It's too hot in Louisiana to do much field work at the moment so I've been spending my time in the lab processing insect samples and I now have a start of a collection going on, as you can see in the pictures below. It's a real challenge trying to properly preserve and identify the insects, but ultimately very rewarding as well when you finally manage to identify a sample or when you find a cool insect you've never seen before.
On the other hand, it can be infuriatingly frustrating and such slow progress at times when trying to make correct identifications. So to keep me calm and stop me losing my mind over whether the hind trochanter is elongated or not, if the pronotal lobe is adjacent to the scutellum, whether the hind tarsi has four or five segments, or if the front tibia has two or three apical spines, I often listen to chill music. Top of the list is almost always Hammock, and they released a new song and music video a couple of days ago, called Tape Recorder. At the same time they also announced that their new album will be a double album entitled Departure Songs, to be released in October. Judging by this song along with snippets the band has posted on Facebook, this album should be impressive (and I have a suspicion they will be releasing a video for every song as well)!
Off on our lab's second east coast census trip of the summer on July 26, can't wait to hit the road again...
My parents came to visit me this June, and it was so great to see them after 10 months of living away from New Zealand and only having contact through emails and Skype calls. There is only a certain amount of time you can spend in Baton Rouge before you run out of things to do, so we decided to meet up in Boston, where Mum and Dad have friends, and make our way back down to Louisiana.
I had a day in Boston with Mum and Dad which was a good way to start the trip. I managed to see a bit of the city, including Beacon Hill and Harvard, but I definitely have to go back there again. The next day we took a bus to New York, arriving in time to get out in the early evening and see the Empire State Building, Grand Central Station, Times Square, and to go up the Rockefeller Center Tower and check out the stunning views of the city at night. The next day we packed in a lot of sightseeing in the city - walking the Brooklyn Bridge (great view of the city), visiting the 9/11 memorial (really good), taking the Staten Island ferry past the Statue of Liberty (and right back again), and biking around Central Park (which was huge).
Looking out at the Empire State Building and NYC
The Statue of Liberty
Phragmites in Central Park!
The next morning we caught a bus again to Washington, D. C., where we met and stayed with Jim Close, a really distant relative from my Mum's side, and his wife Alice.They were great hosts and with their help we were able to see a lot of D. C. in just one day. We spent the entire day just walking down what is called the "mall", a central area housing all the important US political landmarks (Capitol Building, the White House, Supreme Court, etc.), Smithsonian Museums (Natural History, Air and Space, American History, National Gallery of Art, etc.), and impressive monuments (Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson, Korean War, Vietnam War, World War Two, etc.). The buildings were really a sight to behold, with magnificent architecture and the weather was perfect (as it was the entire trip - we were so lucky), making for an excellent day. With sore feet, which we were now accustomed to, we headed back for a delicious dinner and to try some excellent Breckenridge beer brewed by Jim's son in Denver. That Saturday night I was also lucky enough to meet up and have a drink with my mate Sean, a dude I studied with at Lincoln University back in New Zealand, and who is now finishing up his Master's here at Virginia Tech.
Where Mr. Obama lives
Inside the dome of the Capitol
After Washington, we rented a car and headed for the more laid-back south, stopping in on the way to visit Garth, an old work-friend of Mum's, and also at a small town in Virginia called Colonial Williamsburg, which is essentially a town set back in time by 200 years where you can walk around and see how Americans lived back then. We arrived at Myrtle Beach later that evening to visit more distant relatives from the same family, Peggy and her husband Frazer. Myrtle Beach was a nice beach town, a bit touristy, but it provided us a good chance to relax after so much sightseeing the previous few days. We went swimming a couple of times in the really warm Atlantic Ocean, and also enjoyed a marsh walk and lunch beside a river.
