Snowy Survey

One of the great things about being an archaeologist is that you always know people who work in cool places and are looking for help with fieldwork.  Especially grad students... grad students always need help with their fieldwork.  Being the fieldwork-fiend that I am, I rarely turn down the opportunity to help people out with their non-office work.  Plus, there's something about volunteering to work with your friends that makes everything better-- I mean, when else can you drink red wine while surveying through the snow?

This past weekend, I went up to Winslow to help Liz with some of the survey work that will be a part of her dissertation research.  Liz, Megan, Kelly, and I drove up Friday afternoon, planned to survey Saturday and Sunday, and then return Sunday evening.  When we arrived in Winslow we were greeted by weather reports of snow and rain and below-freezing temperatures.  Yay.

It was, in fact, snowing Saturday morning when we got up and headed out for the day.  We made a stop by the grocery store for lunch, at which point we also made the cooperative decision to buy a large box of wine... which was delegated to numerous water bottles once we reached our starting point for the survey.  Honestly, I wonder how cold and miserable we would have been if not for that red wine throughout 5 hours of trudging through the horizontally-blowing snow and frigid winds.  Did I mention how much fun it is to do fieldwork with friends?  We found very little on survey, although Megan's outrageous enthusiasm for every single lithic and piece of petrified wood was quite entertaining.  This area consisted mostly of sand dunes, with the occasional rocky outcrop or cliff.  In other words, not the easiest walking surfaces- even in dry conditions.  By the time we returned to the truck in the afternoon, all we had energy to do was get ourselves back to the hotel and fall into the hot tub.

Saturday night, Liz took us all to the La Posada Hotel, which is a famous landmark in Winslow and quite a neat place to explore.  It was built by Mary Colter, who was an awesome female architect in the early 1900's, and the hotel has recently been in the process of renovation after years of neglect.  We had a fabulous dinner with fancy margaritas and wandered around the hotel premises a bit.  We also made a quick stop by the corner to take a couple of photos... because, you know, we had to.

Sunday proved to be much more amenable in terms of precipitation, but it was still pretty windy and chilly.  We found one small structure outside of our survey area, and again found very little on our transects.  But, we did have a pretty fantastic view of the snow-covered San Francisco peaks all day.  After another 4-5 hours of survey, we headed back home in the afternoon, pretty exhausted and ready to be back in the Tucson heat.  I'm not sure how helpful the work we completed was for Liz's research progress, but at least we all had a good time and enjoyed ourselves.  Is it a coincidence that boxed wine comes packaged in a vacuum-sealed bag which bares a striking resemblance to a Camelbak?  No, I think not.