| | Lyrics of the Day
How long before I get in
Before it starts, before I begin?
How long before you decide
Before I know what it feels like?
Where to, where do I go?
If you never try, then you'll never know
How long do I have to climb
Up on the side of this mountain of mine?
Look up, I look up at night
Planets are moving at the speed of light
Climb up, up in the trees
Every chance that you get is a chance you seize
How long am I gonna stand
With my head stuck under the sand?
I’ll start before I can stop
Before I see things the right way up
All that noise, and all that sound
All those places that I have found
And birds go flying at the speed of sound
To show you how it all began
Birds came flying from the underground
If you could see it then you'd understand
Ideas that you'll never find
Or the inventors could never design
The buildings that you put up
Japan and China all lit up
The sign that I couldn't read
Or the light that I couldn't see
Some things you have to believe
But others are puzzles, puzzling me
All that noise, and all that sound
All those places that I have found
And birds go flying at the speed of sound
To show you how it all began
Birds came flying from the underground
If you could see it then you'd understand
Oh when you see it then you'll understand
All those signs, I knew what they meant
Some things you can't invent
Some get made, and some get sent
Ooh…
Birds go flying at the speed of sound
To show you how it all began
Birds came flying from the underground
If you could see it then you'd understand
Oh, when you see it then you'll understand --Coldplay, "Speed of Sound"
So, my research trip was very enlightening. I think I could do field research regularly, if it was interspersed with lab experiments. But here's the rundown:
Day 1 (Monday):
There were five of us: Dr. Schlupp, two grad students Michi and Rudy, and two undergrads, Felicia and myself. On the way to pick up Rudy, Michi rescued a box turtle from the sidewalk that they foisted upon Dr. Schlupp's wife to take care of until we got back. It was a looooong drive to Brownsville, Texas, I slept and read the Handmaid's Tale, kind of a depressing near future book about reproductive rights. Ate some good barbeque and broke my fork on it (for future reference, don't cut good brisket with a plastic fork). Stopped partway to do a species survey of the Nueces River, at which Dr. Schlupp realized river crabs are very flexible in addition to being aggressive.
Arrived at Brownsville after 10:00, and hungry. Graduation night or something, so the few restaurants that were open were humming. Ended up sitting at the bar in the smoking section of Chiles. But it was on OU's tab, so I ate some awesome grilled salmon and lemon garlic shrimp. Between the two two-bed hotel rooms, Felicia and I got one and the other three were stuck together in the remaining room.
Day 2 (Tuesday):
Up early and food at IHop. Yeah, for IHop. I still wasn't off my expensive seafood kick, so I had a crab and shrimp omelette. Oh, tasty. But really heavy for breakfast, especially considering that an hour later I was waist deep in smelly water close to the US/Mexico border. The first site for seining for mollies was by far the worst in terms of total annoyance factor. Rotten onions and beer cans scattered around, barbed wire, steep slopes with very spiky plants, a healthy bug population and a friendly snake or two (that's me in the white shirt),
By far the worst though, was the horrible fetid smell that drifted our way every 30 seconds or so. Other than that, things were peachy. We did catch some mollies, so it wasn't a total loss. This trip was mostly for samples for Rudy and Michi (sperm counts and parasitology, respectively) so most of the fish were pickled in formaldehyde immediately. Next site near the state fish hatchery was better, especially since I got some shoes with laces to wade around in (otherwise, the mud will suck the shoe right off your foot, and don't even think about barefoot). No mollies here though, but there were some huge tadpoles. Here's a nice crayfish we found:
Next was "Paradise Cove," the Lincoln Park site. This pleasantly, yet inappropriately, named site is directly under a busy highway. Thus, much junk gets dumped there, including a very old car seat. We caught some mollies there, happily, and sorting was always interesting. Have to keep out of the way of the myriad of crayfish that the seine dredged up. This one's just a baby, though.
Someone decided to snap me examining one of the fishies (note the highway above.)
 ,
I'm guessing it was a silverside, one of these:  .
After this point, I finally got ahold of the camera and didn't let go for the rest of the trip. All the rest of the pictures are mine! Tired and dirty, we finally got to go back to the hotel and cleaned up. Then came some lab work. The hotel people would have a fit if they knew what all got brought in to their room. See Rudy in his natural habitat, flushing a live (anesthetized) female molly for sperm with beer close at hand.
