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!
The Dragonfly Woman 
No way, my roommate is also there presenting a poster! If you have time, find Heather Lumpkin and tell her you read her roommate’s blog. She’ll be amazed.
Will do! Have any idea what day she’s presenting her poster? I’m sure I’ll be able to find her regardless, but it would be wonderful to know when to concentrate my efforts on hunting her down.
Small world, eh?
I have no idea when she’s presenting, unfortunately. If you’re busy, don’t spend a lot of time trying to find her or anything. It would just be funny. :)
This meeting’s great because everyone does everything at the same time, so it shouldn’t be any trouble finding her. Unless she’s in my poster session. I’m presenting 2 posters simultaneously actually, so I’m going to be swamped then, but it should otherwise be easy to find her!
Good luck at the conference. I don’t know about reaching the masses but your’e certainly reaching me in France.
Thank you! That’s such a nice thing to hear.
Wow,brings back memories, enjoy your travels
Thank you! I take it you’re either from the area or have spent a lot of time here?
I’m from the Carolinas but used to travel out west.
Nice! I’ll likely be doing a lot of the same now that I’m a a Carolinian too! I love North Carolina, but the west is always going to be home for me and the Pacific Northwest has always been an area I love.
No Friday Five! You’ll have to do a Friday Ten next week to make up for it. : – )
But in case someone out there NEEDS a five-item list of arthropod related entries, I can help!
My five favorite non-insect arthropods!
5. Horseshoe crabs! The only animals on this list that I’ve never actually seen, but I’d really like to. These guys are so unlike, well, anything else. So simply from above, so complicated from below, almost no head, how can you not love these guys? They’re awesome!
4. Millipedes! Why any animal needs this many legs I’ll never know, but you’ve gotta love these guys. They’re so fascinating to watch walk around.
3. Amblypygids! If Clive Barker was allowed to redesign spiders, this is what he would have come up with. These guys are seriously twisted looking animals. Scared the living daylights out of me the first time I ran into them. (In my defense, I was six at the time.) I wish they were more common.
2. Spiders! Oh, come on, these guys are amazing. The diversity of spiders is simply stunning. The number of different things they can do with silk and a little sticky juice never ceases to impress. They are the single-most successful group of non-insect arthropods, and that’s worthy of respect right there.
1. Harvestmen! I love these guys. I first spotted one in high school and while I initially thought it was a spider, but the body wasn’t shaped correctly, and I had to find out what it really was. In many ways, these guys introduced me to the wonderful world of non-insect arthropods. There are so many weird things out there!
Thanks for stepping in for me! You rock!