The continuation of the internets!
May. 25th, 2010 09:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wispfoxToday, exploring the area around and in Los Alamos!
Woke up rather a lot later than I had been doing. I suspect the cold is why. Much coughing, since it got into my lungs and that happens in the morning. Very tired of coughing!
Had tasty bagel made by my former co-worker host that very morning, some conversation, then went off exploring.
Hunted for objects to shrink the footprint of my 6 gallons of water in the trunk, but failed. Need to find a camping store tomorrow, and probably get more electrolyte powder at the same time. Forgot entirely that I wanted to get a timer that my former co-worker wears around his neck because it seemed really useful and well-designed. Oops.
Visited the Science Museum, went to the visitor's center and got, among other things, a brochure for Pajaritos Environmental Education Center. Decided that was the next thing I needed to go to.
After visiting their various reptiles, I wandered into the gift shop (also office) and ended up deciding to purchase a canvas bag, as I'd forgotten all of mine at home. During the conversation about the bag purchasing, I mentioned that I was on a road trip around the SouthWest, and the guy I was talking to started suggesting places to go and things to do (very common, and charming, a reaction!). At some point, someone else wandered in with a question, and he went off to go answer it, and then suggested that I might be interested to and invited me along. There then ensued utterly charming bouts of intense, enthusiastic, geeking about local plantlife and flowers. They have a collection of labeled and identified dried flowers collected from around the region, filling what looked to be four large cabinets, and the person who had come in had a picture of something that he had seen while hiking that he was not sure if they already knew about. There is very little that makes me happier than being around people who are utterly enthusiastic about a subject, and utterly thrilled to be including other people in their conversations. I don't know a huge amount about identifying plant life, but I thoroughly enjoyed myself regardless.
They also gave suggestions of where to go nearby for the remainder of my day, and when I mentioned possible interest in going to the Valles Caldera for the rest of my afternoon, started giving me enthusiastic suggestions for where to hike if I have time, and what to look for. So, really, if any of you are ever anywhere near Los Alamos, NM, and have any interest at _all_ in outdoors things or plant life, definitely go visit PEEC. They are friendly, knowledgeable, and quite fun to be around.
At this point, I went to the aforementioned Caldera, which I was amused to note was labelled in PEEC somewhere as possibly having been their local version of Crater Lake, way back in the past.
In the Caldera, I saw very amusing prairie dogs, which I had never seen before. And someone nearby pointed out a distant herd of elk. Having been told about the elk while at PEEC, I was armed with my binoculars, and watched them for a while. I believe that none had antlers, so were all cows and perhaps calves (I'm guessing "calves", since I'd said "does", and the person nearby noted that they were actually called "cows").
Came back, jumped online long enough to start the photos uploading, enter in my receipts, pay my credit card bill, and transfer the money I _should_ have transferred before heading out from savings to checking.
Then, there was dinner with a bunch of people, who I believe were either neighbors or former neighbors of my two hosts. They were all very nifty, food was very tasty (remember the bagel I had that morning? My former co-worker - who, BTW, I had not interacted with while we were co-workers - had also been making Challa both as part of dinner and as an ingredient in the bread pudding he made for desert. Tasty foods are tasty!
Silly game called... nouns in a bowl, I think? Reminded me a little of 1000 Blank White Cards, in that we all wrote nouns (optionally including adjectives) on 5 pieces of paper, which we then folded up. These were all put into a bowl (or basket in this case), and mixed up. Then, because there were 8 of us, we had two teams.
First round, one of the members of the team picks out words from the bowl and can use as many words as they like _except_ the word(s) on the paper, in order to get their teammates to guess the word. They may also gesture. They have a set amount of time. We settled on 45 seconds. (one person noted that they thought it might start as 60 seconds for the first round, 45 for the second, and 30 for the third, but we kept it the same amount of time) Then someone from the other team does the same. This goes around until all the words have been guessed and pulled out of the bowl.
Second round, put the nouns back in the bowl. Same as the first, except you can only say one word. You may also gesture. Remembering the nouns from the first round helps!
Third round, only gestures. Remember the nouns used helps a lot!
Very silly game. We did not actually keep score, although I bet we could have based on how many pieces of paper each team had at the end of each noun.
Now, I need to go figure out where to obtain block ice again, and those camping store things. I suspect I may be stopping into Santa Fe on my way to Carlsbad tomorrow. As google is estimating 6 hours of driving to get myself there, I plan to leave around 10am tomorrow. This ought to allow me to stop into Santa Fe for those things I need, take a short break every 1.5 hours or so, and still make it to Carlsbad at a sane hour to meet up with a CouchSurfer there. I believe two days in Carlsbad, since it's _such_ a long drive.
I expect to do Carlsbad Caverns (people suggest walking down, elevator up), then Living desert zoo and state park. But not tomorrow! Tomorrow is driving. Lots of driving. More driving in one go than I think I'm doing at any other point during my trip. Well, that and driving back up again! Although I may spend a night camping in White Sands on the way back up. *looks* Yeah, that makes much sense!
