No worries, Ping had a chance to go up (down?) to KBS to meet with Dr. L and also to do some sampling with UL. The meeting with Dr. L was at 10am but this is the first time Ping driving down there by herself, Ping left at 8am just to be sure there's enough time to figure out the roads if Ping gets lost. Ping printed out the directions from Yahoo! instead of from the KBS website...mistake! The directions from Yahoo! took Ping almost 2 hours to get there!! The roads are not very easy to find either because there's all these tiny farm roads. Ping was soooooo glad she left at 8am instead of 8.30am. It was totally a different route from the one Steph took when she drove us there last summer. Grrrr...but never mind. By the time Ping got there, the moody weather went away, replaced by a sunny and windy day!
After meeting with Dr. L, Ping wanted to go to Frona's for lunch but Ping lost her way again!! Arghgghg!! Next time Ping should go get a compass and bring along whenever Ping has to go to rural areas like that. All Ping saw was lakes after lakes (and Ping thought there was only Gull Lake there!!..another mistake - didn't look at the map before leaving) and farms after farms. So Ping ended up at some little cafe selling sub, which was pretty good because Ping was soooooooo hungry. Then as Ping drove around according to her instinct, Ping saw interstate M-43!!!
Drove back to the LTER plots and met up with UL. Spent the entire afternoon sampling with UL. This year, the crops are soybeans, which is a lot harder to walk around than when it was corns last year. But since Ping and UL went separate ways, Ping was kinda glad to be around soybeans than corns. Ping would definitely feel claustrophobic with corns that are taller than Ping! It is also harder to see any deers with corns - yeah, definitely don't want to bump into any of them. It was just lovely out there. It's like you just left everything behind, only you and the fields that lies in front of you acres after acres. Just Ping and nature - the greens, the warmth of the sun, the clear skies, the chirping of the birds, the rustle of leaves, the squirrels...simply wonderful.
Ping got home around 6pm and decided to skip the work-out session since Ping kinda did her work-out out in the fields (errr....kinda *grins*) and driving always makes Ping tired. So Ping stayed home and did some cleaning and guess what! Ping's chilli seeds has germinated!! When Ping was at tiptup's home at Boston, Ping saw her chilli plant and was surprised that it grew pretty well (Ping thought they could only grow in hot and humid Malaysian weather). When Ping came back, Ping just burried some of the chilli seeds into some rich soil...that was about a month ago. As the weather has been pretty fluctuative, Ping wasn't sure if the seeds were going to germinate, especially when some nights the temperature drops to 50F and sometimes the sun is covered by the clouds all day. But it did!! Ping got a new baby to take care now!! Will bring it to the lab (which Ping usually keeps around 25C) once it gets colder outside. The orchid seemed to grow fine so maybe the chilli will too. It seems like a suitable place too according to this article.
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