One small step for mankind...one giant leap for the Nelsons

We've arrived. Yesterday we took the USC boat out to the island at 8am. We took a lot of gear with us. We had all our camping gear, two over-sized suitcases and a duffle bag and a laundry bag that contained a large proportion of our clothing, a roll-on bag full of toys and books, a bag full of shoes, two totebags full of toys and books, two Lego lap-desk thingies, four boxes of dry and canned goods, two coolers of perishables, three laptop computers and one photo printer. Oh, and two Things. It's good to travel light.

We arrived at WMSC at about 9:15. Our friends who work there are both travelling right now, so they lent us their truck. We carried some of our stuff over to the new domicile and began unpacking. A University truck delivered the rest of our stuff. At lunch we ate at the WMSC cafeteria. A large bull bison decided to wander onto the property (not many fences can stop them, if they put their mind, uh, weight to it). He munched grass below us as we munched sandwiches on the patio. Welcome to Catalina.

The Things were both very excited about the boat trip, the new house, their bunk beds, the backyard, the tree in the front yard, everything. We had to take a trip down to the playground, which was hilarious, because while I sat there reading the latest Harry Potter, they holed up in a tube that was part of the playset. I wasn't sure they were still there, they were so quiet. But every once in a while Thing 2 would pop his head out and announce "We're playing Star Wars!" We went home and both of them fell asleep sitting up on the couch trying to watch a Speed Racer DVD.

We ate a delicious first dinner of salmon and cucumber sauce and pasta (ask Sweetie for the recipe) and then tried to get the Things to go to sleep. Eventually they succumbed.

Today I actually went to work, leaving Sweetie to deal with the Things on her own. (And I took the truck.) It was a day of setting up email and re-familiarizing myself with the computer setup. At one point, just as I was trying to establish a connection with WXYC (the UNC-Chapel Hill radio station which has a internet simulcast) to diminish the irritation of taking an on-line sexual harrassment training course, the internet connection cut out. For someone who does bioinformatics, this is the same as taking a writer's pencil or an engineer's scientific calculator. I could get no work done. Welcome to the island, so I thought. So I called an old friend who lives in CA, and had a nice chat with him. After lunch, still with no internet, I tracked down the lab manager (who is responsible for calling ITS when problems arise) and she said there was nothing wrong with her connection. I returned to my computer to discover that when I had tried to plug in my headphones, I jostled the ethernet cable and killed my connection. Oops.

I ended up having a rather productive day. Arriving home, Sweetie told me (to my suprise) that the Things had been remarkably good during the day, playing with each other inside, outside, on the computer, with not much fuss. Maybe it's something in the air? Anyway, another mostly pleasant evening passed. (Thing 2 did complain before taking a shower that "something smells funny" - I had to explain that it was the water. It's very hard, and smells faintly of seashore, and tastes, well, greasy. It's hard to explain.)

So two days down and things are going pretty well. Our friend Karla said that it would take time to adjust to the slower pace of life, and I can see how that will be so. But the advantages of cool, sunny days and offices with doors that open to the outside with gulls crying in the background and bison sitting on the volleyball court are immediately apparent to me. Tomorrow, Sweetie is planning on taking the boys to the beach, a walk of nearly a quarter mile. She may swing by the lab and we can go sea kayaking at lunch time. In not too long, we'll probably allow the boys to run down to the playground by themselves.

In time, there's a chance we might like it here...