Early morning fisherman having a go while we swam
Atlanta was a really fun city as well. which was our last major stop on the way to Louisiana. On the way we visited Charleston, a historic city in South Carolina, which was cool. We made it to Atlanta too late to do much, but walked around the park built for the 1996 Olympic Games, and checked out our amazing hotel, which also happened to house the entire CNN studio! The next day we were up early to check out the famous Atlanta aquarium. It was the best aquarium I have been to so far and featured many amazing displays, with Beluga whales, African penguins, sea otters, Japanese spider crabs, and many species of frog. But by far the most amazing attraction was the huge tank housing four whale sharks (the biggest fish in the sea) and also a number of giant manta rays. After a couple of hours at the aquarium we moved next door to see the World of Coca Cola, appropriately located in the birthplace of the drink itself. The highlight of this was taste-testing all the different drinks that Coke produces from all over the world (Coke is sold in over 200 countries).
River tank at the Atlanta aquarium
Finally after a nine hour drive we made it to Baton Rouge, where we would be spending the next couple of days. I gave Mum and Dad a tour of the city, where we checked out the Mississippi, State Capitol Building, Old Capitol Building, and Magnolia Mound Plantation, before I gave them a long walking tour of the LSU campus. A tour of everything cool in Baton Rouge only takes a day, but it was definitely cool to show them around where I've been living. The next day we headed west into the Atchafalaya Basin to take a swamp tour. I still hadn't been on a swamp tour myself and it was a great experience, speeding around through the beautiful old swamp on an airboat - you can check out a video below. We got to see a couple of alligators right beside the boat. The guide had been feeding them for about five years - not chicken, not beef, not fish, but marshmallows!
The next day we arrived in New Orleans, where we stayed the night before Mum and Dad flew home the next day. Our amazing hotel (nicest I have ever stayed in) was right on the corner of Orleans and Bourbon, in the middle of all the action of the French Quarter. We wandered around town for a while before taking a cruise on the Natchez, the famous steam boat of New Orleans, followed by a couple of drinks at the hotel bar on Bourbon Street, and a walk down the famous party street itself. Being a Sunday night it was pretty quiet though.
It was a great experience to travel the east coast at a more leisurely pace than when on a field trip, and it was even more special that I was able to do it with my parents. It was great to see them, and hopefully we can travel some more again soon!
I knew about the importance of the fourth of July in America since I was young, entirely due to a Will Smith movie I owned on VHS with the same name as this blog title. In the movie aliens invade earth on Independence Day (July 4), with the movie ending with the sort of fourth of July fireworks you would expect from Hollywood.
My fourth of July experience didn't feature alien motherships blowing up entire cities and being fought by space-jets, but it was a holiday, and it was definitely an experience to remember. My friend Pradip had just moved to a new place and his new roommate Whitney had invited him and a couple of friends (one of which was me!) to stay at his holiday house just out of New Orleans. It turns out the house was part of a really cool little fishing camp situated on a bayou in John Lafitte Preserve, which could only be reached via boat.
The camp in John Lafitte Preserve, just south of New Orleans
It was such a unique experience to stay at this camp. Some of the houses were just holiday houses, but others live there permanently and made their living off the land and bayou. Whitney took us to meet his friends who live, fish, and hunt in the area and introduced themselves as "swamp people" (as in the TV series - VIDEO). They showed us their soft-shelled (blue) crab tanks and we grabbed some which had freshly shed their shells, fried them whole in fish-fry batter, and ate them between two slices of bread with hot sauce. A true Louisiana delicacy apparently!
We packed a lot of fun into the two days we were there. We messed around on the water a lot; cruising around in the boat looking for alligators (we saw a couple), canoeing, kayaking, fishing (no luck), and the most fun of all - being towed behind the boat in an inflatable tube! We also relaxed in the cool of the house to escape the heat, had a BBQ and beers to celebrate fourth of July, and watched fireworks from afar. In all, I couldn't ask for a better first Independence Day. Now, back to doing a bit of hard work instead of travelling - at least until August when we redo our east coast Phragmites field survey!
View from outside the house
Nice bit of swamp, no gators though
Soft-shelled crab - you fry and eat the entire thing
