebraska soil scientists are an incredibly helpful bunch, and they did what they could to keep me from leaving empty handed: However, I'm gaining some valuable experience that should help me if this whole academics thing falls through. I figure all of the logistical work makes me qualified to be an event planner. Or maybe I could also get a job as a truck driver with all the driving? Or perhaps a singing career? I've been doing a lot of loud car-singing lately.

I've also had to adjust my sense of a successful day: I'd say today has been the most successful since I managed to collect three samples, each one at least 100 miles away from the one before, and then managed to make it to Ames, IA this evening. I also managed to time each sample between heavy rain and thunderstorms, which actually made the sampling stops cool and pleasant.

Also just heard about the interstate bridge that collapsed in Minneapolis, close to my old neighborhood. So far, I've heard from everyone I know, that they're fine, but that makes the second interstate bridge to go down in a couple of months (the bay area lost a bridge to a tanker truck a few months back).

A couple pics:
the obligatory crooked-arm shot in front of the not-so-dismal Dismal River, NW Nebraska. I tried to stay out of the way, but I'm just going to blame it on the field hat. An idyllic pastoral scene from NE Nebraska

Sample Happy in Utah

I've got a little catch-up to do. We finished up in Utah; after about 10 days of getting up at 5:00 and staying out for about 10 hours each day, digging lots of pits and collecting a ton of samples (almost 70 from Utah alone! My rubbermaid bin is nearly full), we headed to Denver for the next leg.

It was a little sad leaving our little valley in Utah; we were used to the sights. The two guys always leaning against the back of their pickup chatting on our way back to camp, the crazy bearded guy riding down the canyon road everyday, and friendly people everywhere.

The drive from central Utah to Denver is, of course, a geologist's heaven. Interstate 70 is pretty amazing, and this is the first time I've done that drive with another geologist in the car and the "roadside geology of Utah" book. The San Rafael Swell (shades of my sed/strat class in college), the Morrison formation and tons of dinosaur localities and then Glenwood Canyon and views of the Great Unconformity heading into Denver. Tracy had never been on I-70 through Colorado before and had her face pressed to the window, oohing and aahing the whole time.

We're now living the high life in Denver, and sampling the Denver basin, which is east of I-25, between Denver and Colorado Springs. We're staying at the Governor's Mansion in Denver (aka, Ben Hamilton's house), and coordinating the sampling effort with folks from the Denver Natural History Museum and some of my previous collaborators from other projects, so it is fun to be in the field with a group again. We've also been able to sleep in a little, and it isn't so hot, so we finish the day feeling tired, but not quite so trashed as in Utah.

Tracy and I had fun digging a big trench in THE paleosol in the Denver Basin yesterday, and more of the same today. Tomorrow we'll take a day off, and then Tuesday sample the big core they dug a year or so ago in the basin and maybe check out the Museum. Likely we'll head back to the west for one last week before Tracy heads home and I head to the Midwest. Hope all is well with all of you!

Pictures:
early morning on the outcrop
Apparently Ephraim is a scandinvaian hotspot. Every store is an Anderson's, Olsen's, Jensen's or Larson's.
How did they know we needed a backhoe? The forest service left this for us in our campsite in UT one day.
Rare photographic evidence that I'm actually on this trip. Beautiful Navajo cross-bedded sandstone in the bottom right of the picture.
The San Raphael Swell, looking east.
Nutella and Brownies give small women the strength to dig deep pits.

Nevada

View of Ruby mountains (center) on road out of field site)
Just a quick update post. After the workshop, Paul and I drove to Salt Lake City (the 27th), picked up Tracy (field assistant), and drove to Nevada. This was the first of the change in plans, due to changes in plans of folks we were supposed to meet in Utah. So, we spent the last few days checking out some rocks near Elko, and I now have the first self-collected rock samples of my Ph.D. Yay!

We're off to Ely - Nevada that is, not Minnesota. I don't even know if they are pronounced the same. There are some good potential rocks there, and that gives me time to try to track down contact info for people who can grant me access to the rocks I want in Utah. Apparently, one canyon I want to get into is blocked by some persnickety ranchers. I need to call them and hope that Tracy and I can work some magic and get in there.

Anyway, things are going well, we haven't melted or set the sage brush on fire with our rig, we've seen lots of suicidal jack rabbits (a dirt road with ~15 flattened bunnies in a 4 mile stretch??), cows and the beautiful Ruby mountains.
1st Nevada home, Ruby Mountains in the the distance

In a rut....

This one is for Mom. Mom's small obsession with wagon wheel ruts became clear during multiple family vacations driving out west. We stopped at all kinds of Oregon Trail sites and saw ruts in corn fields, sage brush, as a part of highway rest stops, you name it.

I came across this Oregon Trail site on the Snake River plain in SE Idaho during the drive to Powell yesterday; the Massacre Rock historical site. Apparently about 10 Trail goers from 3 or 4 different wagon trains were killed during attacks here over the course of a couple days. Despite the slightly macabre association, there ARE nice rocks to look at, with Snake River canyon volcanics as the backdrop.

The top of the ruts was about even with the top of my head.
Just up the road is another site, called Register Rock, where many Trail goers carved their names in the rock; this is nicely surrounded by a giant chain link fence, in the middle of a picnicking park.
I've been told there are ruts here in Powell and that we may see them during the workshop field trip in the Big Horn Basin on Tuesday....

Outta Here!

Ok, field vehicle is loaded, computer is backed up, I've made more Landsat images in the last 36 hours than I care to think about, and I just deposited the equivalent of half of my salary from last year into my checking account.

I think I'm ready to go. Finally!