Traveling with baby

My husband and I brought our one year old daughter for a three week stay in a small cottage at Friday Harbor Marine Lab in the San Juan Islands of Washington state. The lab offers me the opportunity to watch the Southern Resident killer whale population, and it is close enough to Seattle to grant me access to colleagues at the Northwest Fisheries Science Center.

Friday Harbor Marine Labs

Breaching Southern Resident Killer Whale

Although traveling is one of the major perks of graduate school in the sciences, Josh and I have discovered that traveling with kids can be difficult. So I’d like to share some tips I’ve learned along the way:

1. Pack light.

This seems to be the opposite recommendation that we have received from most parents, but I just don’t understand how people can stand traveling with so much stuff! We packed one suitcase, and since most airlines allow you to check one baby item for free so we also brought a car seat. We were lucky enough to borrow a pack-n-play and a high chair from the marine lab, but if that wasn’t available we would have managed. Here’s a secret: baby’s can eat and sleep anywhere. We also managed to buy an umbrella stroller for $5 from a thrift store on the island. Otherwise, we packed her clothes, the Ergo baby sling, a little diaper carrier / changing mat, her doll, her teddy bear, and three books (Big Red Barn, The Noon Balloon [both by Margaret Wise Brown] and Hand Hand Fingers Thumb by Dr. Seuss). That’s it.

 2. Be creative with toys

Since we packed virtually zero toys (because who has space in their single suitcase for blocks and a plastic tea set?) that meant we needed to get creative with things to play with. Evee’s favorite toy at home is her play kitchen, so I immediately set to work recreating that at our little cottage. I emptied a low bookshelf and filled the first two shelves with all of the non-breakable items available in the kitchen, such as wooden spoons, spatulas, plastic plate and cup, a hand cranked mixer, aluminum pot, etc. This was enough to get Evee started, then as the days wore on and we cooked more meals in the grown-up kitchen, I salvaged cereal boxes, egg cartons and berry bins to add to the play kitchen. Finding play food to fill these containers was as easy as looking right out the back door. Evee and I filled the egg carton with pine cones, collected appropriately sized (read: not swallowable) rocks to fill theberry cartons and cut wheat stalks all the same length for mock-spaghetti. This led to unimaginable fun mixing up and eating exotic dishes with my spunky toddler.

We worked with what we had: Here Evee is learning to carry teddy in a sling

 3. Let the kid get dirty

This is kind of a no-brainer. The most entertaining thing for a child to do is dig in the dirt, splash in the mud and generally explore the bounty of diverse plants and bugs that can be found on the ground. Sure, she gets dirty, but that’s what baths (or awkward showers in our case, given what was available) and washing machines are for! Evee collected, hugged and kissed crabs and anemones in the intertidal, followed slug trails over pine needles and made mud pies. Can you think of a better way for a one year old to spend an afternoon?

Dirt goatee + pants that will never look the same again…

 4. Be flexible!

I realize that all parenting advice for infants and toddlers boils down to the word “routine”, but if you’re traveling I advise you to incorporate a bit of flexibility into your lifestyle. Sure the hotel may not have a crib – have baby sleep in bed with you or do a quick babyproofing and make a nest on the floor. Is there something you want to do or experience but it happens after baby’s bedtime? Don’t miss out! If your child is still nursing, you can probably get him or her to sleep anywhere. Otherwise, sneak in an extra afternoon nap and give your baby a taste of the local night life. Did baby drop her shoes in the lake? Going barefoot (even *gasp* outside) will toughen up those tootsies! No whole milk on the airplane? 2% will be just fine. While it may be your best intention to be prepared for every eventuality, a little flexibility and tolerance may be easier than bending over backwards to make sure this new environment is exactly like being at home for baby.

 

You don’t have to stop traveling once you’ve started a family. In fact, I’m sure exposure to new experiences and life styles is incredibly enriching and educational to children at any age.

The Road to My Thesis

My graduate degree. What can I say? Where do I begin?

I should start with how I graduated from Kent with a B.S. in Geology in 2010 after the best summer field camp of my life. But before I can even say that, I need to say that getting through college at the undergraduate level was a long, bumpy road. I triumphed over failing out of school, went from academic probation to dean’s list, learned when to say no to parties with my roommates, and really enjoyed what I was studying. Geology was what I chose as a major so that I could travel in the future. By the time I graduated, geology was in my blood and I had a solid core group of friends who were like family. I couldn’t imagine doing anything else.

Ladies in the field!

My field camp family!

