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eisoj5Long weekend. Some good things, some rather disappointing things, lots of pictures! :)
On Wednesday, I left around 8:30 to drive up to Denver. I've never driven that great of a distance before by myself, but I had a flash drive loaded with songs and a bunch of snacky things. So it really wasn't all that bad. Even Wolf Creek Pass, which has historically (okay, all of twice now) been frighteningly snow-covered when Ronnie and I have driven it, was nice and rather pretty.
I managed to get into Denver around 3:30 but decided not to rely on my MapQuested directions and drove based on the map instead, so I took kind of the long way around...but it was good, because then I figured out where some things were in town. The traffic was kind of scary, actually. I mean, it's only been about a year since I last drove on a real freeway, back in Michigan, but it was unnerving to suddenly be surrounded by lots of cars also going very very fast, trying to change lanes, watching for crowded one-way streets, etc.
I stayed in the Ramada Inn downtown, which I had hoped would be within walking distance of the convention center (it was really a couple miles away) but after driving around the city a bit, I decided that walking all the way down there would be somewhat silly, especially since I had my car. I mean, yeah, we walked a TON in New Orleans for the AAM conference and we always ended up so freaking tired after... Anyway, so I drove to the convention center and couldn't figure out its parking garage, so I ended up parking at the Hyatt. For $21. Yeah, that blowed. Oh well.
Thursday, I went to a couple of sessions: one on literacy skills in a chemistry lesson, which was okay, and the other on a lesson plan for writing about ecology. The guy leading the second workshop was a storyteller who was rather too fond of his own accomplishments; every couple of minutes he was like, "like I wrote about in my last book" or "Sierra Club wants me to write for them" or "this poem I wrote in my upcoming book" and it was really quite maddening. *rolls eyes* The lesson plan was pretty good, though. In between, the guy who wrote Rocket Boys, which became October Sky, gave what was more-or-less the keynote address, and I went to the Exhibit Hall and tried not to spend too much money. I got free Mentos from a Diet Coke + Mentos display, a catalog from We Add Up (I want a "Shower Together" shirt but they're expensive), a neuron from Giant Microbes, earrings from Astronomy To Go (website forthcoming), and the usual assortment of business cards but not too much other random swag. Oh, and I saw this cool necklace based on the supernova pictograph at Chaco. (Expensive, though, and I suppose I could probably make my own more cheaply.)
And...then I went to DMNS!! YAY FOR DINOSAURS!!!!!! (Er, see the pictures. Also, I spent a lot of time looking at the birds and stuffed animals.) The gift shop kinda sucked, though. Hardly any t-shirts, not nearly enough dinosaurs, too much high-end, seemingly unrelated jewelry and tiny boxes that you can't put anything in.
Thursday night I had dinner at the bar across from the Ramada and actually managed to finish my amaretto sour, for once. :)
I was SUPER FREAKING EXCITED about Friday's field trip. We were scheduled to go to Dinosaur Ridge and look at dinosaur tracks, and then visit Red Rocks and Triceratops Trail. It didn't exactly start off spectacularly...there was a DVD on the bus ride out, and I kind of slept through it. When we got to the visitor center, there was a really, really cool rock with Allosaurus bones in it. They were only 10% permineralized, which was awesome!
...Turned out it was the best thing we saw all day, sadly. The tour guide was very, very, very boring. I mean, we were a GROUP OF TEACHERS and he was just completely unable to speak to us as either equals, or as anyone resembling an interesting person. *sigh* AND he kept getting the names of things wrong, or he wouldn't remember the names at all--and then he said something about how the names didn't really matter! This, about an Ornithomimus! AND he said archaeologist instead of paleontologist! I pretty much tuned him out after that.
Nonetheless, we did get to see a lot of cool dinosaur tracks, and some other fossils. And I met some cool teachers from Houston, with whom I had dinner that night. We went to Coyote Ugly first, which was...slightly awkward. There weren't very many people, and only a couple of girls dancing on the bar, who didn't seem to be having much fun with it after the first song. After that, though, we had dinner at Maggiano's, which was pretty nice. I spent most of dinner talking to Max, one of the Houston teachers, who went to Harvard and roomed with a guy from Cortez, weirdly enough.
On Saturday, I went to two more sessions: one about the art of science and the science of art, where we got to play with a couple of experiments, and one that was a lot like my SOE classes on literacy and teaching vocab. The latter, however, had a couple of teachers from Cortez and Mancos there, too, which was unexpected.
After the conference ended, I drove out to Boulder to visit Erin. On the freeway, I got honked at. The first time, I ignored it...but the second time, I realized the woman was trying to flag me down to let me know I had a flat. Grrr. So when I got to Boulder, half an hour later, after driving at probably slightly dangerously high speeds, the first order of business was not to find Erin, but to find a place to get my fricking tire fixed. (Turned out there were not one, but TWO nails in it, as well.)
Erin and Alison picked me up from Big O, and we went to lunch at Paradise, and then went to the museum of natural history so I could see more dinosaurs. We also went to the paleo lab, because Erin works? volunteers? there, and there was so much cool stuff that Erin said I looked like a kid in a candy store :)
Today I drove home, and I saw a herd of pronghorn on the way!
