July

July is going by fast too...

As opposed to my time in Guadalupe, my time here is rather structured and doesn't lend itself as easily to themes for posts. I'm going to wait a little longer before I write a 'living in Yellowstone' post, but in the meantime here are the highlights from the past few weeks.

-I am now fully involved in two different projects here, one using GIS and ENVI and another using matlab and infrared imagery. Both are interesting topics and actually have the potential to be journal articles, or at least GSA abstracts, according to my supervisors.

-Work is very reminiscent of grad school. I share a small, windowless office with 2 other geocorps volunteers and spend most of my days indoors working on my projects. It's a little frustrating being stuck inside all week when I'm working at Yellowstone, but I still have the weekends and occasional side projects to get outside and see the park.

-My parents visited two weekends ago and we had amazing luck viewing animals: wolf, coyote, elk, bison, and grizzly bear all in one day. I also enjoyed the 4 evenings of free good meals

-This past weekend I went to Maine for Zargham's wedding. It was great to be back in New England and see a bunch of my friends. I also got to hang out in Boston for two nights and see other friends who weren't at the wedding. Every time I go back I always get homesick to a degree, I realize how lucky I am to have such an amazing group of friends and I wish I could spend more time with them out east. But soon enough I'll remember I live in Yellowstone and realize life isn't so bad out here. Especially I can convince some people to visit.

Coming up in the next few weeks I'm looking forward to continuing my exploration of the park towards the canyon and west thumb areas. There's still so much I haven't see here, I'm beginning to think I may not even complete even my short list of 'must do's'.

Enjoying the Simple Things

Two weeks into living at Yellowstone and I'm already a bit jaded.

"It's just a *(&^*!$ buffalo! There's no reason to park your car in the middle of &*^! the road on a &*^!@# holiday weekend so your wife can get that perfect photo! You're going to see 100 more of the $%^!&* things today!"

So while I the above quote is a very common thought as I drive through the park, I am making special note of the little things that make me very happy, and make me realize that I am lucky to be able to live and work here. Things such as:

-getting out on the trails and being the only person to see a mother elk prodding her calf up a hill into the cover of the forest.

-driving in the rain through the mountains. Especially I have Michael Franti playing on my iPod.

-Barreling downhill on my mountain bike, going 2.6 miles in 15 minutes, to emerge at the trail head 50 feet from my house and getting inside just before the daily thunderstorm hits.

-Getting to wear chest-high waders and play in a lake for an afternoon and call it 'field work'.

-The fact that when you're doing field work near sulfur vents, you can fart as much as you want and no one will notice.