Poopcorn

A day late, but, as promised, here is the tale of poopcorn.

We were camping in Yellowstone, as you may remember from a previous post. After dinner we started a campfire, as did our neighbors. We were enjoying the fire, Thing 2 had us dance around singing a silly song, we sang some real campfire songs, and we made s'mores. [On a side note, eating s'mores does not combine neatly with having a mustache].

Our neighbors had no marshmallows, but did make JiffyPop over their campfire. Thing1 thought this was really cool and asked if we could make popcorn the next night. So the next day we stopped by the store and picked up some JiffyPop. But this story isn't titled 'Popcorn', now is it?

One can only drive by so many bison before the story of the pioneers using buffalo chips as fuel for their fires is mentioned by one (or both) know-it-all parents. The Things were amused and intrigued by this idea of burning poop, so we hit upon the idea of 'poopcorn' - cooking our popcorn over a buffalo chip fire.

After returning to camp, I went on a chip hunt. With the number of bison around, and their prodigious pooping ability, it did not take long to find a well-aged patty. After supper, we built a campfire, and when we decided the time was ripe (ha ha), on went the chip.

How does a buffalo chip burn? Not as well as the bone-dry lodgepole pine branches we had been using in the fire, but a cheery yellow flame licked (ugh) around the edges of the chip. And while there was a slight odor, it wasn't any worse than regular wood smoke.

The unburned center of the chip blocked most of the heat, so we waited until it was mostly consumed (yeck) before starting our JiffyPop.

The experiment was a success. We enjoyed delicious poopcorn, just as the pioneers must have 125 years ago.


And we got a funny story out of it, too.

Fighting boredom

This is rather pathetic, and a real commentary on the modern life in which we (in particular - I don't wish to cast aspersions on others) have ensconced ourselves, but one thing we struggle with is boredom, particularly in the evenings after the kids have been put to bed. We are, of course, used to having a TV about. This has stunted our ability to self-entertain. We are used to living in bedroom community suburbia, so we are not used to inviting people over to our house for things like card games or conversation. Initially, we read books - we had brought some with us, and there is a stash at WMSC that various people have left behind (a common practice at field stations) - but eventually we ran low, and then out, of new reading material. Having not moved our household goods yet, we don't have our full library here, which doesn't help. We have also been watching DVDs on my laptop, but again, we've played out the library we brought with us pretty well by now. And Netflix turnaround from the island is about 6 days. The other day I broke down and ordered a flat panel TV.

Which brings up our space limitations. I thought people might like to see the digs, so here are some pictures that make the place seem bigger (and less dusty) than it is. I should also note that these were taken immediately after our first cleaning of the house, so please don't think the floors are always that clean, or that the beds are made on a regular basis.

Here is the front of the house. It is at the end of row of 5 or 6 units. They things really like to climb in the little tree that's in front.


The house overlooks this nice little courtyard in which the deer poop and the children play. Some graduate students are living in the house opposite. It's a quiet place, but on weekends the sounds of the DJ down at the restaurant/bar are clearly audible (even with the windows closed).


The main room is sunny and cheery, due to our exposure (just about due east) and the skylights. The striped hardwood floors take a little getting used to, but I'm sure it's better than carpet in this dusty environment.




The kitchen is, well, tiny. Yes, that's it there in the corner. Not sure where all our stuff is going to go once it gets here.


The things are enjoying their bunk beds. One other feature of the room is not visible in this photo. The doors to the closet are mirrors, making the room look bigger, and providing hours of entertainment for silly boys.


The master bedroom seems sizeable. It is also nice and sunny due to the current lack of window treatment in the eastern window. From that window we can clearly see the door to the little red schoolhouse. We have dreams of shouting downstairs "Get up! Get dressed! Get breakfast! Make your lunch! Go to school!" and then looking out the window to see Thing1 disappear through that door.


Finally, we have the backyard. Bit of dust bowl right now. Not a living thing in it except the eucalyptus tree. Expect some improvements here.


Tomorrow: Poopcorn

Life in Two Harbors

Our life in Two Harbors (TH) has now begun. So what is it like?

