Desert Spring Break - Sunday

So where were we...ah yes. Cold.

Sunday morning we decided to head South. Generally going south results in warmer temperature. It certainly couldn't hurt.
Before heading in search of warmer, less windy areas, we stopped at a visitor center to check the weather. The good news is each day would be progressively warmer. The bad news was we still have to reckon with wind for several more days. The drive south to the Cottonwood campground took us through the entire park, and we decided to stop at various features along the way.
The first top was Jumbo Rocks. An area with lots of big rocks.
Moving on we found the Cholla cactus garden.


Here I am in front of a Cholla cactus:



An interesting aspect of Joshua Tree National Park is that it actually contains two different types of deserts (yes, there are different types). The Northern half of the park is Mojave desert. This is where the Joshua Trees live. The Southern half of the park is Sonoran. Here the plants are entirely different. The Chollas are typical of the Sonoran desert.
Around lunchtime we set up camp and had lunch of pitas, cheese, sausage and runny peanut butter. Then we went on a hike to Mastadon Peak. On the way was an oasis with Eukaliptys and California Fan Palms. Fan palms are super cool trees and will this will not be the last encounter on the trip.



Then I found the prettiest wildflowers in the park, and one of the coolest flower I've ever seen. They're a beautiful iridescent peach color. On the lower left of this picture you can see my second favorite JT flower. These goofy little purple balls with spikes from which tiny light purple flowers bloom out of. I really love desert plants. They have so much character.



All in all a very pleasant hike. Here's a picture of our campsite where we spent two evenings:



That evening the most amazing thing happened. The wind was still and the skies cleared off. Unfortunately our trip occurred during the third quarter to full moon phase, so there were only a couple hour is the very early morning that were moon-less. It was a bit of a tease because it was obvious that the skies would be amazing if the Moon would just set.
The evening was still chilly but at least quiet...at least until about 1 pm when the wind returned with a vengeance. Anyway...enough for now.

Desert Spring Break - Friday and Saturday

So I'm going to adopt Andy's method and post the spring break adventure in parts. Mostly because if I have it in my head that I'll write it all at once, it'll never happen.

It all began with a two-hour drive to the Rochester airport at about 2 am. The moral of this story: 6 am flights from an airport 2 hours away are a *bad* idea. But we made it, I tried to sleep, we arrived in Atlanta, caught the next flight, tried to sleep some more. Eventually we arrive in Las Vegas, gather our belongings and Ginger and went to get the car.
First bit of excitement...it was sunny and warm in Vegas. There I stood, basking in the Sun's warm for the first time in...oh...let's say 5 months! Next bit of excitement...Thrifty didn't have any mid-sized cars available immediately, but I could take a mid-sized convertible if I wanted. Me being my non-spontaneous, practical self stood around and waited for a normal car for a couple minutes. Then the thought of a convertible sunk in, but the top folded up takes up most of the trunk. Sort of a problem when you're going camping with stuff. Anyho! Eventually after conferring with my fellow trekers, I grabbed a blue convertible, and we were off.
Before hitting the desert we had to make a run to REI and grab food for our first night. (We weren't meeting Briony and Mel until the next day.) Finally we headed South out of Vegas through the deserts of southern Nevada. The destination our first night was Mojave National Preserve, just inside the California boarder. We camped in an off-road campsite, i.e. in the middle of the desert, off a dirt road, where people have camped before so they figure it wouldn't hurt if some more people also did so. In other words there's no water and sure as heck no toilets.
We arrived at the site toward the end of sunset and quickly realized that it was quite windy. But we set up the tents, failed at cooking thanks to the wind, and had a dinner of apples, corn flakes and wine. About half way though the bottle, several large vans and SUVs pulled up and out poured 20 some boy scouts. Yes...there we were in the middle of no where. Not even in an offical campground, and our bit o' desert was invaded by a troop of boy scouts.
I got some sleep that night but not much between the wind, cold, and rowdy boys. As we will learn, this is not the last time I reference "wind" in this account.
The best part about camping is crawling out of the tent in the morning to a freshly risen sun and crisp air. It generally makes the discomfort of sleeping on the group worth. On this particular morning I was not only greeted by a sun rising behind a mountain, but desert wild flowers and a enormous sand dune. Here's our campsite:



I had chosen this particular site because of its proximity to the Kelso Dune field, one of the largest in North America. I have a mild obsession with sand dunes thanks to a project I did last year on dunes on Venus, but that's neither here nor there.
After breakfast we set out across a sand field to climb the up the dune. Here's a photo of Andy and Ginger hiking. The peak directly in front of them rises about 600 feet above where we camped, and we eventually managed to climb to the peak.




Here's the crest and slipface. For scale the little black specks are the boy scouts sledding of all things.



