Beyond mountains there are mountains

Resolution: I am not camping for a long, long time. This is exactly what I said when I got back from field camp, and then I ended up going to Wyoming and camping…again. Driving out to Wyoming wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I was with 3 other museum people (one grad student, one post grad, one professor). We drove out in the museum paleo vehicle…which is a 2007 Lexus SUV. Only at AMNH would that be a “field vehicle”. It had 1000 miles on it when we started, but we fixed that. Because we drove we spent a ton of time just on the road and not on the field, but we did end up getting a solid 7 days in the field. Wyoming is very pretty, I like it. It reminded me a lot of Utah from field camp earlier this summer. My camera went nuts, so I need to post my pictures later after I can fix it. Since it was my first real fossil finding trip, I was happy to learn some techniques and find lots of cool bones. The formation is Eocene (approx. 55 myo). There are plentiful turtle, croc, and mammal fossils. We didn’t find any full skeletons or whole skulls but, maybe next year.

 

When I got back from Wyoming I went to my apartment. It is lovely, I am excited to finally get my new furniture (Saturday!), bring all my clothes, and actually move in. I keep just breezing in and out of the place and haven’t gotten a chance to enjoy it yet. I am in CT now getting the rest of the stuff to move in, but after this weekend, I am moving in for good. I love walking around, shopping, looking in used book stores, walking through the park, eating a lot, and going to my nice new gym already. The City is going to be an amazing time, I can already tell. Natalie was already in town for job interviews, so we got to have lunch together. I feel like a lot of friends will be passing through NYC at some point in their lives, so that is great too. I know you guys at Carolina just started school, and I’m kinda jealous I’m missing Chapel Hill, but the city is one of a kind. I start at the museum on the 28th for an orientation. Start class on the 2nd of September. It’s going to be new and totally crazy, but seriously I can’t wait. I promise I will be home and able to update way more frequentlyyy. Yay. Miss you guys!