I spent some time in Utah, doing undergrad research with my field camp professor measuring magnetic susceptibility in laccoliths, right before I graduated. I LOVED it. It was an amazing trip and I really pushed myself hiking. That’s when I decided I wanted to get my Masters degree.

 

That tiny town is where we stayed in Utah!

I originally wanted to study under my field professor in igneous petrology and volcanology, but he was unable to take students. Since my undergrad GPA was low, I took a couple post-undergrad courses to boost my GPA while I went through the process of applying to grad school. It took a year for me to start as a graduate student and I had to pay for the first year myself. I took on way way too much for my first semester as a grad student. I took 4 courses (though one class I didn’t need to take… but I really wanted to) and was dealing with a lot of personal life changes. When my engineering geology professor asked me to be his student, I wasn’t sure I wanted to. I wasn’t sold on engineering.

After talking to a few close friends and family, I decided to not let hard work deter me from this potential path. So, I became a geotechnical engineering masters student. I was one in many of his students, in fact, I shared my first office with two guys who were further along in the program (and I graduated first!) and started the program with 3 other masters students and one PhD student. When he emailed the list of potential thesis topics, my eyes spotted one and only one sentence. “Investigation of a landslide outside Cedar City, Utah” The very next morning, I ran to his office to claim that topic before anyone else could. Before I could even say I wanted that topic, he asked me if I would do it. He knew I had been there before and thought of me as he put it on the list.

From there, I had to plan a trip for my adviser and I to see the landslide ASAP. It was super stressful. He wanted us to fly out after his classes ended on Monday and be back before his classes started on Wednesday. I booked our flights and hotel and we arrived in Las Vegas at 8 pm on Monday. Now, this was my first time driving through Vegas.. and there was construction on Route 15.. long story short, I got us lost and what would have been a 2.5 hour drive turned into 6 hours. Add the extra hour we gained crossing into Mountain Time and we checked into the hotel at 3 am. But the next morning.. We saw this:

A panoramic view of the Cedar Canyon in Utah, with the landslide (The tiny road is the road I stood on in the next photo)

I walked right up to it!

It was incredible. Breathtaking. A huge mass of destruction that was my thesis project. Approximately 1.5 million cubic yards of material that moved down slope in the canyon, taking the road with it. I couldn’t wait to start working and understanding what happened here. I planned on digging in over winter break, to try to get data before they started repairing the road. Luckily for me, I was able to convince Tommy to be my field assistant. He arranged a couch surfing situation for us and was a real trooper about the tiny rental car and walking around unstable ground. 🙂

A huge boulder.. Tommy for scale

Trekking around the toe of the landslide.. Tommy for scale

We encountered a few really cold days.. I got stuck on a road cut that I crawled up to get discontinuity data (I’m not afraid of heights.. just falling off) and Tommy had to talk me down.. But 100+ measurements and buckets of samples later and we were able to take a bit of a break before flying home.

 

We only stayed one night, but it was a lot of fun! We returned home and I started preparing my proposal for my committee. By the time spring semester started, I was ready to defend my thesis proposal and get to applying for research money. My thesis committee was my adviser, my field professor, and the department chair. Luckily, I successfully defended my proposal and received quite a lot of money to finish my field work. I drove for my third and last time to my site and brought my sister with me.

Rach had never been so far west before and it was funny to see her experience the west in the car. She was hoping to see tornadoes in Kansas (I was not) and told me that the Rockies were so much bigger than in the pictures (funniest Rach quote of the trip). It wasn’t all work, work, work to get there. We detoured a bit to see Bryce Canyon before getting to the hotel in Cedar City.

We spent 10 days collecting more data and samples from the landslide. Rach had a harder time in the field than Tommy did… she fell off the side of a little cliff and scared the crap out of me, with only a large scrape on her arm as a battle wound. We got to climb on the landslide and see the head scarp, while UDOT was fixing the road damage.

Rach is the tiny person next to the boulder!

An example of discontinuities that I measured (Tommy’s car in the background)

We put all my sample buckets in the car and headed home. I had a lot of laboratory work to do. I completed 8 tests (multiple times) on both soil and rock samples to have more data to analyze. The lab work took about a year to finish, since I was sharing machines with other students and sometimes had to wait to be trained on a machine before using it.. There was a lot of frustration during this time. There were times I thought I was done and could start my analysis and my adviser would suggest that I do one more round of tests.. Ugh. I get irritated just thinking about that.

