Hey, people! I believe I am Katie #1 of this expedition (us two Katie's from Michigan haven't quite decided, but I think most people call us Katie upper, for the Upper Peninsula, and Katie lower, for lower peninsula...I know, we are so creative!). I am going to try to get some fancy colors or borders for this page, but sadly, I am computer ultra stupid, so sorry if this is not exotic enough for whoever was bored enough to read my little journal. Honestly, if you have no connection with Earthwatch, and you have read this far into my journal, you need to bang your head against a wall, and go read a book by Ralph Waldo Emerson! Join our cult (long story). So to continue with my little bio, I seem to have gotten a tiny bit off track.....So, yea, no, but, anyways... (The bio actually starts here) I am from Ishpeming, MI. A whopping town of about 11,000 people. I go to Westwood High School, that has an average graduating class of about 100 people. Tease me about it being small, but I like knowing everyone in my grade. It makes things seem more homey. I have three dogs, two of them pure bred labs, and I absolutely love them! I play ice hockey (two time Michigan State Runner-Up in two different age levels) and I also run cross country. I love both, but I was made to play ice hockey. Yes, we check, even though technically we aren't supposed to (tee hee). If anyone is interested, my best 5K time was 23:26. My other passion = writing and reading and definitely music. I would avidly recommend any book by Ralph Waldo Emerson, and if you are into emo music, get a Sugarcult CD! But, I also like classical music, and I play the clarinet with concert pieces, so in case you haven't noticed, I am just slightly diverse in my interests! I write as much as I can, and I run as much as I can, and they are the same thing. My belief is that that feeling IS the same thing. Favorite NHL team is definitely the Detroit Red Wings. Favorite color is GREEN! I am also one of the lovely employees that greets you in the Drive Thru of Burger King! Yes, I do have to do suggestive selling, and I do have to say, "Have a nice day!" I am into genetics, and plan on majoring in Molecular Biology & Biochemistry when I go to college. I might go to Michigan Technological University (I just call it Tech), and I don't care if you haven't heard of that, it is one of the best schools for engineering and most sciences in the whole nation. It is ranked up there. One of only three schools in the nation to offer a degree in Bioinfromatics....what will be taking over my generation's future. The books I would highly recommend to anyone with an open mind that wants to know more about yourself and your surroundings (which, in my firm opinion, are the same thing), would be Hamlet (if you don't know the author, shame on you), any essay of Ralph Waldo Emerson, especially "Self Reliance," and The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux. Once again, Sugarcult is a band I would recommend. And I would especially recommend to any girls out there that don't already do this, take over a supposed "guy's" sport and start increasing the girls' numbers! It gives you a feeling of knowing that you are strong, and if I may say so, the violent sports are the funnest!! Join ice hockey or rugby or wrestling! I am not a feminist, but hey, I am a girl with opinions. And guys, its cool to join ballet too. I have a good guy friend who is in ballet, and also does wrestling, and is a highly respected person at my school, as well as well balanced within. I do like pen pals, so if you are reading this, and aren't a psycho freak or a felon, email me at Meteorite28@hotmail.com. And mention something about Earthwatch in the title of the email, otherwise it will get deleted. Personally, I don't think anyone that isn't a.) a family member, or b.) on the earthwatch staff, would have made it this far into my bio. I don't understand it, but people tell me I write a novel when the point could be made in a sentence. Very odd, I think. Guten nagon (my own personal German ;) ).

