2011, over and out.

Tomorrow morning our vacation is officially over and we are heading back to Tucson.  I'll update with photos and stories from Hot Springs in the next few days.

Hard to believe it's a new year already.  2011 has seriously flown by.  I've spent more time over the last 5 months sleeping in hotel rooms than I have in my own bed, which I'm sure accounts for some of the reasons why I feel like my life has been one big busy blur as of late.  Not that big, busy blurs are bad- I quite like keeping busy- but I haven't felt particularly relaxed in quite some time.  Maybe I'll be able to work on that in the coming months.  But as years go, 2011 wasn't all that bad.  We took some pretty awesome trips, I got to do some pretty fantastic archaeology, and I made some new great friends.

I'm not sure what 2012 has in store for us yet, and although I've tried hard to avoid thinking about it, I think some big changes are on their way.  My mood swings in regards to this from one extreme to the other on a daily basis lately, but I'm going to try my damnedest to be optimistic about things as this new year begins.  You know, assuming that the Mayans were wrong about that whole calendar thing.  

Bring it on, 2012.  Let's see what you've got.

Happy New Year, folks.

Texas Holiday

We loaded up the car and the pups and headed out of Tucson early Tuesday morning for the 16-hour drive to Victoria.  We finally got in around 1:30am, but for the most part, the drive was easy.  Just incredibly boring.  And thanks for small miracles, both dogs did really wonderfully in the car (Sienna was a nervous and confused wreck, but otherwise pretty mellow- ha!).

We've mostly just hung around the house since arriving... we took a trip down to Corpus Christie to see the beach (what little of it was there) and eat some seafood, but otherwise we've been mostly sitting around and watching Christmas movies.  Tomorrow, we head to Arkansas to spend a few days with Josh's family and friends.  Here is a photographic run-down of the last few days:

Thanks to Dad for the awesome roof cargo box... now way we could have made the trip with both dogs without it!

Yes, I drove 16 hours with a lit Christmas tree on the dashboard.  No shame.

Wrapping presents with 'Bad Santa'.  I probably enjoy this task way more than a normal person should.

I baked!  Andes Mint chocolate chip cookies.  Best.cookies.EVER.

Walking the beasts at the park down the street.

Cooking, with a rapt audience.

Happy Christmas!!

Quick trip to the Bay

This past weekend Josh and I took a very quick trip up to the San Francisco Bay area.  Josh had an interview (more on this later), so we got to spend three days in the area for the cost of almost nothing.  I ate my fill of dungeness crab, sourdough bread, and sushi.  I miss fresh seafood so much!  We spent all day on Sunday driving the Pacific Coast Highway and checking out the beaches and parks along the way, and did a bit of driving through San Francisco too.  I've gotta say, living in or near a big city like SF has almost zero appeal to me, but in exchange for being so close to the beautiful coasts, I think I'd consider it.

Now, onto Texas!  We'll spend the first half of our trip with Mom in Victoria, then after Christmas we will head up to Hot Springs, AR to see Josh's mom.  It'll be our first long road trip with the dogs... fingers crossed.

Wah-choo-ka.

I've been battling a cold for the last week, which has been less than pleasant.  But, at least I wasn't up in Phoenix listening to fighter jets all day.

This past week, I was sent down to Fort Huachuca to help with some site reevaluations.  I'll be there for another week or two, and then will head back up to Phoenix.  Sierra Vista is a helluva lot prettier than Phoenix, but I'll be happy for the slightly warmer temps up north.  When we arrived in the field this past Tuesday morning, the truck thermometer read 19 degrees.  Nineteen degrees!  That's just wrong.  No wonder my cold isn't going away.

A few things of note from this past week:

1.  The Army is way more laid back than the Air Force.  That is my totally uninformed, outsider perspective on it.  

2.  UXO is quite possibly the scariest three-letter acronym I've learned in a very long time.  Especially on a base that's been around for almost 150 years.  We had a UXO Safety training class on our first day of work, in which they showed us many examples of the horrible, scary things we could possibly encounter while hiking around.  This particular base has bombs/mortars/rockets/mines/etc from every war from the 1870s on.  I mean, I knew that they used some f-ed up sorts of weapons during WWII and Korea, but damn.  Actually holding some of these things and hearing about how they work and why they were created made me feel slightly squeamish.  Weapons freak me out anyway, so this was especially unsettling.  We didn't find any UXO, although we walked over quite a bit of shrapnel in a couple of places.  Gives me the major heebie-jeebies.   [Disclaimer: Yes, this is a real danger while working in this area, but the chances of us finding anything dangerous are quite low.  I think I am hyper-sensitive about stuff like this, and nobody else, including the army range management, seemed to think we had anything to worry about.]

