I know, I know. I haven't updated in forever. And my last update like a week ago wasn't even a real update, just a listing of stuff I did. And lately life has just been getting busier, and that trend will likely continue up until at least the end of the fall semester. So here's what we're going to do. We're going to start with today, and then go BACKWARDS! Then we're going to get a brief glimpse of the future when I run through upcoming events. Think you can handle that? Awesome. Let's go.
Today: nothing much happened. I worked on my presentation (more on that later), ground a sample (grinding samples has been an ongoing task for the past week or so), talked to Christi about said presentation, started making a more visual and more extended version of the itinerary Dad made for the trip back home, and filled out some paperwork for my separation from Sandia (they just LOVE their paperwork...). Now I'm eating Monday's leftovers for dinner.
Yesterday: The most exciting thing was kickball, honestly. I'm a regular for the office peeps' weekly game of kickball now. It's a ton of fun. I got some pics from this week's game, too, which I'll post on Facebook later.
Sunday thru Tuesday: Nothing of note.
July 17: Perhaps some of you peeps were enjoying the Saline Celtic Festival, but I bet I was still up before you. I woke up at 3am, got ready, and headed out at 4am headed for Carlsbad Caverns National Park for the 53rd annual Bat Flight Breakfast, which runs from 5am to 7am. It was really cool, seeing the bats zip in and watching the sky lighten gradually as the sun rose. It was also cool seeing the transition from bats to birds - it's difficult to see the difference when both are so small and moving fairly quickly, so you can't tell unless you look to see which direction they're going. Bats dived down into the cave; birds flew up and out of the bushes all around. Also, there was a tricky little raccoon near the picnic tables trying to get people's food, but the rangers were keeping him back by stomping at him. It made for an amusing show.
Some people brought their little kids there, but honestly I'm not sure it's worth the effort getting them up and out there that early (and the trouble of keeping them quiet while watching the bats) when they're not going to remember it, either because they're asleep, or just because people don't usually remember much of their early years. I have nothing against people bringing kids to the event, and most of the kids behaved quite well, but it just doesn't seem practical. Most of the families with kids arrived after most of the bats had already flown in for the day. All that effort and they miss the show. :P Also, if you ever go to this, I would highly recommend bringing your own breakfast, because every minute you stand in line waiting for an overpriced egg-and-sausage burrito is a minute not watching the bats. Luckily, I still had granola bars in my backpack, so I just ate a couple of those and sipped my thermos full of double-strong chocolate chai (you think I'm naturally awake this early???) before heading down to the amphitheater.
After it seemed the bats had trickled down to the point where it was several minutes between one bat and another, I headed to the gift shop, where I meandered around and after much deliberating purchased two t-shirts and a small stuffed bat. The shirts are still in the bag but the bat, named Batty McBatterson, is hanging from my rearview mirror. :) It was only after all of this that I purchased my overpriced egg-and-sausage burrito so that I would survive until the shishkabobs at the intern cookout. I ate half of it with some spicy salsa and saved the other half for later.
I then drove back along the long and windy road - okay so I want to talk about this. If you have never driven in the boonies at night, practice doing that before driving to a national park in the middle of the desert at four in the morning. Luckily, I've lived in the boonies and driven to and from various friends' houses in other boonies late at night including driving across the Upper Peninsula after dark, so it didn't really freak me out that I was driving in pitch black darkness with only a few signs to guide me. It didn't even freak me out when I was driving in pitch black darkness along tightly winding roads where I couldn't see that there was a drop-off on one or both sides, but I figured there probably was. I was damn well not going above the speed limit in unfamiliar boonies when I couldn't see very far, that's just stupid. But I wasn't freaking out, because I'm used to night in the boonies. Other people, tho, might freak out when leaving Carlsbad at 4am and going directly from streetlights on both sides around the airport to pure darkness. Oh and by the way the stars, when I looked up waiting in line to get into the park while sipping my tea to keep me awake, were amazing out there. You could actually see a bit of the Milky Way. I love looking at stars in the middle of nowhere. It's so cool how you can see everything. :) What was I talking about? Oh yeah, so I headed back along the winding road that before I had only driven in pure darkness. Now I was driving along it in the early morning hours, and my god, I was probably more likely to drive off the edge of the road just because of the scenery. I kept stopping at every pullout (they have little places on the road where you can pull off and take pictures) and taking pictures of the view. It was amazing. Eventually I had to keep going though, because I had to leave the park by 8am to get back to Carlsbad by 9am.
I got back with a few minutes to spare, just enough time to grab my cooler of veggies, hummus, and water; the bag of cookies; and the bag with my swimsuit, towel and change of clothes (bug spray and sunscreen were already in my little backpack). I dumped the gift shop bag on the floor, tossed my half a burrito in the fridge, and about a minute later I was in the mall parking lot with the rest of the interns as we dithered about who should go in which car. After we figured that out (I rode in Mat's car with him and Cassie), it was off to Sitting Bull Falls! Another long scenic trip that brought us just a little way from where I just came from on the map, lol. (Due to the lack of roads I probably only wasted 30-45 minutes by going all the way back to Carlsbad, but going back to Carlsbad also meant that someone else could drive, a good thing when I was ready for a nap at that point.)
Sitting Bull Falls is kind of this rocky canyon/lagoon thing in the middle of a desert, which is really cool. You can walk down a paved path to the main (bottom) part, which has several small ponds all linked together as well as lots of wet rocky areas to explore. Or, you can hike up a trail (bring tennis or hiking shoes if you plan on doing this) to the top of the falls, which has a couple of very small but fairly deep ponds. At first everyone just chilled out in the shaded pavilion (we got the last one), waiting for the food to be ready. The guys grilled up some shishkabobs and corn on the cob. Soon enough we had a feast ready - tons of shishkabobs, several ears of corn, about 5 bags of chips with 3 different dips, my veggies and hummus, someone else's veggie and dip tray, Cassie's pork and beans, pasta salad, apple slices and caramel dip, cheesecake, and several kinds of cookies. And I'm probably forgetting something. But everything I tried was delicious. The shishkabobs were great. We told the park rangers (who were really nice and brought us trash bags - together we had brought tons of food and about 7 types of sunblock, but no trash bags) that they could eat some of our food whenever they liked, since we had so much, and they took us up on the offer.
After eating, a short nap, and changing into my swimsuit, I spent most of the day with Caitlin, the grad intern, and her boyfriend. Caitlin is yet another one of those quirky, intelligent, former marching band nerd, continuing music dork people that I always seem to end up hanging out with. We exchanged geeky jokes about band stuff and instantly burning in the sun while exploring the various lagoon areas, both at the top and bottom of the falls. We paused before making the hike up to the top to grab another shishkabob, rehydrate, and re-sunblock ourselves.
At the end of the day, around maybe 4ish-pm, people were pretty much tired out and already napping if they could, so that's when we packed up and headed home. I crashed in Matt's car on the way back, snoozing practically until we got back into town. After I got back to my apartment, I basically just made sure everything that needed to be refrigerated was in the fridge, and crawled into bed, with the exception of eating something at some point.
Arg, that's enough for one post, but I will continue this post in a little bit, okay? Okay.
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