Day 1 - June 15, 2003

This was the day we all arrived in Albuquerque Airport. Most of the students arrived between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. Mountain Time, but there was one of our group, Oliver, that missed his plane while at home, and had some difficulties getting here. We ate lunch at the airport (for those of us there in time for lunch) and then dinner in Old Town of Albuquerque, at a Mexican restaurant. The food looked very unique and ethnic, which I know a lot of people like, but I am a fan of good ol' American food, so it was a little hard for me to find something that wasn't with a side of chili or topped with peppers. I do think it is a good thing that Earthwatch is trying to get us into the culture of where our expedition is, it is just I personally am not a fan of spicy foods. Then we were off to our new home for the next couple of weeks, Hilltop House Hotel (Best Western) in Los Alamos. On the way we stopped at a hot spring with a waterfall called Soda Dam. It was really neat and my first time I took a picture of something in New Mexico. I really like the houses on the way to Los Alamos! A lot of them were on a reservation. They were very "authentic," as if the ancient Indian culture, with the pueblos and all, had never changed since the native Americans were the only ones in the area. I really hope that doesn't offend anyone, but I thought that was something awesome! We also stopped to take pictures (during sunset) at the caldera. A HUGE, HUGE open field that was an ancient volcano opening. Very, very cool. And not to get away from the natural beauty of New Mexico, but our hotel is AWESOME! I ended up with a room to myself (at least to begin with) and I could be as messy as I wanted to be without getting in someone's way! Anyways, that intrigued me! I am used to a lot of green from where I live, and that was one thing I noticed about the land when I first was coming into Los Alamos....very little green. But there is a lot of red, from the rusted Iron Oxide on the mesas, and that is a different kind of beauty...equally appreciated to any true naturalist. To end the long day of traveling, we all went to bed at about 10:30 p.m. Mountain Time. Good night.

Day 2 - June 16, 2003

Today we got our official U.S. Department of Energy badges. This means we are finally going to be told who shot J.F.K.!!! Just kidding. For another joke, it also means that we won't be blown up by a SWAT team if found in the laboratory. We today found a sign in Canyon School (govt. property) that informed us that any bags without the proper tagging would be taken by a SWAT team and blown up. So, I thought that tagging was a slightly good idea. Early in the day we had a lecture about the history about Los Alamos National Laboratory. The speaker, John Rhoades, was excellent, and made me appreciate the American History classes about the Cold War and the Cuban Missiles crisis a lot, since that knowledge was being connected with other parts of my world. Glenn Seaborg, a scientist from my very town of Ishpeming, was talked about as being a very important scientist here at Los Alamos concerning the atomic bomb (plutonium, in particular). All of my knowledge of an era, and event and everything is being connected just by the lectures like these. Later in the day we went to a lecture at the Bradbury Museum about water on Mars. It was a really cool lecture! Yet another connection to Ishpeming too!!! We have tons of the rock hematite (pronounced HEM - uh - tight), and Ishpeming's school mascot is the hematite rock!! The speaker, Bill Feldman, thought that was cool! My 15 seconds of fame. The last part of the day was spent studying for our General Employee Training test, which we had to take to be in the lab facilities. not heavy duty studying, but a good overview. Bedtime that night was 11:00 p.m. Mountain Time for me. Good night.

Day 3 - June 17, 2003

Happy birthday, Grandma Manzano! She is 85 years old! On this fine day, I would like to point out the breakfast, which was just the same as the previous day and the day to come, on the third floor of the hotel, a fine continental breakfast, but is just too good to leave out of here. Most hotels, the ones that I am used to at least, have a very limited continental breakfast. Here, there are great variety of cereals (my best friends at breakfast), fruits (nice to eat a lot of while on vacation to avoid the fat), and orange juice (vitamin C, baby!)! I was so happy! Maybe I won't be returning with 20 extra pounds! Anywho, we took the GET test and I passed with the oh-so-horrible score of 97% on the easy open book test. We then went on for some more technical work needed to be done on us, at the lab I believe (the building didn't exactly have a huge label on it), getting all of us an email account so we can do this web page program. AHHHH! My innermost thoughts on the internet? That is a threat to national mental health! Oh well. :) We had another break time where we could hang out in our hotel rooms. I found that a nice time to call my parents and talk with them for a while. Next was a pretty long lecture on the astronomical coordinate systems. That was pretty easy to understand, latitude and longitude pretty much. Then the other students and the instructors got into detail with equations figuring out pixels of a CCD camera and minutes of an arc in the sky and focal view of a telescope....very over my head. But everyone else seemed to understand it pretty well, so I'm glad I'll have someone to talk to if I don't understand something! Then was a mini pizza party at Canyon School, where we had a feast of pizza, salad, and cookies (accompanied by pop) and talked about stuff other than astrophysics. For example, Annabelle and I decided that Ewan McGregor was definitely a hottie! Hey, he's a movie STAR, isn't that astronomy? Just kidding. Then we were allowed to go in the computer lab and this lovely page began! Late nights, early mornings. A trend that I am used to from the school year, so although it would be nice to get my summer's usual 12 hours of sleep per night, I can go off of 6. Tonight, tonight, I stay up late tonight!