3.  There is a large tethered surveillance blimp that flies over Fort Huachuca every day.  It is apparently used by the military, the Drug Enforcement Agency, and our good buddies the Border Patrol.  Who knew?

4.  Because the Huachuca mountains (which are directly south of the fort) are on the national border, this is a popular spot for illegal border-crossers.  We found a leather wallet last week, which conatined a man's ID card from Honduras and a hand-written list of phone numbers.  We also came across a couple of discarded backpacks, which are a common find around border areas.  I feel bad for the people who decide to make a run across the border and find themselves attempting to cross an army base.

5.  While getting ourselves turned around on dirt roads, we passed by a scenario camp complete with razor wire, big green tents, and hum-vees.  Then we turned a corner, and saw approximately fifteen men in long white robes walking towards us.  So we quickly turned around and went the opposite direction.  Apparently there was some sort of middle eastern role-playing going on.  Talk about unexpected!

6.  A good base layer of long underwear is my best friend for the remainder of my time at higher elevations.  The desert has really made me pathetically weak to the cold.

Four-eyes.

Somebody got fancy new glasses!  Even though I only really need them for reading and night driving, I have a feeling I may be wearing them more often.  Just because.

Christmas Decorations = Happy

Sienna is the saddest reindeer ever.

Callie is pretty oblivious, as per usual.  (Huh?)

And our house is officially cheerier for the next month! 

Thanks, border patrol.

Ah, the joys of living in the borderlands...

For Thanksgiving, Josh and I drove over to the tiny town of Lorraine, Texas (population 646) to spend a couple of days with his grandmother and many cousins.  It's about an 11-hour drive from Tucson, so we set out early Wednesday morning to make the drive.  Driving through Texas has got to be the most boring thing I've ever done.  And unfortunately, I've done it numerous times.  This time, however, we had an eventful pit stop about half way to Big Mama's house.

For those who have never driven far distances along Interstate 10 or other main highways through southern parts of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, you may not know about the friendly folks at the Border Patrol check points.  You may not even realize that there are checkpoints, because I-10 doesn't ever actually cross the international border.  Just past El Paso going east, everyone has to go through one of these mandatory checkpoints.  Typically, you roll down your window, a uniformed agent asks you if you are a US citizen, and then you go about your merry way.  Sometimes they have drug dogs walking up and down the line of cars, and sometimes they don't.  Sometimes they don't even make you roll down your window, they simply wave you through.  This time, Josh and I pulled up to the white line, rolled down our windows, and expected to be sent along like usual.  This time, the drug dog went bonkers around my car, we got a few very stern and suspicious looks, and were asked to pull over to the side of the road.

We were asked to step out of the car, and an agent assured us that they were only going to do a quick exterior check of the car, and that it would only take a moment.  "I need you to be honest with me.  Do you have drugs in your car?"  No.  "Okay, I'm going to ask you again, and you need to be honest.  Do you do drugs?  Do you have any drugs?"  No.  Seriously, No.  "You need to take your hands out of your pockets.  Is there something in your pockets?"  Next thing I know, there is a huge German Shepard hopping back and forth over the seats in my car.  Then we see a guy in handcuffs being led away by a BP agent carrying a huge mason jar of marijuana.  And there are two other BP agents trying to subdue a very loudly-yelling man in the back of a truck next to us.  And our stuff starts getting pulled out of the trunk of the car.  What is going on here?? 

We are asked to go sit inside the building for a few minutes, and when I inquire as to why I am not allowed to watch them search my own car (especially since my purse was still there), they tell me to stay put and not worry.  Right.  The handcuffed guy is now shackled to the same bench on which Josh and I are sitting while somebody counts out the giant wads of cash they found in his vehicle.  Awesome.

When they finally come back in to tell us that there are no drugs in our car (duh) and we are free to leave, we get handed the key and told nothing- no explanation of what set the dog off, no thank you, no have a good day, nothing.  When we go to get into the car, both front seats are soaked because the dog had knocked over a drink from the console and spilled it everywhere.  Our stuff is in a jumble in the trunk, our food scattered across the backseat, and my huge ziploc bag of homemade cookies had been trampled and ripped open by the drug-sniffing German Shepard.  All of this, and we weren't even crossing any borders!

Thanks for keeping our country safe, boys.

