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Published: March 25th 2010
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Windfall Lake Cabin
(picture belongs to Melissa Peterson) It is Thursday, the week is almost over which makes me pretty happy. It's gone by kind of surprisingly quick though. And here I am, back In Erica Hill's class (aka the room without cell service) and in order to stay awake, I am typing up a blog. SO MUCH has happened in the past week in a half. Hmm...in a nutshell: snails...friends...ice...cabin...wolf tracks...job interview...more snails...gunnel...MSU Graduate school acceptance...didn't get the job...and some awesome late nights.
Yupp that is it in a nutshell! But since we all know that I am a girl of a ridiculous amount of words to describe little things, I'm going to fill in the gaps a bit. First off, I went snailing and found quite an abundance of Calliostoma. Well then it was spring break and it took ALL OF MY ENERGY to finish my last assignment on Sunday before it was due. Monday morning, I headed off early with Melissa and Robert. We grabbed our packs, and headed out the road in my little Focus. It was a rainy gray day but I think we were all a little hopeful to get away from life, away from town, and away from technology for a
The bunks
picture belongs to M.A.P. bit. We arrived at the trailhead around noon and walked about half a mile in the snow down to the actual trailhead. It started off with some intense ice where we all struggled to get up this small hill. We were all laughing though as we headed on our way. The next 3 miles and 2 hour walk/hike was fun, a little scary at times, but very exciting as we passed over a couple foot bridges covered in snow and ice, almost fell several times, and then eventually lost a water bottle and had one person fall in the cold water. We all survived though even if we arrived at the cabin a little worse for wear. But once we got there, got changed and warmed up, it was just comforting to spend some time with each other, enjoying hanging out with friends and not worrying about homework.
The next two days were full of somewhat difficult sleep on the hard wood bunks but reading aloud to each other was nice, talking, sharing experiences, reading the cabin log, talking about the future, and just reveling in the silence that comes with nature. It was the teacher, the anthropologist, and
Windfall Lake
picture belongs to M.A.P. the scientist all at Windfall Lake for a nice three days of solitude. By Wednesday, we were all looking forward to a shower and our nice warm beds. The hike back went by really quick even though it was even more slick and rainy again. And we all ended up falling at the icy hill at the start of the trailhead but were overall really happy that we went. We returned to town, got some grub, and headed instantly to our showers.
By the next afternoon, many things in our life had changed. Robert had signed up for going to Peru with a UCLA anthropology excursion in the summer and then moving to Yakima, WA after. Melissa got accepted for an NSE exchange to the Virgin Islands to go soak up the sun a bit. And I woke up to an acceptance email from Michigan State University for graduate school. Five years of support to study behavioral and reproductive ecology of Lake sturgeon. IT...IS...AWESOME!! I'm going to be a Spartan!!!!!!!!!!! =)
Thursday was spent celebrating and hanging out with my friends. Then Saturday, I went snail hunting again and found 29 Callistoma snails (which is awesome!!). That night,
Melissa and I went and saw the play, Boom! which ended up being all about fish and took place in a science lab. Totally my field!! And I laughed loudly at all of the science jokes. It was kind of an odd play but had an awesome punchline. Then spent the rest of the weekend watching movies, hanging out with friends, and just enjoying the end of spring break. By the time Monday rolled around, I did not want to return to classes . That afternoon I got a call saying I didn't get a job at DIPAC since I was heading off early to go to graduate school. and got a rejection letter from Hawaii. Aw well. But I did a call yesterday from my future advisor, Dr. Kim Scribner who will be advising me with the sturgeon. I'm even more excited to be heading off to Michigan! I also got my sculpin samples from BC which is pretty sweet. It's a good day and it may not be entirely sunny, but things are okay. And that makes me happy! That's all for now...
45 days to graduation!!
~kari
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Heather
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Hey Kari, I really enjoyed your Alaska post. I have always wanted to go there. My blog is looking for travel photos. If you have the time, check us out a dirty-hippies.blogspot.com Continued fun on your travels, Heather