3/26/07
Today turned out to be a better day than I ever imagined it would be. I woke up at about 4:30 AM and finally decided to make the trek to the bathhouse to go to the bathroom Then I thought I’d go ahead a get up. I downloaded pictures onto my computer, got online with no problem, checked my email, and added to my blog. Breakfast was OK.
Maite, Jon, Luther (who brought his own robot), Missie, Ben, Jane and I all began working on programming the robot. There were battery problems, so we never did get to do much actual running. We saw Naite’s presentation, took a photo-op on the desert near Zzyzx, and saw some video Luther had. I talked to Jane for a good while this afternoon. She said she was impressed that we actually deal with gifted students in our school. They have no program. I was surprised to hear many schools around the country don’t.
Some of the teachers just got back and shared their experiences from today. I helped two of them set up a blog.
It’s supposed to be 58 degrees here tomorrow. Darn! I came here because I wanted warmth. It’s warmer at home!
3/27/07
I actually slept until the alarm went off this morning. It was stinking cold. I’m glad I took a shower last night.
We had pancakes for breakfast and they were really good. The bacon was really delicious.
I took a trip to view some rocks, lava tubes, and to witness ancient volcanic action in th Mojave. I was almost completely frozen! The temperature wasn't much above 50 degrees and there was a wind advisory.
Today turned out to be a better day than I ever imagined it would be. I woke up at about 4:30 AM and finally decided to make the trek to the bathhouse to go to the bathroom Then I thought I’d go ahead a get up. I downloaded pictures onto my computer, got online with no problem, checked my email, and added to my blog. Breakfast was OK.
Maite, Jon, Luther (who brought his own robot), Missie, Ben, Jane and I all began working on programming the robot. There were battery problems, so we never did get to do much actual running. We saw Naite’s presentation, took a photo-op on the desert near Zzyzx, and saw some video Luther had. I talked to Jane for a good while this afternoon. She said she was impressed that we actually deal with gifted students in our school. They have no program. I was surprised to hear many schools around the country don’t.
Some of the teachers just got back and shared their experiences from today. I helped two of them set up a blog.
It’s supposed to be 58 degrees here tomorrow. Darn! I came here because I wanted warmth. It’s warmer at home!
3/27/07
I actually slept until the alarm went off this morning. It was stinking cold. I’m glad I took a shower last night.
We had pancakes for breakfast and they were really good. The bacon was really delicious.
I took a trip to view some rocks, lava tubes, and to witness ancient volcanic action in th Mojave. I was almost completely frozen! The temperature wasn't much above 50 degrees and there was a wind advisory.
As we were leaving Zzyzx, one of the teachers in the van said, "Isn't this desert beautiful?" I looked out, scanned what I saw, and said, "I'm from West Virginia and when I left everything was starting to get really green. Beautiful trees, grass grows and we even have to mow it, and it's warmer there right now than it is here. No, I don't think a wide expanse of sand and mountains with no trees is very pretty."
Our first stop was interesting, with a geologist explaining how the different volcanoes in the area affected the landscape that we saw.
We saw petroglyphs along a lava flow.
After we left there, I got a ride into Baker and got to see "Alien Jerky" and a close-up view of the world's largest thermometer.
When I got back to Zzyzx, I wandered over to the lab. Wow! What fun! I worked with some of the soil samples from the transect (the path they use to take samples from wettest to driest). We got so involved, we ran into dinner time and said we'd be back after dinner. I was still working on it last night at 10:00 PM.
This morning, after the webcast, I headed for the lab again and did even more. I was able to extract DNA from some of the soil. Fascinating stuff!
At least the lab was warm! I couldn't even stand to try to shower last night. I did get up and shower this morning, but it was so freezing cold!
The weather warmed up some today, but I still think it's cold.
So far, I haven't seen a lot of bugs and no snakes. I've been lucky. There are 12 people in this room, if you can call it a room. I ended up in the smallest room (there's room for a bunk bed and for one person to get by....no closet.....and I have my stuff stacked at the bottom of my bed) with a really fun roommate. She's a very young teacher from Albany, NY.
We collected some rocks and took GPS readings at the various sites today.
This is volcanic rock with silt in the center. It's believed that sometimes some of the volcanic rock from the bottom of the strata actually pushes up towards the top as a result of the action of the sand and silt.
This was once a waterfall. It's between two volcanic lava flows.
Petroglyphs on the side of the lava tube.
Geologists extracting samples from a lava tube.
The world's tallest thermometer in Baker, CA
Alien Fresh Jerky in Baker, CA
Eileen and Tracy testing for bacteria in soil.
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