14,004 miles, time to move on...
Hi everyone! It’s been a long time since my last update. The super short version is that I have just one last site in NY to visit (I keep getting rained out) and may go back to PA to sample before the end of the year, but other than that, the field work is complete. Now it’s time to start the lab work!
Tales from the road:
As I mentioned in my last lab note, the second round of sampling didn’t yield many Nigronia. A lot of the rivers had sustained some pretty serious reshaping events, based on what I could see from the way the river cut across the channel. Heavy floods, especially if they came in the spring, can have disastrous impacts on Nigronia populations (that’s when they dig into the banks and go through metamorphosis). The only good thing that happened while I was in North Carolina was a beautiful rainbow that appeared to be coming down at the state border as I went to leave.
Sampling in NY and PA was also hit or miss. Again, there seemed to be a lot of restructuring in the rivers, suggesting some heavy floods. Having lived in NY for the last 14 years, we have had serious flooding from extreme events, which seem to be happening more frequently than in the past. I had a fantastic time giving seminars at Daemen College in the Buffalo area and at Penn State University in State College, PA.
Sampling in Ontario was fantastic, but the trip was surreal. I crossed over in Niagara and there were no cars or trucks for a mile ahead of me or a mile behind. I honestly felt like all the people in the world had suddenly vanished. The only other people I saw were the two border guards. From there, I drove another three hours to the site. It was gorgeous. There was a woodcock running around in the woods, the stream was beautiful, and the Nigronia were plentiful. After a quick stop for gas, I headed back to the border near Watertown, NY. At least there were two trucks near me this time. I went through the border and had to check in with the USDA. The agent was very nice and, as it turns out, went to undergrad with a student who was part of our MS in Lake Management and I went to grad school with the agent’s cousin. Disney was right, it’s a small world after all. After a very long day (7am - 11pm) it was nice to be back in my own bed.
My last trip, to CT, MA, and ME, started out well. I left Oneonta, stopped for the (in my opinion) best meatball sub in central NY (Bella Napoli’s in the Albany area), and headed to the site. I was sampling the Saugatuck near a train station, so parking was easy and moving upstream of the rail crossing got me what I needed. I then spent a couple days with some friends I hadn’t seen in years, until the first Nor’easter of the year popped up on radar. I cut my visit short and ran to sample near Boston, as they were supposed to get 5 inches of rain. I got to the site, but the upstream side had turned into a marsh in the last 18 years. I moved further upstream, but to no avail. I then headed to Maine where I was treated to all the yummy things in the sea in 16 hours, as well as a perfect sampling site. I got to have rice wraps with shrimp, lobster rolls, and clams for dinner, and then fried oysters and fish for lunch the next day. The rains started up just as we finished sampling in Maine, so I got all the sampling done before the storms.
With just one last site to pick up, I have already travelled 14,004 miles. That's more than half the circumference of the earth.
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