Day 4 - June 18, 2003

You know how when you are on a trip, especially a long one to some place cool, exercise and diet kind take a bit of a hibernation on you? Guess what?! I'm probably in better shape from coming here than if I had just stayed at home for two weeks. No, we did not stop by the fountain of youth and drink some eternal life, the fact is just that, at least for me, if you are aimed at eating healthy over the summer, you will become especially worried that you'll lose your control on vacations, making you extra cautious at those times. But, of course, the will power does nothing for you unless you have the materials to make your goal happen. And the materials are here! I was soooo happy! Every morning I have fruit and dairy (the milk in my cereal) and orange juice (vitamin C)! I am a picky eater, as I mentioned in one of my past journals, and every restaurant we have eaten at has had at least one salad that was plain enough for me! This morning, I got up a little early, and took a 20 minute run at the weight room! It was awesome! I have also been very impressed with the multiple locations where fruit is available to us! And if there is no fruit on a menu, there is definitely veggies! Just had to mention my amazement at my ability to stay in equal, if not better, shape while on vacation! I suppose you would center the excitement of the day around our geology tour of the area, starting in the morning, and lasting through lunch, to mid-afternoon. The tour was not overly dragged on; there is just a lot of history to talk about in the area. We talked about the effects of the ancient volcanic activity that spans for miles, places where you can look at a 6,000 year old rock at the same time as a 1.6 billion year old rock, and the future predictions based on the geologists knowledge of the past. There is really way too much that I learned there that I could share, that would certainly not fit on the web page (simultaneously with keeping the page somewhat interesting...I hope)! Next on the agenda, was a lecture from Ed Fenimore on why the scientific method is not effective and gamma ray bursts as well. What Oliver from our group pointed out, that I saw his point on, is that Ed told us why the scientific method was ineffective, okay, but the solutions for a more effective system, or at least more accurate for the natural system we all use, was just a rewording of the original scientific method! That does not mean that since he did not have an answer for us, no one does, but we were hoping for a more precise solution. I did find very interesting some of the new facts I learned about gamma ray bursts. Before that lecture, and this trip really, the most I ever knew or was concerned about gamma rays was that they were carcinogenic, and also that if you stand too close to a microwave, you'll absorb the rays. Then Ed starts saying how they will give us the key to the origin of the universe if we can ever totally understand them, that they have as much energy as the entire universe when the burst happens, that they were thought to be very close, but are the farthest things from us, that they are completely random, and that the local Indians knew this all long before official studies were conducted with high-tech equipment! I really enjoyed that aspect of the lecture. And the day would not have been complete without a leftover pizza party, in the same room. One of the best lectures I have heard here so far, which is hard for me to say, seeing as how they are all interesting, new, and practical ideas to me, was the lecture at the Bradbury Museum by Geoff Reeves on Space Weather. This was TOTALLY cool for me because it focused on the Aurora, both the Northern and Southern Lights, as they are called, and I have seen the Northern Lights in my hometown before! I have only seen them once, but many people in my area have seen them there many more times! So pretty much, I am getting a scientific explanation for one of the things that makes me love where I live! Awesome! And not to be a techy, but the graphics (movies especially) that he showed us to demonstrate these processes where so easy to understand, and I walked away with TONS more than I had known before! And, not to be a "young whippersnapper" or anything, but the fact that Geoff was fairly young...I think that he had a lot more energy than the older speakers we have seen, and that made his lecture more interesting. True, he had the lecture I was very, very interested in, so I was listening even more closely than normally probably, but I do think he had a better energy than the past, older speakers. Being young is what gave him computer knowledge of how to make the graphics that I understood so well, as opposed to the sleeping pill-like overhead projections, and I think that also made a difference in the presentation. At least, from my also computer knowledge stand point of absorbing information. And, again, we mosseyed over to Canyon School, to perfect what I just know will be, the coolest web site EVA! Well, maybe that was slightly exaggerated, but the experience of making a web page is definitely cool (once you get all the kinks worked out)! Good night!

