My Nepal posts will be interrupted for this brief interlude to my annual scientific conference. I'm in Snowbird, Utah for the Botany & Mycology 2009 meeting. Snowbird is a lovely setting for a meeting; a ski resort with the conference center sitting at 8,100 feet. The top of the resort is at 11,000 feet, I think. It must be higher than the mountain I'm looking at from my room, because the tramway goes up and over that spot.
Here's a picture of my view, taken with my cell phone.
I'm watching the sun work it's way down from the peak this morning, so my view is to the east.
I arrived mid-afternoon yesterday and it was pretty hot outside. I enjoyed watching ground squirrels on the grass - they must have dens in the slope down to the stream. There are a lot of plants in bloom up here as well and I photographed a couple of different Penstemons yesterday in the calm air at dusk.
I went to the Plenary lecture, given by Nancy Turner, on the ethnobotany of Pacific Northwest indigenous peoples. It was pretty interesting and I learned a lot of new things about the use of plants in those cultures. The mixer was afterwards - well attended, but I never enjoy those kinds of things. I don't know why I haven't developed a social ability after all these years in academia, but I'm always uncomfortable in a mixer setting. I need to bring Emma, my miniature dachshund - that would make it bearable. She doesn't have any trouble approaching strangers and distant acquaintances for some social interactions.
Doesn't this picture just scream, "Love me! I'm adorable!" ?
One thing I didn't know about Snowbird is that the bird doesn't go for the early worm around here. This place is shut tight until 7 am. That's pretty hard for an early riser on east coast time, especially with it not getting light until well after 6 am. Oh well - off to my first session this morning. Should be an interesting couple of days for the beginning of this week and then the Dublin Irish Festival is next weekend.
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