As of today, I have spent a total of three weeks working alone in the field.  The first week... well, it sucked.  I hated working alone with a vengeance after that.  Since then, I still don't love it, but it did get a little better.  And I'll tell you why.  But let's start from the beginning, shall we?

Here is a picture I took of a fuzzy caterpillar that week.  It doesn't have much to do with anything but I will keep it here for symbolic purposes.

My first week by myself started on a Tuesday, the day after Labor Day.  First of all, I hate starting field weeks on Tuesday because that means I have to stay until Friday, which is a huge bummer.  My boss decided to take leave and stay in the office that week (lazy!) so he wouldn't be even close to where I was, which he normally would be if he were working on his own mapping.  Therefore, I would be alone, and naturally, thought I would probably get attacked by a bear and die.

When I got to Negrito, the gate was locked and no one was there.  I had been warned this might happen, and remembered to bring my forest key with me to unlock the gate.  However, my forest key was not actually my forest key, as I would later find out.  But I didn't know that at the time, so I was like, WTF?  And ended up having to camp on some stupid hill outside of the base.  I put my tent up in the trees so it would be harder for random hunters to see me from the road but I had to park far away, where it was flat and not rocky so every time I was in my tent and needed something from the truck (or vice-versa) it was a trek to get there.  That was annoying thing number 1.

I couldn't drive into Negrito but I could walk into it, so the first thing I tried was getting into the kitchen/mess hall.  But it was locked and my "forest key" didn't work on that either.  Sadly.  But no matter, I had my camp stove and could cook dinner on that.  Wellll....no.  For some reason, I could not get that thing to work.  I filled it up with gas and pumped it a bunch of times but it was no use.  The pump handle thing kept locking and therefore gas was not releasing from the container into the stove and it would not light.  I had chips and salsa for dinner that night.  That was annoying thing number 2.

Later that evening, while I was in my tent, I came up with a brilliant idea.  Tomorrow, I would build a fire using the Negrito fire pit and cook my dinner on there.  Yes!  I was a genius!  The next night, after work, I gathered all my cooking materials and hiked up to the base to begin making my fire.  At this point, it was still raining pretty regularly during the day so all my potential fuel was wet.  It took a while, but I was persistent, and eventually burned enough pine needles to get the firewood dried out enough to create fire.

Ta-da!  Small, but fire nonetheless

The second dilemma was finding a method with which to cook my dinner over the fire.  Lucky for me, the Hotshots left a grill sitting outside on the ground.  I propped it up with two rocks on either side of the fire and was able to cook my sausages.  Hooray!


The nights were strange that week.  It was weird being alone and I had lots of odd dreams.  One night I dreamed that there was a coyote outside my tent and I was trying to get up and move so I could defend myself, but I couldn't.  Then I dreamed that a snake was crawling underneath my tent, and I could feel it moving.  Another night I dreamed about contra dancing.

Since I'm done with Pitchfork Canyon, I'm now working on the quad next door, and it's a farther drive.  It takes about an hour just to get from one end to the other.  By Wednesday or Thursday, I realized that the gas in the truck was getting really low and I started to get nervous.  I really really did not want to run out of gas out there.  I'd already had enough vehicle issues this summer and didn't want to have to call for help again.  That was annoying thing number 3.

Finally, Friday came and I could go home.  I was sooo happy.  Usually, we're supposed to do a little work on our last morning and then go home.  So I was a good little employee and dug one hole in a drainage full of Apache Plumes.  Then I began the drive back to Albuquerque.  I knew it would be a while before I made it to a town and a gas station so I didn't turn on the air conditioning, didn't listen to the radio and prayed that my gas wouldn't run out before I got there.  It got really low, the truck dinged at me, but I made it.  I was relieved.  But as soon as I got on the paved road, the truck started making a weird noise.  It sounded like creaking plastic coming from somewhere underneath the gas and brake pedals.  Weird, right?  I had no idea what it was and couldn't really do much about it at the time except keep going and hope nothing bad happened.  Lucky for me, the noise seemed to stop for a while until I was almost back to the office and then I knew I would be okay.  For that day, anyway.

But I didn't care.  I would figure it out later.  I was home.

I know what you're thinking.  Isotopes?  Oh blah, this is going to be a science post.  Well... actually not.  I honestly don't know much about isotopes besides what you learn in Chem 101, which is probably bad considering I'm a scientist and all.  But whatever.  Today, I am going to talk about baseball.  Namely, the Albuquerque Isotopes, our minor league baseball team. 