Off to hunt things to find tomorrow, then to bed!
Pictures!
Woke up rather a lot later than I had been doing. I suspect the cold is why. Much coughing, since it got into my lungs and that happens in the morning. Very tired of coughing!
Had tasty bagel made by my former co-worker host that very morning, some conversation, then went off exploring.
Hunted for objects to shrink the footprint of my 6 gallons of water in the trunk, but failed. Need to find a camping store tomorrow, and probably get more electrolyte powder at the same time. Forgot entirely that I wanted to get a timer that my former co-worker wears around his neck because it seemed really useful and well-designed. Oops.
Visited the Science Museum, went to the visitor's center and got, among other things, a brochure for Pajaritos Environmental Education Center. Decided that was the next thing I needed to go to.
After visiting their various reptiles, I wandered into the gift shop (also office) and ended up deciding to purchase a canvas bag, as I'd forgotten all of mine at home. During the conversation about the bag purchasing, I mentioned that I was on a road trip around the SouthWest, and the guy I was talking to started suggesting places to go and things to do (very common, and charming, a reaction!). At some point, someone else wandered in with a question, and he went off to go answer it, and then suggested that I might be interested to and invited me along. There then ensued utterly charming bouts of intense, enthusiastic, geeking about local plantlife and flowers. They have a collection of labeled and identified dried flowers collected from around the region, filling what looked to be four large cabinets, and the person who had come in had a picture of something that he had seen while hiking that he was not sure if they already knew about. There is very little that makes me happier than being around people who are utterly enthusiastic about a subject, and utterly thrilled to be including other people in their conversations. I don't know a huge amount about identifying plant life, but I thoroughly enjoyed myself regardless.
They also gave suggestions of where to go nearby for the remainder of my day, and when I mentioned possible interest in going to the Valles Caldera for the rest of my afternoon, started giving me enthusiastic suggestions for where to hike if I have time, and what to look for. So, really, if any of you are ever anywhere near Los Alamos, NM, and have any interest at _all_ in outdoors things or plant life, definitely go visit PEEC. They are friendly, knowledgeable, and quite fun to be around.
At this point, I went to the aforementioned Caldera, which I was amused to note was labelled in PEEC somewhere as possibly having been their local version of Crater Lake, way back in the past.
In the Caldera, I saw very amusing prairie dogs, which I had never seen before. And someone nearby pointed out a distant herd of elk. Having been told about the elk while at PEEC, I was armed with my binoculars, and watched them for a while. I believe that none had antlers, so were all cows and perhaps calves (I'm guessing "calves", since I'd said "does", and the person nearby noted that they were actually called "cows").
Came back, jumped online long enough to start the photos uploading, enter in my receipts, pay my credit card bill, and transfer the money I _should_ have transferred before heading out from savings to checking.
Then, there was dinner with a bunch of people, who I believe were either neighbors or former neighbors of my two hosts. They were all very nifty, food was very tasty (remember the bagel I had that morning? My former co-worker - who, BTW, I had not interacted with while we were co-workers - had also been making Challa both as part of dinner and as an ingredient in the bread pudding he made for desert. Tasty foods are tasty!
Silly game called... nouns in a bowl, I think? Reminded me a little of 1000 Blank White Cards, in that we all wrote nouns (optionally including adjectives) on 5 pieces of paper, which we then folded up. These were all put into a bowl (or basket in this case), and mixed up. Then, because there were 8 of us, we had two teams.
First round, one of the members of the team picks out words from the bowl and can use as many words as they like _except_ the word(s) on the paper, in order to get their teammates to guess the word. They may also gesture. They have a set amount of time. We settled on 45 seconds. (one person noted that they thought it might start as 60 seconds for the first round, 45 for the second, and 30 for the third, but we kept it the same amount of time) Then someone from the other team does the same. This goes around until all the words have been guessed and pulled out of the bowl.
Second round, put the nouns back in the bowl. Same as the first, except you can only say one word. You may also gesture. Remembering the nouns from the first round helps!
Third round, only gestures. Remember the nouns used helps a lot!
Very silly game. We did not actually keep score, although I bet we could have based on how many pieces of paper each team had at the end of each noun.
Now, I need to go figure out where to obtain block ice again, and those camping store things. I suspect I may be stopping into Santa Fe on my way to Carlsbad tomorrow. As google is estimating 6 hours of driving to get myself there, I plan to leave around 10am tomorrow. This ought to allow me to stop into Santa Fe for those things I need, take a short break every 1.5 hours or so, and still make it to Carlsbad at a sane hour to meet up with a CouchSurfer there. I believe two days in Carlsbad, since it's _such_ a long drive.
I expect to do Carlsbad Caverns (people suggest walking down, elevator up), then Living desert zoo and state park. But not tomorrow! Tomorrow is driving. Lots of driving. More driving in one go than I think I'm doing at any other point during my trip. Well, that and driving back up again! Although I may spend a night camping in White Sands on the way back up. *looks* Yeah, that makes much sense!
Off to hunt things to find tomorrow, then to bed!
Pictures!
