A Year of Travel & New Year's Resolutions

I am relatively new to the geoblogging scene, but several geobloggers-- such as Callan Bentley over at Mountain Beltway and Jessica Ball over at Magma Cum Laude-- have posted a summary of their year of travel. I love travel, so I think I will continue their year-end tradition here at Georneys. Thanks to other geobloggers for the idea!

I am very fortunate to have the ability and opportunity to travel often, both for my work and for my personal life. Below is a summary of my 2010 travels. I've blogged about a few of these most recent travels. Perhaps I will blog about some of the others in the coming year, particularly since I plan to spend most of my time in lab and then writing up my thesis so that I can graduate!

December 2009 - January 2010: South Africa & Oman
My fiance Jackie lives in his native South Africa, so we commute between Cape Cod and Cape Town to see each other. My advisors are fortunately wonderful about letting me periodically work on my thesis from South Africa. I traveled to South Africa in December 2009 to spend the holidays with Jackie and his family. At the end of December, Jackie and I flew to Oman for a month of fieldwork for my thesis research. Jackie came along as my field assistant. We then flew back to South Africa, where I spent another week before returning to Cape Cod.

Jackie, an elephant, and I, Knysna, South Africa, December 2009.

Field Animal Favorites

If I were not a geologist, I think I would be a zoologist or would go to graduate school to study animal behavior. I really like animals. I limit myself to two housecats because I like to travel and animals require you to stay home and take care of them. However, a part of me wants a whole zoo... in my one bedroom apartment. I think this runs in the family. My grandmother has six cats, three dogs, fifteen horses, several cows, peacocks, and some goats. She used to have a three-legged goat that lived in her house with her. My sister has two ferrets, many lizards, and fish. My sister also breeds (yes, breeds) tarantulas. Yes, my sister is cool and bad-ass. My parents currently only have two cats and a dog, but when I was growing up we also had nine guinea pigs and myriad hermit crabs and fish.

Fortunately, in my geological wanderings I often come across field animals... so I will probably continue to limit myself to the two cats. This weekend I am mired in histograms and models and putting together my AGU (American Geophysical Union, a big annual geology conference) poster. I like analyzing data, but it can be a bit tiring sometimes. So, to take a quick break from data analysis and poster-making, here are some of my favorite field animals I've run across on geology trips. From camels to coatis to streetcats, they all make me happy.

Bison, Sheep, Goats, and Camels... Oh My!

Bison Jam, Yellowstone, Fall 2005.