Once I started the analysis part, using Rocscience’s SLIDE program, I realized that I had no clue what I was doing. The program wasn’t exactly user-friendly. Thankfully, a former PhD student of my adviser’s came to help me figure out how to start my analysis using the data I collected. He was a HUGE help. Of course, it was later on that I discovered that I used the wrong data set in my analysis and I had to start over.. But that happens to a lot of students. By the end of summer, I handed my adviser a first full draft of my thesis and I felt pretty damn good.

When the first round of edits came back to me, I sobbed. I thought my adviser thought I was the worst writer, that I was an idiot who had no idea what I was saying.. all the worst possible things I could think of. Unfortunately, I moved out of state at the end of summer, so any errors he discovered in my work required me to drive all the way back to fix on the lab computer. I did that multiple times. Four rounds of edits and my adviser finally gave me the go-ahead to submit my thesis to my committee. I printed out 4 copies of my 210 page thesis (one sided, to the exasperation of the department chair) and scheduled my thesis defense.

 

It’s a hefty tome..

I was a nervous wreck about defending. I had spoke about my thesis before at conferences, but this was my defense. They were there to ask me tough questions and make sure I covered everything I could. I didn’t sleep much the night before. I memorized my presentation and even reread my thesis before I defended. Luckily I did, because my adviser asked me about a section he added to my thesis. Overall, the questions weren’t that bad and I knew more than I thought I did. I passed my defense with minor edits and finally was able to graduate.

So, 4 years after deciding to get my masters degree, I finally walked across that stage to get an empty folder. 🙂 I don’t think I will go after my PhD yet.. I think it’s time to put my education to some use. All-in-all it was a fun and exhausting experience, with ups and downs, but actually finishing was the happiest moment I had so far. I still can’t believe I did it!

-A

Foursome celebrates St. Pat’s Day

Driving from Washington D.C., Connecticut and upstate NY, we held a foursome reunion last weekend on the beautiful coast of New Jersey to see KJ’s new home town. It’s always great getting together, and I always wish we did it more frequently. Alas, distance and circumstance and blah, blah, blah make traveling hard. But there’s something very fulfilling about getting together with the people who have known and loved you for a lifetime.

The gang’s all here!

This trip included a very special event: A’s very first trip to the beach! As you can see, the sub-Arctic blasts delivered by the wandering jet stream this winter did not lead to resort-like conditions, but we still managed some beach walking, shell collecting and general antics to celebrate A’s first taste of the salty Atlantic. Next time, bring your suits ladies, because we’re going in!

A’s first trip to the beach

Anyways, I feel really grateful that you ladies have made it such a priority to get together, especially now that Evee is born. It seems like the three of you are so careful to see her every few months so you can keep up with her rapid growth and development. In the meantime, the three of you have made excellent aunts to my daughter (and the boys have done pretty well in the uncle department, too!)

KJ reads Evee new books

Hayl plays Evee songs on the ukulele

A teaches Evee to make silly sounds

We’re so lucky to have you in our lives. And happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Hayl On Safari

Safari.  If you’re like me, this word immediately evokes a lot of imagery.  Lions lazing in the savanna, viewed from an open jeep.  Khakis and bandannas and binoculars.  Checking off sightings of all of the Big Five: elephants, lions, Cape buffalo, leopards, and rhinoceros.  Feeling like an awesome 19th century British explorer (minus all the problematic colonialism).

In my experience–well, they got the bit about binoculars right.

Game viewing is a major tourism industry in South Africa.  In my time spent there, I’ve come to learn that there is a HUGE diversity of experiences that can all be lumped under the category of ‘safari.’  Private reserves, national parks, off-road or not, guided or self-driven, camping or taking a day drive or staying in a luxury resort.  You can even still go on a safari where you can hunt game.  I’m no expert here–I’ve been on exactly one type out of the endless possibilities of safaris (I haven’t even been to Kruger National Park, the largest and undisputedly best South African location for safaris of any sort!)  But I do think a lot about ecologically- and ethically-responsible tourism, and even in my limited encounters with this industry, I’ve been able to see what a tangled knot you can get in when trying to decide what is the most ethical, or (dare I say) most “authentic,” experience.  You can do what I do, and pay $20 to spend a day in Addo Elephant National Park, or you can hire a private charter flight to take you to a private resort/game reserve that costs upwards of $500 per night.  (No, seriously.  And, other than the obviously large carbon impact of visiting them, some of the places on that scale actually do an amazing amount of conservation work.)  The article, “How to Choose a South African Safari,” describes some of the variety of safaris you can come across, and were I to give advice to an American wealthy enough, or lucky enough, to snag a plane ticket for a vacation to South Africa, it would be much along the same lines.