Okay, so I don't really know much more about baseball than I do about elemental isotopes.  But I do know a little bit.  When we were "camping" at Negrito, J liked to watch the Brewers on tv and I'd bother him with about a million questions on everything that was going on.  It helped me to be more interested in the game and gave me something to talk to him about.  He didn't seem to mind, and I can usually tell when someone is a bad mood.

Anyway, I've been to a few Tigers games back in the day and I always found them enjoyable so I thought an Isotopes game would be pretty fun as well.  And it was!  Besides missing some of the beginning of the game to get drinks, not getting a hot dog (a little bummed about that one), and some kids spilling soda all over the floor under where we were sitting, I had an excellent time.  The game was very fast paced, kept my interest, and best of all... we won! 

We had really good seats, right behind home plate, and I even got some decently clear pictures despite my camera lens being (still) covered in cave dust. 

The Isotopes were the blue team and they played Round Rock, Texas, which I believe is somewhere near Austin?  They filmed some movies there, but I can't remember what they are now.

It was a pretty close game all the way through but Albuquerque stepped it up near the end and ended up winning 8-3.  They didn't even finish the last inning, which disappointed me slightly, but there were fireworks at the end so that made up for it. 

So, Camille from Archives of Our Lives made a post about sushi and I was inspired to write my own recent sushi story.  Conveniently enough, Camille also sponsors Saturday Steals, which invites bloggers to write about a recent deal that they came across.  And though I didn't make my own, like she did, my sushi experience still most definitely was a steal.

I've never really been that into sushi.  One day, back in Vegas, I was at Trader Joe's and they had a little sushi four-pack.  I had never had it before and decided to try it.  That was probably my first mistake.  To make my first sushi experience a ready-made packet from Trader Joe's.  It was not good, and I ended up throwing most of it away.

I didn't try sushi again for another several years, until last Thanksgiving when I went to the Chinese Buffet (you know, the one that served chicken feet?) and I liked it way better than the TJ's crap.  I decided that if this weirdo buffet had decent sushi, then an actual sushi place must have some pretty darn good stuff.

I put that on the back burner for a while, and then last weekend I got a flyer in the mail for a place that opened last year, called Sushiya.  There was a menu and a 15% off coupon.  The menu had a variety of items, including sushi and cooked meals, sort of an Asian-fusion type restaurant. Matt and I were feeling adventurous, so we decided to try it.  We went over there and, since it was getting late, decided to order take-out instead of eating in.

Then things started to go wrong.  First, they gave me another person's food, and I would have left with it had another waiter not caught it in time.  A little while later, they came back with presumably the right food, and I went out to meet Matt, who went to Albertson's next door to buy some drinks, and we went home.

When we got home, we started putting the food out on the table and realized that part of our order was missing.  We had ordered orange peel beef and should have gotten two bowls of hot and sour soup but had gotten only one egg drop instead.  Since the place was close to where I live, we packed everything up and drove back.

I'm working on my confidence building in confrontational situations, so I went in alone to talk to them.  I didn't really have to do much, though.  They had realized their mistake and brought out the rest of my food as soon as I walked in.  This time, I took a look at it and saw that they gave us chicken instead of beef.  Thinking about the confidence thing, I decided to tell this to them, and they made me a new one right away, while also letting me keep the chicken one.  I also had to tell them about the soup, and they got that for me as well.  While I was waiting for them to cook the new food, a waiter came out and gave me a $25 gift certificate and apologized again.  It just goes to show you how being polite but assertive can result in good things.  I need to remember that.

Anyway, we ended up with a ton of food.  It was actually kind of ridiculous how much we got.

hot and sour soup

Seafood Tempura (shrimp, salmon, crab, scallops and vegetables in a flour batter)

Sushiya (this is just something random, whatever the sushi chef decides to make at that moment, and it is awesome)

Orange peel beef

And the extra mistake, orange peel chicken

Everything was really good.  We'll definitely be going back, especially since we now have $25 free.  Everyone makes mistakes, and the manner in which they were corrected made all the difference.

I am happy to say I am finished mapping Pitchfork Canyon!  After working with J, I spent two weeks working with Egghead and one working with my boss to finally finish it up and I am done done done done DONE!  So... now I get to start on a new quad.  Woo-hoo.  Hopefully it won't take me another nine weeks to finish.

