In early July we joined my in-laws on a 2-day driving trip around the International Selkirk Loop, a series of highways that follow rivers and lakes through the northeast corner of Washington, the northern skinny part of Idaho, and southern British Columbia. These roads pass through some beautiful country in…
Category: Photography
Blitzing an old military base
This weekend a subset of my students and I spent a day at the Fort Ord Natural Reserve (FONR) to participate in the 2018 spring Bioblitz. We were supposed to visit FONR for a class field trip in early March to do some vegetation studies, but that trip was rained…
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A tourist in the nation’s capital – Day 4
Library of Congress I was completely unprepared for how astoundingly beautiful the Library of Congress is. From the outside it looks like another of the many federal buildings constructed in the Classical style. The interior, though, was spectacular. The ceiling of the Great Hall is magnificent–take a look at this…
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A tourist in the nation’s capital – Day 3
National Archives We spent the morning waiting in line to see things in the National Archives building. The lines to get in were very long, and even though we’d bought a membership the night before so that we could bypass the entry line, once we got inside the building there…
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A tourist in the nation’s capital – Day 2 (part 2)
Lincoln Memorial This is one of the most easily recognizable monuments in Washington, DC. It graces the back of our $5 bill and sits directly across the Reflecting Pool from the Washington Monument. Everybody knows what it looks like. From the outside, especially from the bottom of the steps, this…
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A tourist in the nation’s capital – Day 2 (part 1)
Monday 26 March 2018 — Memorials On Monday we ventured south of the Mall to the Tidewater area, where an extension of the Potomac river floods into a basin and forms a tidal pond. This area is where the famous cherry trees of Washington, DC, are concentrated, and we hoped…
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A tourist in the nation’s capital – Day 1
Spring break for me this year was the last week of March. I generally don’t travel far for spring break because it’s nice to have a week of nothing to do but not be working. This year, though, we decided to visit Washington, DC, for most of the break. I…
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Charismatic megafauna
I like to venture out of my comfort zone every once in a while, as that’s the only way to keep learning. Even though my particular area of interest is the marine invertebrates, there are a lot of other aspects of marine biology that are almost as interesting. And if…
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Disappearing puff balls
The other day I was walking along Pescadero Beach about an hour north of where I live. My husband and I had gone on a short afternoon hike in Pescadero Marsh and decided to return to the car via the beach. It was a windy afternoon, making photography difficult, but I…
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The hunt resumes
Day 2 (24 March 2017): Tehachapi, Antelope Valley, and Wind Wolves We spent the night in Bakersfield and the next morning (24 March 2017) headed up over Tehachapi Pass and headed into Antelope Valley. It had been many years since I’d driven over Tehachapi Pass, and I didn’t remember ever…