Day 5 - June 19, 2003

Another run today to make things feel like home more (except for that whole 7,000 extra feet in elevation). Anyway, today was nice, because the morning was free time. After taking a twenty minute run, I got to go with Annabelle and Katie W. and go to the Bradbury Museum bookstore (which had more than just books) and buy some cool souvenirs! Also, that gave me a chance to get some postcards and stamps to send out to my friends and family. The day itself was pretty cool (perfect temperature to me, but everyone else seemed to be freezing) but very warm inside Canyon School! That is just too ironic for me! Lunch at different restaurant, dinner at a different restaurant...both with many Mexican style foods, but of course, being the picky eater, I managed to find healthy and PLAIN food :). After lunch, at Canyon School, there was only one official lecture, done by our helpers, Corrie and Steve, that was mostly aimed at helping them prepare their speech for their project, and then we got to either play with the location of 12 Victoria (the asteroid we are tracking this year) at different time, and also, learn how to use a telescope, similar to the ones at Fenton Hill. The only thing difficult about that time period was trying to stay awake, since everyone else there had used their time to sleep this morning, and I used my time to go for a twenty minute run, and then a walk down to the bookstore. I'm used to not have any sleep, though, so although it was annoying, it was normal. Dinner was nice, but like ALL restaurants, the meal was huge, and I could have never eaten it all. Then we were off to the Bradbury Museum to listen to a lecture on black holes. I know a lot of people were enthralled with it, as they said, but I still think the Aurora speech was the best one I have seen so far! It explained something cool, in an interesting manner, it related to me...it was just the coolest thing I've seen down here so far! That night was our first observing session up at Fenton Hill. That night I saw Jupiter for the first time on a telescope! It was awesome! One of our helpers, Corrie, pointed out a lot of constellations that I didn't know before to me. It was pretty neat. The milky way was nice and bright as well. To bed by 4 a.m., and the night was done. Good morning!

Day 6 - June 20, 2003

This time, when I got the chance to sleep in, I DID! We didn't have to be at Canyon School till 2 p.m., so the morning consisted of talking to my parents on the phone, and reading a book. That was a nice morning! For our Canyon School lesson, we talking more about asteroid tracking. This time, we all did a series of equations and figured out the right ascension and declination of our asteroid, 12 Victoria. We did this by interpolation too! It was so cool that we figured everything out! It took a lot of work, though. Once we were done with about a full hour's worth of work, we went out to dinner at a Chinese restaurant, whose name I cannot recall. Picky eater strikes again, I mostly had a lot of sweet and sour chicken, rice, and some broccoli. But guess what??? I got to go roller blading!!! It was great! It made me miss being on the ice soooo much! It was great just to pick up some speed and do cross overs and go backwards and all the stupid stuff that is normal during hockey season but you miss so much any other time! No hockey to even watch on TV this summer :(. Crapulence. Anyway, it was fun for everyone, not just me. A nice spread eagle move gave Katie Walton the nickname Sparky (one very dear to all of our hearts). This was followed directly by Fenton Hill. That night I got to see Mars, Uranus, and close up of the moon. The milky way was still very bright and beautiful, and the constellations were still there. We also took some more CCD images while we were there, as we did the night before. It was nice to wander from one telescope to another, look at the different galaxies and globular clusters and stars, and also float from one group of people to another and see what was going on. Random jokes were thrown around and Ge earned the title of Captain Random. Direct quote - "The moon is sexy." We weren't sure what that meant either. Another time getting home at 4 a.m. Good morning!

