Thursday, April 12, 2007

Photos and such


Gaston, SC~It is back to the routine of school and family. I cannot believe spring break and Easter have passed. Having had tablet PC difficulties and not being able to have it looked at by the district tech department since returning from Mojave, I have been unable to post any recent additions. Until today! I have uploaded all my pictures and will make additions as I receive copies from Cherlyn. They are grouped by day but not within the day. XnView is new to me and I am still learning how it operates. Thanks to Luther's website for giving me the idea to use this new software.

Saturday Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday

Sunday, April 1, 2007

30 Hours.....


Zzyzx, McCarran, Denver, Dulles, Columbia~Whew..what a ride home! Our flight home via Denver and Dulles departed at 5:30 PM (pushed back until 6:00 PM). We flew over the Grand Canyon en route to Denver. What a beautiful and awesome view. It was a purfect view from the air and I can only imagine how impressive it is up close and in person. We landed in Denver planning on getting dinner. Apparently, Friday night at the Denver airport is not a happening place. We did eat but it was closing up as we finished. We left Denver at midnight on a "red eye" flight to Dulles. The flight was ok but sleep was interrupted by a storm over Nebraska where is was a rather bumpy. I did however appreciate the fact the captain warned us prior to leaving about the storm and that he would also try to hold off on any unnecessary annoucnements so we/the passengers could attempt to sleep. We arrrived at Dulles at about 5:30 AM. Dulles is going through a facelift and we were in the not so pretty gate. We found our gate only to encounter a nice ringing noise due to the construction. As we waited for our 8:00 AM flight home, I noticed a familiar face walking down the hallway. Bill, a friend from Cola, was in D.C. on business for the week and was also flying home on the same flight. Conversation with Bill and Cherlyn helped pass the time until it was time to board. We finally arrived home about 9:30 AM Saturday morning. Having awoke Friday morning at 6:30 AM and not being able to go to bed until 10:00 AM Saturday morning is not necessarily something I would voluntarily do again but I can now say "I have been to Denver!".

Thursday, March 29, 2007

PR Day

Zzyzz, CA~Wednesay was press day for Sapceward Bound: Mojave.
Here is a sampling of what you may find:

MarsToday
BBS News
Hot Air Balloon News
MoonToday
AstroFind Discussion
spacePDA
Zzyzx, CA~The afternoon field experience for Wednesday included a trip into the desert looking to measure photosynthetic activity in a given area. Our host scientist was Jim Nienow. First, we wet our sample site and then took readings at every centimeter. The readings were measurements of whether or not it was crust or eveidence of an algae. The most exciting aspect was that I was the record keeper and the scientist came to me to get a copy of my notes for his project!

Molecular Scientist for a Day!


Zzyzy,CA~ Today's field experience consisted of soil sampling on the Silver Lake dry lake bed with Linda Powers. We did an initial site survey and deemed it not dry enough to survey. Our second site proved to be worthwhile in going forward with the survey. Heather, a graduate student working with Dr. Powers, explained how to collect sterile samples and label them appropriately for their current research. The samples were to be labeled MJ07-06(then lettered based on site). The initial MJ is for Mojave, the 07 is for 2007 and the -06 was because it was the sixth site that had been surveyed in Mojave since their arrival.

We took a total of 13 samples from the entire site. The survey included a main site with samples at the crust layer, six inches, one foot and two feet. At that time, based on readings from the Mahana, we took nine additional samples that also included one wash area.

The Mahana is an instrument that uses light to measure biotic activity (remnants leftover from respiration). It did not determine the actual form of the biotic activity just whether it is there or not.

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

"Techno-How"


Zzyzx, CA~Ok..so I wondered how long it would take until the "techno"-side of me would kick in here. Here is a picture of how the webcast was sent by satellite. Hmmmm, I wonder how much something that powerful costs?

Petroglyphs


Zzyzx, CA~ While at the Black Tank lava flow we came across some petroglyphs carved into the rocks. I am still learning about them and will post more as I come across the meanings of the pictures. I read from a Petroglyphs webpage that desert varnished basalt rocks are the type of rocks that seem to work well for petroglyphs.