rocks!

I am normally not this excited about rocks but today, I have to admit, was pretty cool.

The environmental science REU kids were going hiking today, so the astronomy REU kids (and us!) tagged along.  We went to the Red Mountains and down a Lava Tube (which was totally tubular – ha. ha. ha.)  I’ll let the pictures do the talking, mainly because I am too tired to do it myself:

Red Mountains, from the distance.  It’s the remains of a cindercone, I think:

Snow!  In Arizona!  This mountain was soooo pretty off in the distance.

There were some pretty cool rock formations.  This was one of them.  It was some sort of volcanic rock, that was black-ish.  (By the way, just so you all know, I was stellar at Earth Science.  In 9th grade.  I really was…)

Desert trees? (I was also really good at biology.  Lies.)

According to the resident geologist, the holes were created by gas bubbles.

We’re really tough, can’t you tell?

Look, it’s a tree growing sideways!  Oh biology, you try so hard to be cool, but you just won’t be as cool as physics ever…

This was one of the highlights of my day.  We built a man.  Out of rocks.  Look, he even has arms (that are not coming out of his neck!)  These are all the astronomy peeps that went on the hike.  We”re so much cooler than the environmental science students.  They were jealous.  They didn’t have a rock man.  They were totally jealous.

The Lava Tube was a giant tube of lava.  Descriptive, no?  It was actually pretty intense.  It’s really rocky, and pretty deep in the ground.  I don’t know if it counts as real spelunking, but it involved a good amount of watching your step in completely darkness (thank god for astronomers and their flashlights)!  It must have been at least ten degrees cooler, but it was a pretty good walk overall.

This is proof that I was in the cave.  In case the previously mentioned proof of hardcore-ness was not enough for you.

All in all, it was a good day.  Arizona is such a beautiful place!  It’s kind of more fun than Massachusetts.  Sorry guys!  Though I am craving seafood.  Mmm…

In other news, there’s a store here in Arizona called Bookman’s, that sells used books and software and DVD’s.  I got season one of Chuck, and now Becky is totally hooked.  Then again, I’m not quite sure why you wouldn’t be hooked by that show.  It’s so cute!  In an attempt to keep ourselves nightshifted, I think we might watch some later, though if I actually settle down to watch something there’s a pretty good chance I would fall asleep, and then our entire plan to actually get used to being awake at night would fail.  I also saw Land of the Lost.  It was kind of silly.  And Will Ferrell is an idiot.  But, that being said, it was a good dumb movie just to laugh at.

In case you were wondering, yes, I am also working.  It is the full moon though, so I get the day off.  I’ll post some pictures of the telescope and Lowell next time.