Day 7 - June 21, 2003

Another day of waking up around noon (don't be jealous, that barely equals 8 hours of sleep still!). That morning, the girls and I decided to have a real lunch again, so in a bit of a rush, we walked down to the Subway, by the bookstore we were at a few days ago. It was awesome to have a real sandwich again! 15 minutes of bread and meat delight :). Then rushing back to Canyon School, we had a little talk on Radio Astronomy from Don Casperson, our head instructor. A few old things, and a lot of new things were learned. Then all the students, and Galen Gisler's (one of our instructors) daughter, Ellie, brought us over to the swimming pool in White Rock. Putting on my SPF 50 so I wouldn't burn, I had a blast! Everyone but Oliver and Annabel went in. We played water basketball in a little area, girls vs. boys. Although I still believe the girls were more team players, trying to pass more as opposed to the boys trying to shoot more, girls lost. Of course, the boys had Ge splashing water in your eyes anytime you got the ball. Chlorine and Katie's contacts didn't mix well there. Then the second best thing at the pool was listening to two middle school girls in the changing room talk about how they were angry Matt (who they lovingly referred to as Blondie) was leaving with Ellie, and that they couldn't flirt with him now. We were all jealous of Matt's middle school admirers. Well, not quite. Next was Galen's house. That was great! There was TONS of good food laid out for people to have, like a snazzy graduation party or something, and a beautiful house to have the feast in. All of the earthwatch students got to meet more people in the area, significant for this thing or that. There was also a "jam session" where Galen brought out all of his weird, wacky, but fun, instruments for us to play, followed up by singing the Beatles with piano accompaniment. I choose not to sing, because I'm sort of shy in that regard, but a lot of the people there were getting into the experience. Oh, and if anyone ever makes you watch the movie, "The Way Things Are," DON'T DO IT! It is a horrible disappointment!!!! I was slightly angered by the lack of result it had. I was happy when we put on "Contact:," though. It was cool knowing all of the terms they were using on there. Then we were out to Fenton Hill, getting home at 5 a.m.!!!! I hated to be a party pooper, but I just curled up and attempted going to sleep at that point. I was way too tired to get anything done then. My bed keeps looking better and better. Good morning!

Day 8 - June 22, 2003

Day eight was definitely the hardest morning I had to get out of bed! I swear, the house keeping put some sheets on there that made me magnetically stick to the bed (which would mean something if I was made of metal - Mystery Science Theater 3000). When I finally did, I had to call my best friend, Kimothy. I hadn't talked to her in about a week, and that is quite the deprivation for me! The conversation probably completely ate up my phone card, but, what the crap. I needed it to stay sane. Then there was a while where we were (onomatopoeia) given a chance to work on our website journals. Off to lunch, for another salad I promised myself, and we spent the next few hours working on our websites. No, we aren't all that anal about being close to a computer, it's just we hadn't had a chance to update our journals for awhile, so things were starting to leave my head at least. This is also about the time we found out there was a fire that had just started very close to Fenton Hill, hence, no observing. The smoke was pretty bad too. The fire was a good five miles away and the smoke was still billowing above the tree tops. This was a more laid back afternoon, with the computer work for a few hours, dinner, and basically what we did next was hang out at the hotel for a few hours. That entire evening was a gift to me, I was so happy for a little break! Then we worked from 8 to 11 p.m. on the asteroid tracking problem. Honestly, I tried my best to understand the math, even when it was explained to me, but all of the concepts being combined and numbers used were not clicking. I tried to understand what was going on, but it was above my head. Still, I have understood some of the equations we have been doing here, and some of the concepts. Truth be told, I had a very limited knowledge of any astrophysics before coming here and the experience continues to teach me things, even if it is in small quantities at a time. And then that night, Katie W., Ge, Annabel, and I were big "rebels" and walked the whole one hundred yards past the hotel to the grocery store to get good snacking food. I guess it only takes a week for our strong minds to break down and crave junk. Anywho, we decided on some microwave-able pizza bites and pop for each of us. Katie and I stayed up till 2 a.m. watching Al TV and just hanging out. Good pizza bites!