The rest of our trip was pretty uneventful, comparatively.  We spent most of our time hanging out at Josh's grandmother's house with she and Josh's mom.  I got to meet lots and lots of the family on Thanksgiving, and on Friday we took a little trip out to see an archaeological site on some land owned by J's aunt and uncle.  Then we drove back to Tucson.  On the way home, we got waved right through the border inspection station without even needing to roll down our window.  I guess the drug dogs at the Las Cruces border patrol station must not like cinnamon cookies as much as the El Paso drugs dogs.

It's that time again!

I may or may not have a small, USB-charged christmas tree plugged into my laptop, cheering up my desk.  Don't judge me.  I realize that it's not yet Thanksgiving, and I also realize that this makes me a little crazy.  I don't care.

It shouldn't be much of a surprise to those who know me well.  I broke out the holiday music last week.  And the decorations will come out as soon as we return from our Turkey Day travels on Sunday.  Red and green-sprinkled cookies are sure to make appearances in the near future.  Josh can roll his eyes all he wants... but I know that secretly he loves it too.  

The Tucson temperatures have dropped into the 60s!  It's winter! (Ha.)  It's the holidays!

We spent the last couple of days with Dad and some of the Trowbridge clan that I hadn't seen in over a decade.  It was good to catch up a bit with folks, and we spent an afternoon out at the Desert Museum, which I always enjoy.  Tomorrow morning, Josh and I are packing up the car and driving to Texas for a couple of days to spend Thanksgiving with his maternal grandmother and a ton of cousins from his mom's side of the family.  It's been a long time since I've attended a big family Thanksgiving.

Since I get crap for playing Christmas music too early, here is a Thanksgiving song for you.  Enjoy.

Bandita

A typical day in the office.

Sexy, I know.

Southern Fried Goodness

Four years and still going strong... Shane and Angel's annual Southern Fried Party is always a guaranteed throw-down of awesome food, people, and hilarity.  But mostly it's all about the food.

What you can't see is that there are many more plates of food on the chairs lining the walls.

The smorgasbord included just about every 'southern' dish you could imagine... cornbread, red beans and rice, fried catfish, fried pickles, biscuits, fried okra, chicken fried steak, fried chicken, cheesy grits, mac & cheese, collard greens, squash casserole, blackberry cobbler, apple pie, banana pudding, sweet tea, Texas Tea, bourbon, and Pabst Blue Ribbon... and undoubtedly some other tasty things that I've forgotten.  It was, in a word, fantastic.  I may not always be quick to claim my southern roots, but I do definitely love me some good home-cooked southern food.

I, of course, made my famous baked macaroni and cheese.  It's always a crowd-pleaser.  But I guess it should always be easy to please the crowd when you're dealing with pasta baked in more than a gallon of mixed cheese, milk, and butter.  I don't know how anybody could turn that down.

I think the Carrot Cake party may have taken the Number One food-related party spot in my heart this year, but the Southern Fried party will always be one of my favorite party ideas.  Ever.

When Meg's away...

This is what happens when I spend too much time out of town.  I guess we're just going to have to upgrade to a King-size in order to accommodate Callie's new fondness for stealing my half of the bed.  

If it goes around, it'll come around.

I think I used up all of my good archaeological karma back in New Mexico.  I should have known that I'd have to pay for all of that awesomeness.

Karma's revenge?  Luke Air Force Base.

In the last few weeks, I've found a total amount of artifacts equivalent to less than one bucket's worth of artifacts from my last project.  I've dug features that aren't actually features at all.  I've dealt with 40mph winds and accompanying dust storms, heavy rain and resulting mud, and daily temperature swings of 40 degrees.  I've become accustomed to the deafening roar of fighter jets all day, every day.  This project is testing my mental capacity to stay enthused about excavating-- and it's supposed to last for six months.  Maybe six months from now I'll find myself digging up Puebloan kivas and sandals again and then I can take it as a sign that I've paid sufficient penance.  [Seriously, how spoiled am I?  Sheesh.]

Valley Fever, here I come!

That being said, though the archaeology is daunting me at the moment, I am actually enjoying this project.  The crew is great, the pay is great, the accommodations are better than any I've had for prior fieldwork, and the schedule is actually pretty agreeable.  It sounds like the company plans to keep me around and move me up the ranks a bit, so really, I can't complain.  Things are good.

Sometimes, when the light is still low enough that you can ignore the fact that you're in Phoenix, 

this place is actually kind of pretty.