Time is starting to run together so I'll try to recount what happened the best that I can, but it will most likely end up being just some random stories and pictures.  The two weeks I worked with Egghead went okay.  The first day of the first week he was getting on my nerves like none other.  I woke up in a horrible mood and then he took forever to get ready and was burping and farting super loud all morning.  I could hear it all the way across the camp site.  Gross.  Oh, and one day he didn't shut the bathroom door all the way and I accidentally walked in on him with his shirt off.  I'm just glad he didn't have anything else off, or I may have been traumatized for life.

But I got some good pictures of Elk Mountain.  Better than the ones from from before, because I had a better view.  I honestly can't remember if these were from the first week or the second, but no matter.  It's all the same.

I also took some pictures from the top.  I have no idea what the mountain in the distance is, though.  Something in Collins Park quad, maybe.


And there were some sweet cliffs up there as well.


After that we got hailed on for about an hour and it was a huge bummer.  My butt was cold and our soil pit filled up with water, so I decided to be done for the day.


Since it had rained, the roads were all suuuper muddy, and sometimes trucks do not like muddy roads.  So I learned how to use the winch that day.  I will never call it a stupid winch again.  It's saved me two times already this field season.  Yay winch!

I also got to see Egghead's new apartment, because he doesn't have a car and he can't take all his gear on his bike, so on the way back to the office, we would take a little detour to his place.  The first week, there were about 8 cop cars at a house across the street, and a whole bunch of police all around.  All the neighbors were outside watching so I did too.  Five officers then went into the house with their guns pointed.  The one in the front had a really big gun, that Egghead told me the name of, but I forget now.  And the other ones just had small handgun type things.  I couldn't really see what was going on after that, but I heard someone say that one person was arrested and one ran away.  Then all the cops left and we did, too.

The next week, there was no more police activity, thankfully.  I decided to be nosy and look inside Egghead's apartment.  The whole place is linoleum tile.  Like a classroom or a hospital.  Earlier, he had asked me if I had lain my own carpet in my apartment.  I said no, that I had never heard of an apartment where you had to put in your own carpet.  He called me a spoiled bitch, and I told him he lived in the ghetto.  Because... ummm.... he does.

This past week with my boss was ok, but honestly, I think I'd rather work by myself.  Working with him makes me nervous because I'm constantly thinking I'm going to say or do the wrong thing.  He kept disagreeing with every call that I made, and double checking all my work.  It was annoying, because I don't think he does that with the other employees.   I don't know, though.  I haven't seen any of them in forever.

So, remember a couple posts back when I said I took a trip to this mountain?

No?  That's okay.  I've been somewhat absent from blogland lately.  Not so much by choice as it was being forced to work by my most lovely and wonderful job that helps pay my rent and such.  But I have a long weekend now (yay!) and Matt's off at his friend's house or something so I may blog to my heart's content.

Anyway, if you haven't guessed by now, I went camping on Mount Taylor for the second time.  It's been over a year since we've been there, so we figured it was time (even though I go camping pretty much every week, but fun camping is generally better than work camping).  It's been a while so I don't remember all the details, except that we got there at night and it was really dark and cold so I was grumpy.  But the next morning (or maybe afternoon?) we took a walk to the edge of the mountain and saw this.


Pretty spiffariffic, yes?  I thought so.  At this point, I was busy drinking some beer.  I got this new ginger grapefruit kind and it is amaaaaazing.  We like to say that whenever beer spills, it's Jim Morrison coming to take a sip.  Well, Jimmy (as Egghead would call him), must have been thirsty that day.  He spilled my beer and then he threw my toilet paper roll over a cliff.  It was definitely not me being clumsy.  I am never clumsy.


It was actually a good thing that the T.P. fell down there, because otherwise we would not have found a really cool lava bomb rock.  It was all round and smooth and lava bomb-ish.  I didn't take a picture of it because I have the real thing.... somewhere.

Then I took a bunch of really bad pictures.  I couldn't tell that they were bad at the time because the sun was being weird in my camera and I couldn't see what they looked like.  But now, looking at them, they're bad.  I'll try to find a couple decent ones for you.




There ya go.  Those aren't so bad.  After the view, we went back to camp and made a fire.  Okay, I didn't make the fire, but I took a video of it, because ... why not?

And that is how I will end this post.