We had a nice assembly line going, Rudy on flush, Michi manning the sperm-counting microscope, myself weighing, measuring, and placing the poor fish in their final resting place:
and Felicia dutifully recording.
Dr. Schlupp did what he does best: working harder than the rest of us without seeming to.
We ate a great Mexican dinner after the lab work was done and hit the sack.
Day 3 (Wednesday):
IHop once more for breakfast, but I wisely ate lighter this time. Drove straight up to Austin, and started hitting sites. The first site of that day was the best of them all, kind of a public parkish place. We did have to deal with the odd river tubers floating downstream, but that's a lot better than smelly water and knee deep mud. Lots and lots of mollies there, good for us! Next was an interesting site, not bad looking from a distance:
But the threat this time was sticktites. I have never really regretted having hairy legs until that day. These were the culprits: 
And this was the result on my shoes, better than Velcro for keeping laces in place!
But the site had abundant mollies, so everyone was pleased.
That's pleased, if you can't tell. We also found a cool water beetle carrying eggs:
And here's Rudy and Michi shaking out the seine before we leave.
The final two sites were close to one another, one was some sort of mini-reservoir, and the other was fairly swampy. I did get a little distracted from my job of photographing the site when I found some cool butterflies
and a wasp.
But here's where we actually seined:
Most of the photo-taking ended after we finished there, as it was our last site for the trip, but there was certainly more work to do. We dropped off all our supplies at UT in Austin. Dr. Schlupp is an honorary professor there so he has the perks of using the facilities when he needs to. Afterwards, we stopped by Central Market to pick up some beer. It's quite a glorified grocery store, and after glancing around inside I thought I'd be touristy and take a few pictures. Here's one of the amazing wine section:
Which was right before I got told off by some assistant manager on a power trip who told me I couldn't take pictures. I was still dirty from the field, so I don't know what I looked like to him, but I did not appear like a roving journalist looking for photos to put in a magazine. After the market, we ate dinner at another great Mexican restaurant, Jorge's, then went to a fellow professor's house (a friend of Dr. Schlupp's) to crash.
Day 4 (Thursday):
This was a long day. After breakfast at a place called Trudy's (at which I had a Mexican dish called migas, basically scrambled eggs and cheese, but very tasty) we went strait to the zoology lab at UT and started to dissect and measure fish. I've found that it's quite difficult to fit a small fish head into an even smaller tube in which it does not want to go. But it is very fun to count embryos from pregnant mollies, and I will hopefully get pictures up tomorrow from the dissecting microscope that show them, because words don't do these little beauties justice. Too bad their lives were so brief. After a full day of counting, measuring, sorting, and dissecting, we ate once again at Trudy's, which is apparently the place to be for dinner, since it was very busy. During the 30 minute wait, I had my first margarita. During dinner (an incredible fried and stuffed avocado dish), I had my second margarita. It was the first time I've been mildly intoxicated, and I can't say that I would ever want to actually pay for the alcohol to feel that way, but I think my friends were accurate in their assumption that I would be a mellow/funny drunk. I slept it off easily.
Day 5 (Friday):
This was the last day of the trip, and everyone was pretty tired. After a quick stop at Starbucks, we packed up the mobile lab and headed out. It was near lunch, so we stopped one more time at Central Market before leaving. Michi, true European I guess, had to go and buy a block of limburger cheese for his lunch. It's amazing, he eats it like a candy bar. At first it wasn't so bad since it was refrigerated, but as the day went on in the hot van, the cheese warmed up and started sharing its pungent aroma with the rest of the passengers. Felicia and I were the only ones not accustomed to edible food that smells like an animal carcass, so there were some uncomfortable moments. But we made it back unharmed. After unloading the few live specimens at the greenhouse, I was dropped of at the Reserve to finally relax for a bit before sleeping hard and long into Saturday.
So, that's about it. Anything else is pretty much inconsequential. I thoroughly enjoyed it, it was an adventure and a learning experience all rolled into one. If I get the chance, I'll help with another, no questions asked.
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