I recently chatted to someone who took a vacation along the Garden Route.  That’s the beautiful area on the southeast coast between Cape Town and Port Elizabeth–an area I’ve been back and forth through several times now.  Right away he asked me, “Did you see the Big Five?”

My answer to his question?  No!  Despite the collective six months or so that I’ve spent in South Africa, I still haven’t seen two out of the five, even though any tourist can easily see all five in a day if that’s what their priority is, and they don’t mind going to one of the “reserves” that the article linked to above calls “glorified zoos.”

Visting Addo Elephant National Park is, perhaps, the most amazing thing I’ve ever done.  The first time I was there, before I knew I’d be coming back to the country, I remember thinking, “I will never get to do anything like this ever again in my life.”  And I’ve been back twice since!

Addo has lions, but I haven’t been lucky enough to see them in any of my visits.  They also ostensibly have Cape leopards, but I wouldn’t expect to see one–they tend to hide and sightings are very rare.  I have, however, seen footprints of Cape leopards elsewhere when I’ve been out hiking and field work–but I definitely wouldn’t want to come across one then!

I have seen plenty of elephants at Addo, which shouldn’t surprise you, given its name.  No matter how many you see, though, it never gets old to look out a rolled-down car window and watch these majestic creatures go about their days.

Or, you know, wait for them to cross the road right in front of you.

There’s also plenty of Cape buffalo at Addo.  I’ve seen large herds at a distance, and two or three of them close up.

The size of these guys is outrageous! And they have a reputation for being grumpy–I wouldn’t want to come across one of THEM in the field!

My most incredible moment at Addo, however, was when I saw a black rhino.  Black rhinos are solitary creatures who tend to hide deep in the thicket, so despite their size, spotting them in the wild is pretty rare.  On my third trip to Addo, I wasn’t expecting, or even hoping, to spot one.  (In fact, I was hoping pretty desperately to get a glimpse of that elusive pride of lions.)  My friend Adam and I had had a really nice day driving around.  We’d seen a lot of really cool animals (including baby zebra, which are so incredibly cuter than I ever could have imagined and I WANT ONE OF MY OWN.  Ahem.  Composing myself…).  It was late in the afternoon, and we came to an intersection in the road.  Turning right would have led us to the park exit, which we’d been gradually making our way towards; turning left would lead us back along a route we’d already been down.  We’d seen a small group of elephants just a little ways along that road, and I made a split-second decision to turn left so we could go and look at them one more time before leaving.  (Like I said, it just never gets old).

As we approached the open field where the elephants were, though, something else was visible striding across the field.  It was very far away at first.  My brain was going, “It can’t be.  It’s gotta be just another elephant.  But no trunk?  No way, it can’t be!”

But it was!

So we sat and watched it and took pictures until the batteries in both our cameras died.  Even more spectacular than spotting a black rhino, however, was looking around from where we were sitting and listing off the animals in sight: rhino, elephant, zebra, hartebeest, warthog, and ostrich.

What’s hard to communicate about experiences like this is that you don’t just go and immediately find yourself surrounded by no less than six amazing animal species.  I even have a tendency to forget this between visits, but this took an entire day of driving around before we saw so many species together.  There were even hours on end where we didn’t see a single animal of any species–which is pretty frustrating when you know you have to be out of the park by 4 or 5 pm!

Anyway, I guess what I’ve been trying to say is, I really treasure that moment of seeing a black rhino in Addo, far more than I would if I rushed around checking off the Big 5 in a morning.

However, my inner, very cynical, self-critic has been yelling at me while I’ve been writing drafts of this post.  She’s been saying, “Is this just a post to brag about all the cool animals you’ve seen?  Or are you trying to feel superior than people who have limited time and funds for their vacation and are just trying to experience what they can?  Because you’re privileged enough to spend so much time their for your work, and get around to so many different areas of the country, are your experiences somehow worth more than theirs?”  The truth is, I don’t have an easy answer.  I try very hard to be a responsible, ethical tourist and foreign researcher, but the complexities involved in pursuing that goal can be staggering.  And in nowhere else in the world that I’ve been is that more apparent than in South Africa.  What I would really like to write about, eventually, are the even more complex societal and racial issues I’ve brushed up against over there.    This post is, perhaps, just practice for how to approach, and process for myself, complicated topics that I think are incredibly important to talk about, but I still have the feeling anything I say about them is inadequate because I am both an outside observer and in no way an expert.

But seriously. Baby zebra are really effing cute.