As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I take a look at my life and realize there's not much left

Has it really been a whole week since I last posted? Sorry. I've been busy. With your mom.

(Just kidding. That's not your mom. That's a huge 'statue' that was at Rhyolite, a ghost town that used to be the largest boom town in Nevada [even bigger than Vegas from 1905-1911]).

I went to Death Valley again. One of my friends had never been, and we heard that wildflowers were blooming everywhere, so we figured now was as good a time as any. But before we got to there we stopped at Rhyolite. There was one house that was built out of bottles in 1906 - ironically it was one of the only buildings left standing:


A monument to the miners that used to live there:


And what's a ghost town without some ghosts?


One of them was about to steal a bike.


There was also a couch that looked like it could have been one of Anonymous Boxer's projects:


Entering Death Valley:


There were a fair number of flowers




And cacti:


One of the craziest things in Death Valley is this place called Scotty's Castle. Who builds a castle in the middle of the desert? Scotty. That's who.








And of course, Badwater. The lowest elevation in the western hemisphere:


Sea level is marked way up on these rocks (but you may have to click on the picture to be able to see it).



The trip was made even better by the bags of candy we bought at this huge candy store out in the middle of nowhere. I hope your weekend was as good as mine.

Lesson Learned?

I told you about the trip to Death Valley, and said that I learned a lot of stuff for my geology class along the way. There was another lesson I was taught, but am not quite so sure it will stick. I get it at least once a year, usually around this time. The lesson? Feet need sunblock too.


Trust me, this picture doesn't do the sunburn justice. It's painful just to bend my toes.

One other thing I learned: If anybody ever tells you that the light blue Gatorade frost turns your pee green - it doesn't. I tested it with no fewer than five bottles. There was definitely no green urine.

The Lucky One

This weekend I went on a field trip to Death Valley. It paled in comparison to last year when the wildflowers were all over the place, but I got to see more of the park this time (and I certainly learned a lot of geology).

We rode out in two vans, and made stops at places in the park which had features we had talked about in class. I started the trip in the van that the TA was driving because I knew I'd get to ride shotgun, which is a big deal for someone as tall as me. It also happened to be the van with the most familiar faces in it (and by that, I mean people I have actually spoken with this semester). We got through most of the morning just fine, but then my professor started to get dizzy and asked me to drive (since I'm the only grad student in the class I'm the only one authorized to drive a university vehicle). He needed to stay in the 'lead' van to tell me where to go, so the guy who was riding shotgun in his van had to go back and take my place. We kept this arrangement for the rest of the day.

Why am I telling you all of this? Because the guy I traded places with happens to be really annoying. He's one of those guys who is constantly trying to impress people with how much he knows, even when it's obvious that he doesn't know what he's talking about. After he went to bed that night a few of the people in his van approached me.

"Are you going to ride in our van tomorrow? We need to get back to the original teams."
"Do you guys want me to ride in your van?"
"Yes. Please!"
"Ok, I'll tell him he has to trade me places again."
"Is that a promise? Can we get you to shake on that?"

The next morning I talked to the TA about riding with him again, and he said "Yes, hurry and get your ass in my van." Thus we got back to the 'original teams.'

About halfway through the day we all got out and started hiking up a hill so the professor could show us one of his points of interest. Some girls from the professor's van came up to me and said "You have to come back to our van. Please? We'll give you money." I didn't, but the pleading continued at every stop after that until we started heading home.

While I'd like to think it was because I was so cool, I know that any other person would have sufficed. I realize that I was the luckiest one on the trip, because of everyone in the class, I was the one who spent the least amount of time with Mr. Annoying simply because we were never in the same van.

It makes me wonder what exactly it takes for annoying people to start figuring out that they annoy everybody. I think this guy started to realize that something was up, but not enough to actually try to stop being annoying. Maybe it's just too much to ask of some people.