weekly exploits: field work

I am exhausted and spent this week taking 2+ hour naps. mom hauled me around in the car and backpack all weekend finding streams and bugs in the  desert. aka...lots of heat and no sleep for me.

keeping hydrated while the scientists collect data, blah blah blah

mostly, it is very difficult to sleep sitting up. 

but, my dad says it's good practice for being an astronaut.

(though we all know I'm well on my way to becoming a biologist,

we'll see if visiting the shuttle next week sways me to the dark side)

4wd roads, however, are very good for napping

the instant we got back on pavement, bam!, awake.

observe the cheeks in all their jiggling glory

still tired from all the hard field work even after a long night of rest

...well, for the babe at least. 

his mother was convinced we were going to be either get bugs in all our orifices or be trampled by cows in the morning....of course, both of which are typical irrational camping fears considering the bugs were not the biting type and we'd seen cows over a mile away. i spent the night inching his carseat closer to the middle of the tent trying to abate these potential demons. very minor yet just as anxiety driven as my usual visions of mountain lions pawing at the tent (aka, rain...thank you south fork provo) and snakes plotting with scorpions to curl up in shoes left outside the tent (aka, the age old debate of should the dirty shoes be smelly inside the tent or prone to critters outside of it)... so all in all a success for a recovering insomniac camping with an infant.

and what did we see? 

oh just an incredible view of mt. whitney

...and he is totally oblivious:

all that exists is his rattle

(which luckily kept him occupied most of the 12 hours of driving, 

only occasionally realizing that he was alone in the backseat and quite possibly abandoned for good

...let's just say there was mostly calm babbling 

punctuated by the occasional inconsolable stop-the-car-now freak-out)

in other news, we made a pit stop in good old tehachapi to visit friends

....much fun and still no sleep was had by all.

see you next week!