最近很忙, 有好多experiment 要做. But it is pretty exciting time! I am sooo glad that I took over this project. In the past 8 months since my last committee meeting, I have way more useful data than all the experiments combined from the 2nd and 3rd year. 但有時候,若是有空,還是比較喜歡弄scrapbooking. :P 沒想到, 這短短的半年裡, 我的生活突然有那麼多的故事了.
Alright, here comes the Los Alamos trip...
Albuquerque airport is about 2 hours away from Los Alamos, which is where Steph is working at right now. She picked me up from the airport and we went over to Santa Fe, which is the capitol of New Mexico, for a late lunch. Unlike Michigan, the 1.5 hours ride from East Lansing to Detroit airport, while dull, is occasionally greeted with various towns and signs of life. The approximately 45 minutes drive to Santa Fe is surrounded by mountains and flatlands with very little flora. It sure is very brown.
It does get more interesting once we get to Santa Fe. The buildings are very unique, having flat roofs and are mostly made of concrete (as opposed to the more common wooden houses in Michigan). But I still think that their color choice of 'earth tone' is still too boring, as much as I love nature. We had a traditional Mexican lunch at Maria's. I had a platter of Blue Corn Enchilada that comes with Spanish rice and refried beans. They serve the meal with some kind of puffy bread that you eat with honey known as Sopaipillas.
After lunch, Steph brought me to the Santa Fe Plaza. It is a touristy area with shops selling various types of art, specifically, locally made New Mexico style art.
While it was interesting to see the arts of New Mexico, it is definitely not my kind of thing as the jewelleries are very bold (those that is very 'cha bak') and the decor art are too weird looking and as Steph also mentioned, you wouldn't know what to do with them. Like this piggy here...
One thing that you see everywhere is this Ristra. It is a bunch of dried chilli that they keep around for later consumption. Isn't that convenient?
Within the plaza area is also a chapel, the Loretto Chapel, that has a unique staircase. This staircase was built by a mysterious carpenter that disappeared after he completed it. Until today, it is still a puzzle how the staircase was built as it has no support and uses no nails. I think because this is such a precious architecture, they charge people to enter the chapel, which I was surprised when we first walked in to the chapel.
We arrived at Los Alamos when it was pretty dark out so I didn't get to see much until the next day. Steph has a very nice apartment with tall ceiling and has lots of windows for the sunlight to enter. The next day, we went hiking at Bandelier National Monument. It is a national park with ruins left over from the Pueblo era. The Pueblos are Native Americans who lived in the soutwest region of the States. I wonder how many people in the States today is still a Pueblo descendant.
The view of the park from one of the mesa.
We hiked through the Main Loop Trail, which goes through the archaeological sites. These walls made up the Tyuonyi, where some of the Pueblo people used to live in. Can you imagine living in such tiny spaces? I think I would be claustrophobic!
Some of them live up in the rocks that looks like Swiss cheese. These rocks are made of volcanic ash that got compacted over time. They make rooms out of those holes within the rock and strengthen their rooms by smoking the ceilings.
Some live even higher up, like this Alcove House. We have to climb 4 tall wooden ladders to get up to the top. Can you imagine carrying a bunch of wood and food they gather up these ladders?
The park maintains the archaelogical sites pretty well as you can still see some remains of the petroglyph that the Pueblo people used to make.
After we finished walking the Main Loop, we hike through the Falls Trail. The trail ends at the Rio Grande, where part of it forms the US-Mexico border. We didn't walk that far and the river didn't look very appealing either.
Similar to the chaparral in Arizona, Bandelier also has very little signs of life. In fact, at the time when I was there, it felt even more serene as the trees barely look alive and we only bumped into one squirrel which I call it the bunny-squirrel because it has long ears like rabbits.
We did walk past a waterfall that runs into a stream leading into the Rio Grande. This made me realized that as much as I love being out in the nature and hiking through national parks, having a waterfall or lake or some kind of pristine water body makes it much more interesting. It reminds me our home back in Penang. Although it is smack right in the middle of a tourist area, it is only within minutes away from the beach, the waterfall, the national forest, and mountains and parks. Mummy and daddy, thanks for such a wonderful place for me to go back to whenever I need a break!
The view of Los Alamos with the Rocky Mountains in the background. See the snow-capped mountain? That is the first time I have seen one!! (Reminded me of the hymn "His Love Lit Image" we used to sing in Sunday school). They must have gotten quite a lot of snow already as Steph pointed out a few mountain tops with enough snow for skiing. Isn't it amazing that just within a small geographical area, Steph and I was standing by some rocks with only a sweatshirt and when we look up, we see snow and there could be people up there in their winter coat, skiing!
Besides getting to hang out with Steph, the other highlight of my trip is - the blue skies!!! Steph said that it is actually cloudier than normal but coming from the rainy, gloomy Michigan for the past several weeks, it is actually refreshing!!
The trip ended with a yummy Italian dinner home-cooked by Steph before I have to leave for Michigan the next morning.
There may not be much to do in Los Alamos but I was glad to see Steph and catch up with her again. It is great to have friends that even after two years of not seeing each other, we are still bffs! It is even more special because Steph was the first person I met coming here to MSU. Lost and not knowing how to approach a professor, I bumped into Steph on the hallway of the BPS 6th floor. She offered her email address and I thought that she is the nicest person ever! Later, being in the same lab as her, I am glad I get to meet her before she graduated because she IS the nicest person, sweetest friend (she remembered my favorite Swiss Roll!) and the greatest mentor ever! (I love you Steph!) Really wish that one day, we (along with Kristi, Kristin and Jen) could all have a reunion somewhere. I might get to see Steph again next year at Seattle but will have to see what the 老闆 says about the abstract first.