As far as my job goes, it's still very start-up-y (to coin a useless phrase). I had been working from home on a slightly different computer set-up (Debian there, RedHat Enterprise Linux here), and thus I am learning the differences in systems administration, and downloading and installing packages and perl modules I need, and, of course, lots and lots of trouble shooting. After two weeks, I finally got the web page I built in Maryland working correctly. I'm still spending a fair amount of time dealing with move issues - settling insurance issues, trying to schedule the move of our household goods, trying to make sure our bills are being sent to the proper address. (I am learning the insidious disadvantage of the 3 hour time difference.) Science-wise, I am playing catch-up to try to figure out project requirements and what questions we're trying to answer and come up with solutions that don't include a 40-person IT infrastructure and a 300 node grid. On top of this, a new conference center is going up (http://biology.usc.edu/BooneCenter/ - warning: lots of images, so don't click unless you have broadband), and just as I started working, they started shipping houses across the channel. Not too much of a disruption there, a house driving up the hill and past your office door.

One thing that has been difficult has been a lack of a vehicle on the island. It's about 2 miles to campus from TH. For the first week our friends were out of town, so we borrowed their 4Runner. The next week we had to do with occasionally borrowing a University vehicle. I adapted my commute by borrowing a kayak and paddling across the harbor (flat, straight, not dusty) instead of walking the road (hilly, curvy, very dusty). For the most part, this is exactly as cool as it sounds - a little exercise, a way to enjoy the water and weather, a pleasant commute - but I don't have a proper waterproof bag yet, so I don't risk taking anything electronic (except, of course, my phone).

The two biggest problems we've encountered so far are laundry and groceries. There is an overused laundromat in town, and an overused laundromat at WMSC. Both are far enough away from the house that it's unpleasant to get there without a vehicle, and, like I said, they're overused making it hard to find an available machine. We have solved that problem by purchasing a washer and dryer this weekend (our unit has hook-ups). We went to the mainland this weekend and bought a pair at StuffMart. The island idiosyncrasy here is that they will be delivered to a USC pier to be hauled across the channel. I need to call the facility and let them know to expect it and put in on the next available boat. So laundry should be solved when they arrive and we can get someone to hook them up.

One solution to the food problem is to drive over to Avalon, on the other side of the island, but since we don't have a vehicle yet... (Plus, there's a pronounced price mark-up.) The other choice is to stock up on the mainland. (Guess what else we did this weekend.) A third option is to attempt to shop for some groceries on-line (Amazon has dry goods!), but selection there is spotty, and you can't get milk and vegetables. A fourth option is to add to the order the WMSC dining hall puts in each week. We're starting to figure out how well each of these options will work for us. We haven't missed a meal yet, but we have run out of things like milk (two Things, remember?) and bread (oh yeah, everyone's eating lunch at home).

One thing that should simplify our life is our other major purchase of the weekend, a 2003 Nissan Pathfinder. It's unbelievable how hard it was to find a used 4-wheel drive vehicle in LA. Either they have 100K miles or they're overpriced brands or they're not on a truck body. We finally reached desperation after two days of shopping. Luckily this vehicle popped up, and I think we got an okay deal. It is also at a berth at the Port of LA waiting to be put on a barge. It's disheartening to spend $16K one day on a vehicle and the next drop it off and only receive a little piece of paper. Not to mention we only have one key for it, but that's another story...(stupid microchips).

Don't know what else to say right now. I've met people at WMSC, but nobody in town yet really. Except for the Harbor Master. He's married to one of the admin. assts. at WMSC. On busy weekends he even drives a shore boat, and we happened to be down at the dock in TH and the Things got into a conversation with him. (Thing1 is not so shy.) The funny thing is that I didn't realize he was the Harbor Master, since he was driving a shore boat, and we ended up going to a Conservancy dinner that same night with him and his wife. I laughed when I realized it was the same guy.

