Well, I thought I was going to have time to get Friday 5 done tonight, but alas it wasn’t meant to be. Today’s been a long day and I’m exhausted. I got up at 5am after 4 hours of sleep, spent 7.5 hours on a plane flying nearly 3000 miles from North Carolina to Portland, OR, spent 4 hours working during my layover in Minneapolis, navigated the light rail system to find my hotel, and had one very interesting meal at the downtown Denny’s. It’s been a long day.

Why am I in Portland you might ask? To attend the Public Participation in Scientific Research conference of course! I’m absolutely thrilled to be here and I’m going to a learn a lot in the next few days, so this trip is going to be 100% worth it. I can’t wait to present my poster and I’m reallly looking forward to hearing about the great ideas other groups have had to bring science to the masses.  Still, this a crazy long way from North Carolina! The fact that I ended up at Denny’s for dinner tells you something about how tired I am right now. I’m in Portland, OR, one of the local food, foodtruck, and microbrewery meccas, and I stumbled into the chain directly across the street because I was too tired to go anywhere else. That’s so sad… But tomorrow is a new day, one full of citizen science talks and posters. Tomorrow I will venture out for local food, hopefully having made some new friends and connections to enjoy my meals with!

For now, I leave you with a  photo of Washington’s Cascade Range and the Columbia River I snapped from the plane as we descended into Portland. Wow. If you haven’t ever made this flight… It. Is. Stunning! Mt. Ranier, Mt. Adams, Mt. St. Helens, and the Columbia River all visible at one time!

The shot hardly does the view justice, but what can you do?  You work with the tools you’ve got and I happened to have an iPhone in airplane mode.

And with that, I am off to try to figure out how to deal with the fact my body tells me it’s bedtime NOW, it’s still daylight outside, and I can’t get my curtains closed all the way…  Have a great weekend everyone!