Where are we? What are we doing? What's going on?

Is there confusion about where Kellen and I are at the moment? If any of you have managed to stay abreast of what we're doing these days, you are sharp. We've both been a little two-ships -passing-in-the-night lately, I miss my husband!

To recap: Today, I just got back from a week in Angola for a workshop. Shortly before that I was in Spain for a week learning about growth structures in the Pyrenees mountains. Next week I'll be here in Houston but the week after I'll be in Richmond, CA for a week of cross-functional training.

Kellen is in Montana TAing field camp for the next month. He was supposed to be going to Tibet for July and August but the Chinese government is denying travel visas until the Olympics are over. So instead Kellen is trucking around in Montana. In September he's heading out to the Alps (mostly Switzerland and Italy) for field work.

Angola was all right, mostly you just end up waiting around all the time. Since you're not allowed to walk anywhere you have to take a shuttle everywhere and so you stand outside for two hours waiting for the shuttle which will take another hour to transport you to the office, which is a half mile away. By then it's almost lunch time so you have to go wait for another shuttle to take you to lunch. I know that sounds bizarre, but it's true.

Going to blog about Spain very soon.

Field Camp

After the painfully long 28 hours of driving we finally arrived in Red Lodge, Montana, the first stop for the University of Houston's geology field camp. The drive up wasn't too bad, Kansas has that classic running-on-the-treadmill feel that makes you want to give up living, aside from that, it went smoothly. The first night we stayed in Wichita Kansas at a hotel and the second night we camped at a KOA in Casper Wyoming.

Thats our fearless leader? Thats the mens washroom in the background which, to put mildly, is a bit interesting.

View looking up at the "high rent" district. Thats where the faculty gets to stay. They have their own bathrooms complete with showers and heat!
These are the 2 study halls. This is where late night report writing and map completion takes place.

A nice look at some of the geology the students will be mapping. We are mapping in Elk Basin, Wyoming, which is dominated by Laramide deformation. This is a view of a limb of a doubly-plunging anticline.

Students lookin' at the outcrop!

As far as field camps go, this one is pretty plush. I'm used to camping and cooking all of our own meals, but not here. We have cabins, cooks, study halls, limited internet access...all the comforts of home, almost. The cabins don't have heat, and, well, its been pretty darn cold here in southern Montana. Nights have been below freezing and daytime temps haven't risen above 55. Needless to say, many students have been complaining about the cold. To their credit, when we left Houston it was 105 on the heat index, so, its been a bit of an abrupt change. The food has been surprisingly amazing! Breakfast generally consists of cereal and 2 hot items such as pancakes, french toast, hashbrowns, sausage or eggs. Lunch is brown bag style. They set out meats, cheeses, PB & J, etc. and you pack your lunch before leaving for the field. Dinner has been phenomenal. Everything from burgers and sausages to burritos! Cookies, ice cream, brownies, carrot cake are the desserts we've had thus far. All the food is good ole' home cookin'. Nothing is store bought and the lady that makes the desserts definitely knows what shes doing.

What the hell am I doing here? Well, I'm TAing field camp, so, I help the students in the field. I've had to do a little grading, which consumes quite a lot of time, but overall my duties have been pretty easy. Basically I just go out, map the area so I can intelligently help the students, and help students!

There will be something coming soon...I promise!

Spain was amazing and I plan to put together a post that does it justice, but am heading to Angola again tomorrow and won't have time until I get back. So stay tuned and you'll get to hear all about both trips! Kellen is in Montana TAing field camp until July, so you won't be hearing from him for a while either. In the meantime, here is a picture of me kissing a fish.

Strippin'

There has been pretty good progress on the canoe as of late, with Sarah gone (she's on a "work" related travel assignment in Barcelona...I don't know how much work they're really doing) and no one else to entertain me (except the occasional visit by Ben, Cat and Cara) I've been hard at work. School related work is pretty much like this: add 2mL of nitric acid, wait 12 hours, add 2 more mL of nitric acid, wait 12 hours, add 3mL hydrochloric acid, wait 12 hours. So, in my down-time I've been working on a geologic map of my thesis area and building a canoe as well as coffee table. The stripping of the canoe has been pretty fun. The strips are 7/32" thick by 3/4" wide by roughly 10 feet long. The canoe is about 18 feet, so, I have to join the strips to make them long enough. Once strips reach the top of the stems you can only add strips to one side of the canoe at a time, working towards the centerline. I'm nearly at the centerline on one side!

Milling Strips on the bandsaw. I cut the strips from rough 2x6 western red cedar. First I re-sawed the 2x6's to 1x6's then cut each 1x6 into 1/4" strips. Each 1x6 yielded 22 strips. This is A LOT of cutting and I chose to do it on a bandsaw mainly because of safety. Some would argue that you waste less wood on a bandsaw because the blade kerf (thickness of the blade) is about 1/4 the thickness of a circular saw blade. However, the bandsaw makes a rather rough cut, so the strips must be planed - which adds time and waste. All in all I probably wasted about the same amount of wood as I would have on the table saw, but it was safer, and the strips more uniform after planing, than the table saw would have yielded. Thanks to Ben Belgarde for buying a planer that I'm still the only one to use!