Day 9 - June 23, 2003

Waking up came early at 8:30 a.m. for me. Still, after a hearty breakfast of fruit loops, it was time to work at Canyon School. Annabel and Matt worked on the asteroid tracking while the rest of us began to formulate how our presentation should go. I think we decided to get the perfect mix of humor and facts, you know, because that is so easy to do. Not to anyone's surprise, Ge is going to be the center of attention with most of the humorous parts. I'm just wondering if we are going to be able to get humor and facts in there. The majority seemed to agree on both, but easier said than done. Central Avenue Grill was our dining spot for lunch, and thus Tom began. Since there was a lot of people with us, we had to be placed in their conference room or something like that, but at the time, a retirement party was being finished up. So the entire group is just hanging out, being kind of quiet, and someone from the table of the guy having his retirement party stands up and gives a little toast to Tom, at his retirement party. So Katie W., Ge, and I start drawing little odes to "Tom" on our place mat paper on the table. Quotes ranged from "Tom = *heart*" to "Did Tom ever know he was my hero?" to a pen tattoo of Tom in a heart with an arrow on both mine and Katie's shoulder. Tom is the best, man! Then we were back to the familiar Canyon School for a lecture by Todd Haines on neutrinos, a.k.a, why the sun shines. Sounds very scientific, eh, study why the sun shines, but there is tons of equations and theories behind the process of finding the answer! It's crazy! After that was done, Ge and I found out that Los Alamos is definitely a laboratory town, and is in no contest for best downtown stores in the nation! Ge may be from St. Paul, and have nice malls to compare this to, but I am from Ishpeming! None of you have heard of that, and I still think we have a bigger selection at home! Slightly disappointing,but oh well. Another session of hanging out at the hotel, and then we go to the Bradbury Museum for a lecture on Low Frequency Arrays by Bill Junor. A lot of the stuff we had already learned from Don's lecture on Radio Astronomy, but some of it was new (mostly being the big equations and graphs the were very literally Greek to me). I feel bad for not grasping some of these concepts because of my mathematical limitations, but it's not like I'm trying to be confused. Dinner was at a Mexican restaurant called either De or Des Colores (see that Mexican shining through, don't you?) and I found my plain food. Mmm, plain food :). A little while updating our journals (which is good, because my memory is about as strong as my Mexican appearance) and off to bed. Tomorrow is the Very Large Array tour, and I am definitely excited for that! Good night!

Day 10 - June 24, 2003

Yea, so this day was just too boring. I mean, all we did was drive four hours to see one of the coolest radio astronomy sites in the world. The very something array, I think. Just kidding, of course. The Very Large Array was a very cool part of this trip! All of the antennas were spread out to their maximum (13 miles per arm), so pictures were a little bit harder to take. We were there for a whole two hours, but the tour went so fast the time really flied by. I know that I understand a minute bit of radio astronomy, but still, looking at the site, the massiveness of it....makes room for a little awe inside of you. And the temperature was above my comfortable frigid, but I managed to escape a sun burn and avoid heat stroke. Good job, Katie! And I got the funniest shirt, that has a picture of nine antennas on each arm, and nine down the center of the shirt, so when you make a Y with your arms, you are in the formation of the V.L.A. I'm a dork, so I had to get it. And, once again, the food was nice. I am looking forward to being home where there are more non-spicy things than chicken and salads. I am so proud that my SPF 50 has been holding up for me! I am still albino! Yea! Anywho, most of the day was spent in the van (about eight good hours), and that mostly consisted of listening to my head phones or sleeping, but hey...that's good too. When we got back to the hotel all of us students went to Smith's to buy candy (me being the exception of them, not buying any candy) which we used as our mock money in what was supposed to be poker and black jack, but I think a few of us, including myself, would be demolished at a real casino with the mad skills we showed off there. Still, sleep came, and the world was right again. Technically, good morning!

