pogoism

Firstly, sorry for not posting all week. It’s been an odd week, where I’ve had to do some teenager-style thinking and stuff. But I’m back! So yay :)

This weekend in the US is Memorial Weekend, probably one of the biggest public holidays, and a three-day weekend.

Last night, we spent the night camping by the beautiful Pyramid Lake, about 35 miles northeast of Reno. The lake is situated in the Pyramid Lake Paiute tribe’s reservation. The lake itself, with a max length of 48km, and a max depth of 109m is big (at least by my measly UK comparisons).

We arrived at Sand Hole beach at about 6, and began to put up our tents. As soon as we began, the skies clouded over and the sun disappeared, something I’m not all that used to any more. Anyway, we erected our tents (quite a tricky task in sand) and then the wind started blowing. We had to move all our tents to the far side of the beach, to avoid them flying into the lake. Then came the next challenge – trying to get the bar-be-ques lit. You would think this kind of problem-solving stuff would be no trouble for a group of scientists, but alas, it was. After a few attempts, and half a bottle of lighter fluid, we got them lit, and started cooking our food. And we made a campfire. Well, we didn’t, we left it to the new Spanish guy who assured us that he did it all the time back home.

Now that all that was done, it was time to settle down to some drinking and chilling. It was nice to hang out with mates from work (and not the annoying mopey ones, either), and make some new ones. It made me realize another big reason why I love working in science (other than actual science, of course). Because of the nature of science, where its international, and transcends nations and language, I work within an incredibly varied department, probably at least one person from each continent. Its fascinating talking to people about where they’re from. For instance, Fran, from Spain came with us to the lake, and I was chatting to him quite a lot. It’s so surreal talking to someone who, comparatively, isn’t from that far from where I hail from, but how different their culture is. There’s also a lot of young (ie, <35) people who do science, which makes for a dynamic working environment, with new people coming in all the time.

A few awkward moments through the night, however. Some random guy came up to our camp, naked, with his wife, and started blabbing on about the war. I’ve learnt never to bring this up, as a lot of people here are in the military, but one girl we were with insisted on carrying on the conversation…

Didn’t end up getting to sleep until about 5am, stayed up to watch the sunrise over the mountains at the other side of the lake, and then I slept by the fire. I have no idea how much smoke I inhaled over the night, but the next day I lost my voice.

Right, that’s all I want to write right now, I’m off out to enjoy the Memorial weekend sunshine.