But I guess that's TH in a nutshell. They guy driving the shore boat is the same one with whom you attend a dinner at a Boy Scout camp run by Mormons and attended by the former CEO of Pioneer along with other well-heeled, old money types. You know, like every other small town.

The end of our vacation

So I realize that I haven't finished the description of our cross-country trip. For those of you who have been sitting at your computers for the last two weeks hitting 'Refresh', here (as Paul Harvey says) is the rest of the story...

Day two at Yellowstone. Our first stop was Mammoth Springs. I had been particularly excited to see the giant cascading hot springs I had seen on the web. We made a minor mistake in parking in the lower parking lot, which meant we had to climb up a long boardwalk, which, of course meant there would be much whining and complaining from Thing2 about how tired he was and how hot it was (did I mention it was hot, like, Africa hot?) We did manange to make it to the top, to discover that due to recent water flow, geologic conditions, whatever, only one part of it was actually flowing. Now I have to admit that, despite my disappointment at the limited flow, it was really cool (stinky, but very cool). The flowing water building these little pools, water cascading over the edges like a fountain, colorful streams of microbial mats - very beautiful.

We finished there close to lunch time. We had planned on doing another hike, to an overlook of the Yellowstone River, but had no interest in doing another hot, sunny hike like the previous day's. We drove down to the picnic area from which the hike started and ate. The Things had a good time climbing around on rocks while I scouted out the trail to see what it was like. I decided it wouldn't be a good idea to try it with the boys, so Sweetie identified another trail we could do, way down on Yellowstone Lake.

This turned out to be a boon. After a long drive down, we arrived at a shady, flat trail. After coddling Thing2 through his first experience peeing on a tree (he was very excited), we took off down the trail. We came to a break in the trees at the shore of the lake. We noticed some movement down the beach and saw a coyote about 40 feet away. We looked at it, it looked at us, then it trotted into the woods, crossed the trail behind us, and disappeared. Still awestruck by this close encounter, we noticed more movement in the bushes a little ways away, and saw a bull bison rolling in the dust, a little beyond where the coyote was. This was a little closer than we really cared to be to a bison, so we moved down the trail. We stopped to wade in the lake; the Things got their pants wet. Sweetie looked up the shore at some birds: an adult bald eagle and some white pelicans. Very cool. And then we saw the coyote again! It swam across a channel to a spit of land and started chewing on some piece of carcass it had stored over there. Like I said, this was a great hike! Then we were done for the day, and so it was back to camp.

The next day, we packed up camp and headed south toward Grand Teton NP. Of course, we had to stop for a hike, this time up to Harlequin Lake in the hopes of seeing some waterfowl or beavers. It was, you guessed it, a hot, sunny hike. Mercifully, it was short. The lake was a bit of a bust. We did see some grebes, but nothing too interesting, and despite several lodges there were no beavers about.

We stopped and did some shopping before we left the park (also got some ice cream). Then it was down to Grand Teton. We decided to camp there for the night (although I was feeling some serious vacation fatigue at this point). The Things attempted to fill up Jackson Lake with rocks while we waited for our dinner at a pizza place at the marina. The Things and Sweetie played a card game called Trash. Thing2 was playing for the first time and beat the pants off of the others. Thing1 at one point (he was having terrible luck) was literally laughing and crying at the same time. Very odd.

We awoke the next morning, packed up camp, and headed off in search of moose and Trumpeter swans, both of which had been spotted in the park. We went to where we were supposed to see Trumpeter swans and saw, of course, a bull moose. But no swans. Having accomplished half our mission, we drove down to Jackson Hole. Just outside town, and right next to the road, is a small river preserve. As we drove by we saw some large white birds; you guessed it - Trumpeter swans! Two pairs, one with two cygnets! This was very exciting, and we watched them for quite a while.

So that really was pretty much the end of vacation. We drove straight down I-15 from there. We did have some bonus vacation as we drove past Zion National Park, and when we visited Hoover Dam, and when we went to the beach in Long Beach.

I'll try to get some more photos posted, but we're playing musical computers here so there might be a delay. I'll also do some more posting about life on the island tomorrow. (Hopefully.)