The view from the peak as beautiful and windy. In strong gusts sand would fly over crest, and the surface would dance as the sand saltated. Our footprints were quickly erased. From my researches of sand dunes, I learned that some dunes will make a booming noise. The origin of this is not entirely understood. Sure enough, as we ran/jumped down the steep slope from the summit, our jumping created vibrations in the dune and a sound that resembled a low tone of a pipe organ. That made my day.
After eating lunch and striking camp we drove another couple hours south to Joshua Tree National Park. This trip through the desert of southern California also proved interesting. We discovered a jerky stand and a volcanic crater along Route-66. The highway near 29 Palms (the last resemblance of civilization before entering the park) passed through a desert littered with old, run-down, one-room shacks, whose purpose continues to baffle me.
This evening we spent at the Black Rock campground in the Northwest corner of the park. Here we also met Mel and Briony who came baring food and wine.
Here's a photo of our campsite sans tents (the blue tent in the background belonged to our neighbors). The tree in the middle is a Joshua Tree in bloom. They really are amazing cool trees.



This evening was by far the most unpleasant of the trip. To say it was windy does not do the experience justice. We had steady 20 mph winds, frequent gusts upwards of 40 mph (my estimation) and temperature in the mid-40's. Plus there was a five minute period where it sleeted on us. After flying several thousand miles to escape the never-ending winter in upstate NY, we get sleeted on in Southern California. For the sake of optimism, I will not dwell on this evening.

Escaping winter

So tonight I head out for Southern California to escape winter for a week. I'll be back in NY next Friday. There will be photos upon my return.
I had some things running through my head this week. Yesterday I read an opinion article in Newsweek written by a "twenty something" on the Democratic race. She described how Obama is not only the "cool" candidate but how it's also cool to be an Obama supporter. On the other hand Clinton supporters are often reserved about their candidate for fear of being some how "uncool". Now this sort of annoyed me. How often do "adults" complain how the "twenty somethings" never vote and are not politically engaged? Suddenly we all start coming out in droves to vote for the first genuinely exciting candidate of our lives, and it's trivialized, albeit by one of our own, as the result of some fad. That said, maybe it's true. Maybe Obama has a better Facebook page. I don't know.
There were other blog posts I had written in my head, but now I don't remember them. It happens.

Finally, finally

Yah...I know. It's been a while. Every weekend for the last month I've been telling myself that I need carve out time to update, and it just hasn't happened. So here's the laundry list of things I've been doing since returning to Ithaca after break:
1) Classes. This semester I'm taking two. Astrophysical processes and cosmology. The former is something of a methods class, and interesting, but only in so far as it illuminates all of the crazy things that happen in astrophysical sources. Cosmology is, on the other hand, interesting and intense. Also, I'm TAing a class called "Life in the Universe", which is turning out to be really interesting as well. It combines astronomy and biology/ecology to discuss the prospects of the ubiquity of life in the universe.
2) Work. I'm currently in an optimistic phase regarding work. The fact that I'm quickly coming up on my second summer and have no real results is driving me to pester my advisor a little more frequently, which in turn, may yield concrete results. We'll see how the next couple weeks go.
3) Spring break. Newest life lesson: Life is so much better when you have something to look forward to. That said Andy, a law school friend of his and two of my friends from astro are flying out to Joshua Tree National Park next week for Spring Break. Joshua Tree is in southern California, more or less directly east of LA. It's named after the Joshua Tree cactus that grows in the park (and yes, is also the origin of the U2 album). We are super excited to escape the perpetual gray, wintery mix that is Ithaca in March. New T-shirt motto: Ithaca is slush.
4) Weather. Let's not even go here. All I can say is "wintery mix".
5) Everything else. I'm moving again this summer. Don't really know where I'm moving to yet. Need to find a place. Politics...yah. I don't have anything to add that hasn't been said by some one somewhere. It would've been nice if Obama had simply won Texas and Ohio, so this race would have in effect be over, but no. That would be too easy. Lately I've been listening to lectures I found on iTunes University. For those of you who are unaware, iTunes University is a part of iTunes in which various universities post (for free!) lectures/videos from classes as well as talks given by guest speakers. Here are some of my favorite from the past couple months:

Yale University - Bob Woodward - "Media's Impact on Politics: Focus on Richard Nixon and George W. Bush"
Stanford Univeristy - Al Gore - "The Earth in Balance"
American Public Media - Michael Pollen - "Where does your food come from?"
- George Ellis - "Cosmology, Science and Hope"
- David Kennedy - "Can America Still Afford to be a Nation of Immigrants?"

In particular the first and last talks in this list were really interesting. In fact I've found American Public Media to be a reliable source of good, informative talks.
Alright. That's all I've got for tonight.