Day 11 - June 25, 2003

The morning brought the realization that we actually had to do some work on our presentation for tomorrow. Crap. So, we got to work. We decided to have different people work in pairs or more on different subjects that we've been taught. I don't care what anyone else says on their journals, but it was not an easy thing to compile. You couldn't create any type of presentation without someone expressing their opinion on how it should be, so once people's opinions did come out, they were probably all equally far away from one another. I think we managed to get something together for that, but who really knows. Lunch was cool, because we ordered Quizno's subs and ate a picnic lunch by Ashley Pond (named after Ashley Pond...orginality takes a dive). Getting closer to "normal" food now ;). Then most people went back to Canyon School to work on asteroid tracking stuff, but since we weren't doing that part of the presentation, Katie and I just went back to the hotel to hang out and watch Harry Potter for a few hours! Excellente! Very relaxing way to spend the afternoon. Since we ate a late lunch, it wasn't too long till we had to go to the Bradbury Museum for a lecture. It was so weird having a dinosaur talk about the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs. Just kidding, Galen. Galen Gisler was our speaker, and was indeed talking about the K/T asteroid impact on the earth that killed off the dinosaurs. This was probably the second coolest lecture so far, to me. The science behind the death of The Land Before Time movies or something ;). The lecture gave me hope for our ability to predict asteroid impacts on Earth, but less comfort when it came to comets, because those are found very close to when they pass by Earth and are faster, meaning worse damage from impact (instead of life gone for 6 million years, it would be 10 million years....I suppose it doesn't matter what hits Earth, cuz if it hits, well, poof). But supposedly there is less of a chance they will hit Earth, but I bet in some top secret information place at the lab they know that it is just a lie. Well, maybe not. Then we made a local restaurant stay up two hours later than it normally would close :). Actually, I was very happy that they had different kinds of food (which I would like to call "normal" food) than the other restaurants have had. Fettucinni alfredo with grilled chicken! Yea! Not spicy or complex! Good ol' pasta! Oh, and Oliver finished his picture of me today as one of the trans-human militaristic people of a future race. Cool, eh? But he's an awesome drawer, and that was really cool! Nothing else to astronomical to type about (tee he he, get the pun?). Tomorrow is the presentation and I am getting myself ready for how stupid I am going to look :). Good night!

Day 12 - June 26, 2003

Our presentation was today. After we spent a little time "practicing," we headed on over to the lab's "Moon Room." I was disappointed because everyone kept talking about it being cool because it was called the moon room, but there was just a picture of the moon's surface, looking at Earth. Anywho, the presentation went very well (and took exactly one hour, the time we were allotted). Everyone really liked Katie W.'s Aurora poem, and I was also pleased to see that a majority of our audience did indeed know who Delilah was (take that Matt, hahaha). We didn't get asked any questions, and I am just wondering if that was because they thought we were too boring, and wanted us to stop as soon as possible, or were just confused. Or maybe it was neither, but it's more fun to make a fantasy for the fact! Then there was lunch (mmm....food) and it was off to Bandelier National Monument. It was sooo cool! For one, I was happy to be out hiking on a beautiful day like that, and also the area was really neat! There were still some pueblos built into the cliff walls and some other remnants of the Indians' houses and kievas. The most fun part was when we got to do the 140 ft climb up a series of ladders and rock stairs to the ceremonial cave of the tribe. There was a still a kieva up there that you got to crawl into, like a secret place! Very, very cool! After a few hours there, and some dinner, of course (have to get food in there as much as possible), we were off to our last Bradbury Science Museum lecture by Katrin Heitmann on Cosmology. The lecture itself was way over my head. I know that other people who knew about the stuff before, like Katie W., understood it, though. But there were these two ultra rude people asking for the validity of her speech. First of all, I wondered if either of them knew what she was talking about, and also, if they were so interested in the answer to their questions, then they should have asked politely, because Katrin didn't even want to deal with the rude people. And why should she? Ugh, one was sitting next to me, the lady, and she was making me severely angry. Second to last night at Fenton Hill, and last night with the Gislers, since they were leaving for Texas the next day. It was the first "blow" to us and we realized how short our time here is/was/whatever, and thoughts of home came. Good night!

