half way through

Posted by Alyssa Howlett , Thursday, June 10, 2010 9:19 PM

This week has been full of changes. We had a change in our instruction, the Nebraska professors left on Wednesday and the Iowa State Professors got here today. It is great having ISU people here I must say. I little bit of comfort knowing how they teach and stuff.

Monday was raining and the road we needed to drive on was too muddy, but we didn’t know that tell we drove there, and hour away, then we turned around to come back to camp….. two hours of driving…. I was driving….. others slept….. and they played lame music…. I was not so much of a happy camper. But then later in the day we climbed some mountains and saw some sweet views in a different place. It was a weird day since we had a quiz and didn’t follow our regular day pattern, but later that day Kelli (a girl at camp) and I, and some others went to the top of exercise hill. That is a tall hill next to camp, it is super steep and a for real “exercise” to get up there, but again the views were great! I even held a horn frog! He was cutie and we chilled for a while together.

The next day we went back to the location we drove an hour too and looked at ancient dirt called paleosols.. sounds lame, but they were really pretty colored. We had to scale a steep cliff side to see these and measure the bed (I almost slipped and fell down 3 times that day! Good thing we were not high up.) Later that day we got back to camp and had to construct a strat column with our groups and then after that take a quiz about what we saw and what kind of environment all the sediment was deposited in, was there and increase in sea level, how did the sediment end up the way it looked etc. Then, after dinner we had to construct a graph of the age of the formations here in Wyoming verses their thickness. Luckily that was easily done on excel and we were able to have the rest of the night free. A big group of us went to the top of exercise hill again to look at stars. I cannot describe how amazing it was. I had been looking forward to seeing the stars here for a while and it was perfect, a little cloudy around horizon, but overall AMAZING! I was such a nerd too! I brought up my star chart and was pointing constellations out to everyone! I saw 2 satellites, the milky way, and a couple of constellations that are usually really faint like the little dipper and draco! Loved it, and the company up there was not to shabby either, we had a great time.

Later that night, there was a battle. And we won. We had a mouse and after being very scared and creeped out we caught it! Kelli and I moved our beds to the middle of the room so we were not next to anything, but that didn’t help we couldn’t fall asleep because all we could hear was the mouse running around above us in the ceiling. Then at 4am.. SNAP!!!! We got it, but only its nose and arm. So, great it was still moving and being gross. Kelli and I started to make a commotion and the other girls in our room woke up, I was standing on my bed with the flashlight and Kelli was next to me. Kate, another girl in our came over to pick up the trap and through it outside into yard. So, we were kinda mean.. but we didn’t want to let it free incase it came back in. But we won. Now we have to deal with bats in the closet. I love nature.

Wednesday, to sum up: had a pop essay test on basically everything we had learned and then got dropped of in the middle of the desert, and had to map. I am for real. The professors left us (only 2 TA’s were there) to map a 2 square mile area and said meet back at the vans at 4. Go. So that was a treat. I worked with Kelli, and we actually had great time talking about stuff, then talking about rocks. Ha. We found an antler, that was cool and had a cute date for lunch on a rock in the middle of the desert! :) we walked and hiked around finding faults and taking strikes and dips and mapping contacts of formations. We finished and turned in our maps right away. After that we were done for the night! Score! We played football catch and a ton of other outdoor games with everyone. It was really fun.

Today we got to see dinosaur tracks! Of my camera was in the van :( but other people got pictures! They were cool footprints on the ancient beach. They called it the “ballroom” because there were so many prints it looked like they were dancing. I was really cool and walked in ones foot prints. It was so awesome. I just walked exactly on real dinosaur prints, it is just so wild to me! As we drove to the mapping site, we had to drive through a grazing land, cattle were everywhere and we had to make some move off the road! Once at our spot, we mapped and measure a 50-foot section of limestones and mudstones. On the way home the Iowa State professor bought us all ice cream! YAY! And ever since we got back it has been raining and storming.

I cannot believe that I am at the half way point! Everything seems to have blurred together and not seem like I have been here that long. As much as I am ready to get back to regular Alyssa life, I am liking it out here and am kinda sad that it is going to end soon, and I more than likely will not be coming back here. It is really nice to have one thing to worry about, that it. At school life gets crazy and busy with everything I am involved in. Here, everything is laid back and chill, all I have to worry about is rocks and having fun.