Small world

I've been getting to know people on my new work crew over the course of the last two weeks up in Phoenix.  I've worked with just a couple of them before, so there are lots of new faces-- mostly people form Tucson, but a few local people from Phoenix as well.  I've become accustomed to meeting archaeologists with whom I have many friends in common- Southwestern archaeology isn't exactly a huge field, and everybody seems to know everybody or at least be connected by no more than 2 degrees of separation... but it's the non-archaeological connections that can be really surprising.

Back when I was working in Chaco Canyon, one of my coworkers had come out to New Mexico for the summer from Charlottesville, Virginia.  Over the course of a few conversations about us both being from Virginia, we discovered that he had actually taken a drama class from my mom way back in middle school, sometime around 1990.  Crazy, right?  Now, as of last week, I have an even crazier small-world connection.

One of the guys in my crew was talking about a project he had worked on in Virginia.  I asked him where he had worked, and then commented that I had grown up around Richmond.  A different guy on the crew heard me say this, and replied that he was also from Richmond.  It went like this:

"You grew up in Richmond?  Really?  Where'd you go to school?"
  "Oh, well I actually grew up outside of Richmond, so I went to a little school just north of there."
"Huh, me too...  What school did you go to?"
  "Oh, it was called Patrick Henry High.  It's out in-"
"No you didn't.  Seriously?!  I went to Patrick Henry!"
  "No way.  ... Really?"

And this continued for a while, neither of us believing that the other had actually gone to the exact same high school in tiny little Ashland, Virginia.  Comparing notes about people we may have known in common, places we used to hang out.  Ashland, where very few people ever move more than an hour away from home.  This is just too weird.  Turns out we were 4 years apart in school, so we don't really know many people in common, but lots of my classmates were younger siblings of his classmates.  AND, we figured out that we both even worked at the same restaurant, only a number of years offset.  The restaurant isn't even in Ashland, it's in Richmond!

Two kids from a little town in Virginia who've never met each other, both become archaeologists with master's degrees from colleges on different sides of the country, and then somehow manage to both end up working on the same project in Phoenix, Arizona.  This kind of blows my mind.

I'll never outgrow Halloween.

I love dressing up like a fool.  So sue me.

Sometimes, I drag Josh into the foolishness with me.

I don't quite know if this can top the Hippo from last year, but I was pretty amused with the way that our costumes turned out this weekend.  And with only a few hours before the party!  Success.  Winning, even.

Unfortunately, I'll be in the field tomorrow night and won't get to see any of the trick-or-treaters at our house.  Josh is stocked up on candy and we have a couple of pumpkins on the porch, so hopefully our neighborhood will see lots of little people dressed as goblins, fairies, and inappropriately-clad pop artists... or whatever the kids are dressing as these days.

Happy Halloween!!

Bicycle Neglect

Poor Gustavo.  Look how sad he is.

My work schedule over the last few months has made it incredibly difficult for me to keep up any sort of regular training schedule, and as a result I have spent embarrassingly small amounts of time on my bicycle.  This makes me unhappy.  I have had every intention of racing El Tour de Tucson again this year, but have finally had to concede that it simply can't happen right now.  I could probably finish the race, yes, but it would be miserable.  After enjoying El Tour so much last year, I just can't bear to think about doing it all by myself this year, not being trained for it, and getting a much slower time.  111 miles is a long way to be in pain.

I've gone out for a few decent bike rides over the last couple of weekends, and I plan to get in at least a couple of rides every weekend from here on out.  I finally have every weekend available again, which will help a lot.  I'm not planning on any other bike races in the near future, but I will definitely be trying to set some mileage goals for myself so that I can keep up my consistency.  I miss my bike.

Steel-toed Sally

Yes!

Is it weird that I'm super excited about the new women's steel-toed boots by Keen?  I spent quite a bit of time a few months ago trying to find some decent women's work boots, and was pretty sad to find very few decent options.  (A decent option, in my opinion, does not weigh 20 pounds, does not reach more than an inch or two above the ankle, is not a military boot, and looks as much as possible like a non-industrial boot.)  Then today, after finding out that I now am actually required to wear steel-toes for work, I find these!  Perfect.  And basically the same shoe that I already wear... just sturdier.

Man.  I really am hopelessly casual, aren't I?  I think I'd probably die if anybody ever asked me to come up with a "business" outfit.  I don't even think I know what that means.

One little, two little, three little postholes...

Last week some of us placed a friendly bet.  The large Basketmaker pithouse that we excavated had a gorgeous bench along three walls, and it became quickly obvious that the entire thing was lined with small postholes.  (For reference, here is a good example of a typical Basketmaker pithouse.  The layout of our structure was identical to this, only larger.)  So, we took wagers as to how many postholes were on the bench.  Guesses from the whole crew ranged from 60 to 100, and I put my money down on 78.  The actual number?  79!  I walked away from work with fifteen whole bucks.  