Day 13 - June 27, 2003

This was our Sante Fe day! We arrived in Sante Fe around 3 p.m. to start our big city adventure (big cities being anything bigger than two houses and a post office to me). The first stop we made was unexpected to me, but really cool. We stopped at a warehouse type place, and it was being used by a group of Tibetan monks. We got to go in, and had to take off our shoes to go into the mandala area, and learn about Buddhist values and art and history. It was definitely my first experience talking to a Buddhist Tibetan monk about the religion and history and stuff and it was a cool informative! They were selling some of their art work and stuff to raise money for kids (100 % of profits to them) in their area, or monastery, so I bought a necklace with an Indian symbol of the sun and moon on it that I liked. It was kind of expensive, but I didn't mind giving my money for that! Next we were downtown in the plaza area. There were venders on the sidewalks, native Americans selling their art work, and we were told that we were free to haggle. Annabel was the only one of us who did, and didn't have much luck, only managing to get a 6 dollar pair of earrings down to 5. The ice cream shop was really busy ( and really expensive ), but my banana mango smoothie was worth it! The shops were cool, but the only ones that I could afford anything, only had a bunch of trinkets, and my room is already too full of those....t-shirts worked just fine. The center of the plaza area we were at had a nice little park, and there was a bunch of different groups there. A group of hacky sackers, lots of smokers (cough, cough, gag), and a drunk guy that asked Katie W. where she was from about 3 times. I felt kind of bad, because at dinner we went to a super Mexican restaurant, with no Katie-plain-food :(. So I barely ate anything, and waited to go to Smith's when we got back to the hotel. Everyone thought I was weird, because I didn't like ANY of their Mexican food (the one true Mexican person there), and wanted crackers and stuff. But I'm glad I did, because Annabel and I got a nice walk out of going to Smith's, then Subway, finding out Subway was closed, and going back to Smith's, and eventually the hotel. There was a concert going on on the other side of the Smith's parking lot, but we didn't go to it. Yea for the strawberries and lunchables I bought! That was our last night at Fenton Hill. I didn't do much observing, mostly because I was getting really tired. We left earlier than normal that night, and I was happy. Good night!

Day 14 - June 28, 2003

After about eight hours of sleep, we were off to Fenton Hill, setting up the antenna for radio transmitting day, and talking to people from across the country on the phone. For about the first half hour to hour we were outside, and it was hotter than normal, so I started getting kind of woosy, and heat stroke-ish, so after our tour of MILAGRO, I went inside the ops. building, I went inside to let myself get back to normal temperature and, well, not die :). It wasn't just a bunch of bumming around in there...Oliver, Ge, Annabel and I were having a good time talking and just being buds. It was fun (and slightly embarrassing at times to Annabel, but I'll let her explain that). I did listen to the guys do radio transmitting...getting people from Tennessee, New Hampshire, British Columbia, and other places. It was pretty neat, but nothing I would get into as a hobby. Something new and cool to experience, more. Dinner was back at the cool pasta place, and the same weird waitress too! Yummy cheesesticks this time! Yippee! More embarrassing moments for Annabel, that kept the rest of us laughing half way from the restaurant to the hotel! It was so much fun! Then the rest of the night was polishing off our website and packing. Good night!

Day 15 - June 29, 2003

Since I don't exactly get to update my journal while I'm on the plane or at home, I am going to say what will happen tomorrow, writing this on the 28th. I am going to be the first person to leave, at 12:02 p.m. according to the schedule. Yet, I am still the last one to get home, getting to the airport at 9:32 p.m., and home around 10:15 p.m. Yuck. At least I'll be used to staying up late, and shouldn't be too tired. Albequerque to Chicago to Marquette to Ishpeming. If you think about the trip in different mind sets, it seems like we've been here forever or that we just got here yesterday. I still remember when the guys wouldn't sit by the girls (too good for us??...nah) and when I had no idea what I was in for. Now that it's almost over, I am very glad I got to come here. I got to meet people from very different places and backgrounds! I have learned a lot of terminology about astrophysics, how to use a telescope, learned a lot of new constellations (never knew what to look for before this), and got my first glimpse at Jupiter, Mars, and Uranus! It was all so great! I've never been to New Mexico before, and this was a great way to be introduced to it (especially since my idea of New Mexico was NOT mountains and pine trees and elk!). The instructors here were awesome, and really taught me a lot (even though I could only learn the basic stuff, a lot the information was over my head). Not to mention the fun of just being on a vacation! Wow, I don't know what else to say. Thank you Earthwatch, thank you instructors, and team mates! This was definitely a new experience for me, I learned a lot, and I hope this isn't the last time we see each other. Until we meet again, one last good night!