I can't believe it's already been three weeks since this happened.  Maybe time is going by faster than I thought it would.  Honestly, I thought that after I stopped working with my most awesome field buddy, that the rest of the season would drag and drag.  It seems like a long time, though, since last November, when I ended the 2010 season and couldn't even stand the thought of going back out again.  I thought it was going to be terrible.  And well, the first week was pretty darn crappy, but then J started coming out with me and I thought, "Wow, this totally doesn't suck."  But alas, he has to go back to school and get married and all that crap, so no more good field season for me, I guess.  But it was good while it lasted.  The past two weeks I worked with Egghead, and it was not so bad.  I had someone to dig holes for me and someone to talk incessantly to when I was feeling bored.  Next week, I'll be working alone.  But camping with my boss.  So we'll see how that goes...

But anyway, catching up, here's what went on in the field those few weeks ago.

Like I said before, we didn't camp at Negrito.  Instead, we went off on a random road somewhere and found a spot to set up camp.  J put up the tarp and set up our little area underneath, with the table and stove and everything.  It was a pretty nice setup. 


One reason we got this spot was because of this cool flat(ish) rock, which J liked to sit on until he said it hurt his back.  Should've gotten the camp chair.  Anyway, it was still cool looking.  And we were finally allowed to have fire, so we did.

The mountain in the background is Elk Mountain and we spent a fair amount of time traversing around on there throughout the week.


Here's a view from up there, kinda sorta near the top.


And since we were up there trundling, I got a picture of another different view the next day.


That was our last full day in the field and we got 5 holes described that day.  One of them, I even dug myself.  I don't really expect to get that many next week.  I made a goal of six for the whole week, since I'll have to do everything myself, and things will go a lot slower.  But if I can get those done, that will be the end of that quad, and I'll only have one more to go before I'm done with field work!  Hooray!

As usual, I'm way behind on my posting.  So we're going to go back in time, to two weekends ago, when Matt and I went to the Sandia Crest.  I had never been there before, can you believe it?  I've been up on the tram twice but I never took the Crest trail.  So that is what we did.  This time, we drove up.  This involves going around through Tijeras (which means scissors, if you're curious : )  and up the East side of the mountain.  It's a really pretty drive going up, and when you get to the top, the view is incredible.

Later, we went to the East side of the mountain and took in the forest views, including one of my favorite trees, corkbark fir, which actually does have squishy corky bark.




We spent the evening looking at the sunset, and getting a preview of where we would be spending the next weekend.






Can you guess where we went?  I'll give you a hint.  It's that mountain waaay off in the distance.  I'll tell you more about that later.

Because we can.

P.S. I don't know what's up with the weird lighting.  My camera is old.  Sorry.

For the past several weeks, I have been staying at the Negrito Work Station while I do my mapping.  The firefighters stay there when they're not off, you know, fighting fires.  They have barracks that they stay in but we just sort of set up our tents somewhere and call it good.  However, we have access to everything else.  We're not staying at Negrito next week, though, because it's more convenient to go somewhere else.  I may or may not go back later by myself (next week is J's last week before school starts and I am sad : (   but in the meantime I thought I'd show you some crappy blurry pictures I took of Negrito, so you'll see what it was like to stay there.

Ok, so first of all, they have bathrooms with flush toilets, sinks with running water, and showers.  This, to me, is pretty darn fancy.  Last year, at Ben Lilly, we had some latrine type toilets that I thought were nice compared to the behind the tree pee that I normally did.  But these... they flush!  And oh my gosh, showers... I've taken one every week and it is super amazing being able to get clean after working with dirt all day, especially now that monsoon season is kicking in and everything is all wet and muddy.


This is the kitchen and mess hall where we often cooked and ate dinner.  Other times, we've just used our own camp stove and sat on the back of the truck but when it's raining, it's nice to have a place to go inside and eat.  Plus, they have a tv.  That's pretty awesome.  I should have taken a picture of the mess hall with the tv in it but I didn't because J was in there watching baseball and I got nervous he would think I was weird for taking all these stupid pictures.  But I did take a picture of the entryway.


And the kitchen.


The only thing I didn't really like about it in here was that it smelled kind of weird.  Oh, and the rat poops.  But the firefighters clean it all the time so it wasn't really that gross. 


I guess that's it for now.  I'll try to take some pictures of our camping spot next week to show you as well.  I can't believe it's August already.  The summer is going by too fast, and I still have so much more field work to go.  I'm starting to dread it again.  At least I'll have one more good week.