Sadly, the amazing archaeology on Highway 491 has been postponed for at least the next few months.  We had budget issues come up that prevented us from continuing until more funding comes through, and since it's starting to get pretty cold up there, we're not likely to start any work back up until sometime next spring.  I'm sad to leave just as things were getting really exciting, but I have to say that I'm happy to no longer be working 8 ten-hour days at a time.

I'm currently working on the air force base in Phoenix, with a new schedule of 4 days on, 3 days off.  Even though the archaeology is way less interesting (more on that later), this schedule is much more agreeable.  It's definitely going to be great to have all of my weekends available for a while, and maybe, just maybe, I can start riding my bike regularly again!  In the meantime, I'm adjusting to the roar of fighter jets overhead.  Damn those things are loud.

Kivalicious!

Have I ever mentioned how much I love my job?  Well, I'm going to say it again.  I have the coolest job ever.  It's dirty, and it's exhausting, and it definitely doesn't pay the big bucks... but it makes me super damn happy.

I mean, seriously.  Look what I helped to dig up last week:

This is a keyhole-shaped kiva.  It probably dates to somewhere around A.D. 1000.  (A kiva is a subterranean ceremonial structure- they are still used in modern day Pueblos and exist for more than a thousand years into the archaeological record in this area.)  This is has a 50cm-tall deflector stone still standing in front of the hearth, a completely intact venilator shaft with nice stone-lined walls, and stone pilasters that would have helped to hold up the roof (which was removed when the structure was no longer in use).  Half of a whole pot sat on the floor, along with some metates and a few other small artifacts.  If you're not one of us, then you might not know that this is something that most southwestern archaeologists would love to excavate.  It was beautiful.

Then there was this beauty, which was found while we excavated a late Basketmaker III pithouse:

(It's a huge pipe... or, as I argued, maybe a prehistoric netti pot.)

And this:

And THIS!!:

I have seen uglier sandals than this one in museums displays.

This is not typical, and none of these are probably things that I will encounter on a regular basis in my career.  Then again, I said the same thing back earlier this summer when I was digging up whole pots and burned corn by the bucketful.  Awesome stuff seems to simply be falling out from under my trowel lately.

(Full disclosure here:  I helped to excavate the keyhole-shaped kiva in the first photo, but I was not actually the person who found either the axehead nor the giant ceramic pipe in the second and third photos.  I did, however, excavate the amazing sandal in the fourth photo, and also personally found a couple of smashed pots on the floor of a pithouse and some broken basket fragments.)

They're dropping like flies.

Congrats to Liz and Justin!

This past weekend, my good buddy and partner-in-adventuring Liz got hitched.  The wedding was held at Lost Dutchman State Park, with an amazing view of the Superstition Mountains.  Not too shabby, huh?

We arrived to the festivities on Friday night to party with the happy couple and other friends, went for a great hike up to the top of Flatiron Saturday morning, and celebrated the nuptials late into that night before finally crashing in our tent.  I must say, having your wedding guests camp at the reception site is a pretty fabulous idea.  The reception was a ton of fun, and I got to hang out with just about all of my favorite Tucson people (many of whom I don't get to see nearly enough).  This guy, for instance:

And these crazies:

And lots of other folks that I didn't get photos of!  And then there's this guy.  He's alright.

So another one bites the dust, but I'm super happy for Liz and Justin.  They're basically the same person, which seems to strangely work out pretty well for them, and their wedding was a perfect testament to their fun and outdoorsy-ness.  Well done, Mrs. and Mr. Cutright-Smith-Mapula, well done.

Havasu Falls (aka Definitely The Most Beautiful Place in Arizona)

This past weekend, for what was a very-belated-30th-birthday-present, Josh and I backpacked down to Havasu Falls.  (I gave him the permits for his birthday in June, but reservations for these permits have to be placed a few months ahead of time.  And the weather in October is way better than in June anyway.)

We had a fabulous time on the trip, and I can say that this is by far one of the most beautiful places that I've ever seen.  And so unexpected, right in the middle of the desert!  A true desert oasis.  I can't recommend this place enough for those who are looking for a fun and beautiful trip.  The hike is 10 miles each way, and with the exception of the first (and, therefore, last) 1.5 miles, it's really not all that bad.  Josh has already written about our trip and posted some photos on his blog, so I won't write much here.  But I will post some of the photos I took on my camera.

(click on any of the pics for a bigger view)

And, of course, Red Wine in A Nalgene!