The end. :D
On Wednesday, I left around 8:30 to drive up to Denver. I've never driven that great of a distance before by myself, but I had a flash drive loaded with songs and a bunch of snacky things. So it really wasn't all that bad. Even Wolf Creek Pass, which has historically (okay, all of twice now) been frighteningly snow-covered when Ronnie and I have driven it, was nice and rather pretty.
I managed to get into Denver around 3:30 but decided not to rely on my MapQuested directions and drove based on the map instead, so I took kind of the long way around...but it was good, because then I figured out where some things were in town. The traffic was kind of scary, actually. I mean, it's only been about a year since I last drove on a real freeway, back in Michigan, but it was unnerving to suddenly be surrounded by lots of cars also going very very fast, trying to change lanes, watching for crowded one-way streets, etc.
I stayed in the Ramada Inn downtown, which I had hoped would be within walking distance of the convention center (it was really a couple miles away) but after driving around the city a bit, I decided that walking all the way down there would be somewhat silly, especially since I had my car. I mean, yeah, we walked a TON in New Orleans for the AAM conference and we always ended up so freaking tired after... Anyway, so I drove to the convention center and couldn't figure out its parking garage, so I ended up parking at the Hyatt. For $21. Yeah, that blowed. Oh well.
Thursday, I went to a couple of sessions: one on literacy skills in a chemistry lesson, which was okay, and the other on a lesson plan for writing about ecology. The guy leading the second workshop was a storyteller who was rather too fond of his own accomplishments; every couple of minutes he was like, "like I wrote about in my last book" or "Sierra Club wants me to write for them" or "this poem I wrote in my upcoming book" and it was really quite maddening. *rolls eyes* The lesson plan was pretty good, though. In between, the guy who wrote Rocket Boys, which became October Sky, gave what was more-or-less the keynote address, and I went to the Exhibit Hall and tried not to spend too much money. I got free Mentos from a Diet Coke + Mentos display, a catalog from We Add Up (I want a "Shower Together" shirt but they're expensive), a neuron from Giant Microbes, earrings from Astronomy To Go (website forthcoming), and the usual assortment of business cards but not too much other random swag. Oh, and I saw this cool necklace based on the supernova pictograph at Chaco. (Expensive, though, and I suppose I could probably make my own more cheaply.)
And...then I went to DMNS!! YAY FOR DINOSAURS!!!!!! (Er, see the pictures. Also, I spent a lot of time looking at the birds and stuffed animals.) The gift shop kinda sucked, though. Hardly any t-shirts, not nearly enough dinosaurs, too much high-end, seemingly unrelated jewelry and tiny boxes that you can't put anything in.
Thursday night I had dinner at the bar across from the Ramada and actually managed to finish my amaretto sour, for once. :)
I was SUPER FREAKING EXCITED about Friday's field trip. We were scheduled to go to Dinosaur Ridge and look at dinosaur tracks, and then visit Red Rocks and Triceratops Trail. It didn't exactly start off spectacularly...there was a DVD on the bus ride out, and I kind of slept through it. When we got to the visitor center, there was a really, really cool rock with Allosaurus bones in it. They were only 10% permineralized, which was awesome!
...Turned out it was the best thing we saw all day, sadly. The tour guide was very, very, very boring. I mean, we were a GROUP OF TEACHERS and he was just completely unable to speak to us as either equals, or as anyone resembling an interesting person. *sigh* AND he kept getting the names of things wrong, or he wouldn't remember the names at all--and then he said something about how the names didn't really matter! This, about an Ornithomimus! AND he said archaeologist instead of paleontologist! I pretty much tuned him out after that.
Nonetheless, we did get to see a lot of cool dinosaur tracks, and some other fossils. And I met some cool teachers from Houston, with whom I had dinner that night. We went to Coyote Ugly first, which was...slightly awkward. There weren't very many people, and only a couple of girls dancing on the bar, who didn't seem to be having much fun with it after the first song. After that, though, we had dinner at Maggiano's, which was pretty nice. I spent most of dinner talking to Max, one of the Houston teachers, who went to Harvard and roomed with a guy from Cortez, weirdly enough.
On Saturday, I went to two more sessions: one about the art of science and the science of art, where we got to play with a couple of experiments, and one that was a lot like my SOE classes on literacy and teaching vocab. The latter, however, had a couple of teachers from Cortez and Mancos there, too, which was unexpected.
After the conference ended, I drove out to Boulder to visit Erin. On the freeway, I got honked at. The first time, I ignored it...but the second time, I realized the woman was trying to flag me down to let me know I had a flat. Grrr. So when I got to Boulder, half an hour later, after driving at probably slightly dangerously high speeds, the first order of business was not to find Erin, but to find a place to get my fricking tire fixed. (Turned out there were not one, but TWO nails in it, as well.)
Erin and Alison picked me up from Big O, and we went to lunch at Paradise, and then went to the museum of natural history so I could see more dinosaurs. We also went to the paleo lab, because Erin works? volunteers? there, and there was so much cool stuff that Erin said I looked like a kid in a candy store :)
Today I drove home, and I saw a herd of pronghorn on the way!
The end. :D
