Muck and Yuck

Today was a rather yucky day.

Nothing went wrong, but it was kind of hot and kind of humid and overall just kind of yucky as far as feeling well goes.

After some complications with rearranging groups, Cole and I, in an attempt to finish marking ground control points as soon as possible, took off with Scott and Greg from the UAV group again to see what we could get done. We went to the very back of the valley and continued our same process that we’ve been perfecting the last three days, until we had to split up so Scott and Greg could go figure out where they were needed next.

Cole and I took the next few, which were unfortunately well up into the hills on the south side of the valley (this began my not-feeling-so-good problems). We managed to finish before lunch, though, so we went back to the home base, or so I call it, to watch the launching (take-offs?) of the bigger UAVs. I’m not sure which one we saw flying during lunch, because it wasn’t one from our program but instead from a local company that was nice enough to come out and show us how awesome they are.

After lunch we went out with the archeology group, which I found extremely interesting because it’s so different from just finding reference points. Instead of looking for the most obvious points and the most distinctive manmade structures, we were suddenly looking for subtle patterns in rocks buried deep in the valley under trees and in waterways. It was a refreshing mental workout, as well, after repeating the same process over and over again without much variation or intrigue. But it was also hard work, and I felt like a wilderness explorer (at one point even wielding a machete, though it never actually left its protective cover).

Though I was exhausted and still felt kind of yucky at the end of it, our hard work was rewarded by a spontaneous detour to get shave ice! (aka snow cones). I got watermelon and lychee (I don’t know much about it, but it tastes like cotton candy), which was kind of a strange combination, but every bit as good as a snow cone can be.

As we don’t have much to do for our group when it comes to data processing, we had a pretty easy night, which means that for once, I’m actually not tired. Off to watch the in barn pool tournament that just got started. Goodnight!

Cole standing still for three minutes while taking a point. Would be a dull job, if not for the incredible view!