Home Away from Home

I never tire of this view from the plane window as we make our way from the Twin Cities to Iceland.  In fact, despite the late hour, I can never sleep and always have my camera at the ready, as deep night flips to bright day before my eyes.  Then, Greenland comes into view, if we are lucky enough to have clear skies.  The clouds usually break as we cross from sea to land over Greenland, but sometimes it is difficult to discern the snow covered peaks from the clouds and I have to stare long and hard out the window before I discover that yes, I can see Greenland below!  I hope to visit there someday soon and expand some our research questions to aquatic environments in Greenland.  What an amazing place it must be.

Greenland comes into view.

Iceland continues to captivate me - an amazing country, people, and place to get to  know.  I am reading the Icelandic Sagas and continue to work on my Icelandic with local friends and the scientists at the Institute of Freshwater Fisheries, but some sounds and syllables seem impossible to replicate.  I will not give up...

We have a great team here this year from St. Kate's, Montana State University, and the University of Alabama, and I am really excited to work with such an energetic and dedicated crew. We have some big experiments in front of us and  more troubleshooting to do following the long winter, but, I look forward to the greening of the landscape that is starting to emerge, as well as the explosion of cotton grass, and the upcoming results of our work.  It is going to be a great summer.  

Hengill Valley - home away from home.

We have a big week coming up that will involve lots of intensive sampling with the whole team, as well as some camping at our field site.  Unfortunately, it also looks like we may encounter a lot of rain (see the forecast link on our blog site).  But, at least we will have light!  Current day length here is over 20 hours, but it never completely darkens.  So, that will help make navigating the streams at night easier, even though we may be pretty wet!  We will report back on our progress soon.  Here's to hoping for some good weather!