Clamp thingy workin' good!

First three strips completed. This is why I needed all those clamps Cindy! Thanks!

Gettin' close to that centerline!

This final picture is the status of the canoe as it sits today!

Wind Rivers

For 5 days myself and 7 others skied in the "Cirque of the Towers." The "Cirque" is located in the southern portion of the Wind River range, Wyoming. The tour in was a little trickier than expected due to a lower-than-anticipated snowline. Ryan and myself arrived a few hours before the rest of the gang so we were the first to find this somewhat surprising discovery. We estimated that the road was blocked by snow approximately 8 miles from the trail head. The tour into the Cirque is approximately 9 miles from the trail head, so, tacking on another 8 miles meant a good solid 17 mile one-way adventure. Simon, the leader of said expedition, wrangled up some snowmobiles (here on referred to as 'mowers) which allowed us to travel the first 8 miles rather quickly. It was still, however, a bit of a logistical nightmare because we only had 3 mowers for the 8 of us, so it took roughly 3 hours to get us all to the trail head. These difficulties were of course exacerbated by the scant 3 hours of sleep and copious amounts of alcohol that were ingested the evening prior.

Yours truly getting towed (photo courtesy of http://www.mintchewsessions.com).

Elle and Johnnie packing up one of the 'mowers for the journey in.

The scene at the rigs

The first night we stayed at Big Sandy Lake. Not much really happened the first evening, we pretty much ate dinner and went to bed. That first day in was pretty exhausting. Everyone carried 50-70lb packs and we also managed to get a bit off-course, extending a 7 mile journey into about 8. The next morning we awoke to pretty nice, partly overcast skies and made our way to the Cirque. Only 2 miles to go, but about 2000 feet of vertical. All and all the second day of travel was pretty easy and straight-forward, we were even able to get a few quick turns in that evening.

The weather over the next 4 days was quite variable. One morning we awoke to 6+ inches of new graupel that made made for some excellent morning skiing. This graupel, however, was quickly warmed by that big fire-ball in the sky and turned to glop. Quite a bit of wet-avalanche activity kicked up on south facing slopes and so some of us decided to relax awhile.

Simon, myself and Sam chillin in the lounge. Drinkin' wine, eatin' cave-aged gouda and dry-salami (photo courtesy of mintchewsessions.com).

Ryan skiing with Pingora in the background.

Ryan making some nice turns in the fresh chowder.

Ridge-line winds were pretty high at times in the Cirque.

The journey out of the Cirque was made more interesting by the fact that Ryan and I needed to leave a day earlier than the rest of the gang. This meant we would have to skin (walking with skis on, kind of like cross-country skiing) the 8 miles that we cruised with the 'mowers. We didn't give too much thought to this until we were at the trail head, somewhat tired, with still 8 miles to the 'Cruiser. What was really a mind-f*** was that 4 or so miles of the 8 remaining miles were through giant meadow/prairie areas. Whole hours would go by with no change in scenery, which, when your tired and pretty beat down can be a real deal-breaker. In any case, we did in fact make it to the 'Cruiser, just before dark, and made it to a Village Inn in Rock Springs where we had pretty "classic" Village Inn/Dennys/Sherrys service. Whew. Then, all the way back to where we started this trip in SLC.

For more photos go to my flickr account or Ryan Hayes' "mint chew" page.

Biker Chic

Went to a charity Gala last weekend for an organization I volunteer for called SEARCH.  It's an incredible program that does a lot of good things for the homeless community in Houston, including health care, education programs, and child care.  I've had a lot of fun volunteering with them.  They also through a kick-ass party.  The theme was biker chic, which I couldn't really envision until I got there:

Motorcycle ice sculptures that you pour your drinks through!

Dinner was darn good, too.  This is me sitting with my friends and fellow volunteers Diane, Phil and Jake.

For more info on SEARCH, check out their website:  www.search.org

Our first niece!

Last Monday Kellen and I became an Uncle and an Aunt!  My sister-in-law, Val, gave birth to Ileana Lucille Draper - 6 lbs. 10 oz.

Isn't she a cutie?

I haven't met her yet, but she has the same chin as me.  I think she looks a lot like my grandma Jackie, which is apt since her middle name comes from grandma Jackie's mom, Lulu.  That's Ileana's great-great grandma.  And speaking of which, our great grandma Burgess is still alive and kicking in Indiana, so there are 5 generations of the Burgess family living today.

Ileana joins her three older brothers, David, Josh and Colin (Val's three children from another marriage), to make my brother's family 6 people!  Kellen doesn't have any siblings, so this is it for us to have nieces and nephews.  We look forward to spoiling them all.