field camp week 4 – city of rocks

06/03/24 – 06/08/24

this was dr. stearns’ week up in southern idaho! I was by far the most nervous for this week because I felt the least confident about meta/igneous geology

Day 1

we left monday morning early from uvu! I started reading happy place by emily henry, who I adore, and magically came across a rare geology reference!!! (geologist reference, actually)

we made a couple stops before setting up camp and did some warm up geology! it was GORGEOUS! and also I felt like I knew nothing and I was so scared

then we set up camp! it was ridiculously beautiful and rainy. we even got a rainbow!!

the lovely ladies emmaline and dylan tried to set up the tent on their own but it was like impossible and also broken, so we all ended up having to work together lol

parker and I worked together on a gourmet dinner for everyone….

I took some cool as hell pics w the rainbow, obviously (sarcasm)

before bed, we played some cards in the giant tent!

day 2

ahhh our first day!!! we basically overviewed a big part of our mapping area, which was super nice to get an idea of what was going on geologically. it was quite cold and windy!!!

day 3

this was our first day breaking off into our individual groups for the entire day (almost), which meant it was me, emmaline, parker, and sarah 🙂

a boudin forms as extension occurs when dikes of granite pinch out in areas of weakness. then the meta rock (in this case, schist!) fills in the space ductiley.

I remember taking this picture in the field because I thought it would look so gorgeous, and then. it looked like this. lmao. I’m pretty sure parker laughed at me

very cool with the thumb rock (or the middle finger rock) (or something else)

after a big day of hiking, we finally met back up at the van…

and back at camp, we talked geology! faults, anticline, syncline, intrusions, etc….

day 4

this was our last full day in city of rocks! we had a lot of ground left to cover… and we started running out of motivation verrrryyyy quickly (at least I did)

we got stuck behind some cowboys and their cows for like 5 full minutes without them getting out of the way & mike got annoyed

after our last long day, we went to the little pizza place with a million kinds of soda and beer and then went to the hot springs for the second time in the week! while we were all choosing our sodas, the cashier asked if we would be getting any beer and mike said something along the lines of “I should hope not, they’re on a school trip” lol

dylan and I got the same root beer! it looked better than it tasted, but was still so much better than water (which is all we had been drinking all week)

also!!! the hot springs were super fun both times we went! the first time, we played mermaids and all chose our earth science superpowers and our tail colors, weapons, etc etc which seems like a pastime of hayley and dylan’s at their apartment pool (amazing). additionally, there was a guy that hayley and emmaline thought was hot who they kept teasing each other about talking to, and hayley ended up giving him her number… later on, he texted her essentially saying thank you and he was flattered and that he didn’t do relationships, but if she was interested in something else…. he was available!!! so basically does she want to hook up lmao. she did not. and she didn’t text him back, because what’s the point if we were never going to see him again? except…. the second time we went to the hot springs, SO DID HE! which was a hilarious situation for everyone who was not hayley, especially because mike did come with us the second time and ended up talking to the guy while they were in a different pool than us. (also I took a pic of his name on the safety waiver thing the first time we were there for her, which, yes, was definitely creepy, and (also yes) we did use to look up his instagram later on. he was pretty cringe unfortunately, and not as hot as in person)

also, the older guy who runs the hot spring was super nice and loved us! he told us about its history and asked about what we were studying. he also sold cold drinks and ice cream, which was so cute. there was kind of a theme of older men talking to me this week, which was innocent (and not creepy, luckily) and a little funny. apparently dylan has experienced older men being consistently into her (in both creepy and not creepy ways), and a joke was developed that they are now into both of us lol.

our second time at the hot springs, we ended up all hanging out in one of the warmer pools with mike and talked about lots of things, like school, our families, and his family. it was really nice 🙂 we talked about if we want kids and when and what are we nervous about. it was just kind of cool to talk about things other than geology for a little bit.

we also got some crazy cool clouds our second time, and we all got kicked out of the pool for a while because there was lightning nearby. sooo we all got back into the van in our swimsuits and it was kind of miserably fun until we were allowed back in the pool.

dark and stormy back at camp 🙂 it was incredible

back at camp, some of us used the big tent to start finalizing our maps (there mayyy have been some comparisons between groups, just to see if we were within the same realm!)

somehow I squished a fly between pages in my map board. disgusting

day 5

this morning we packed up camp, finalized our maps, and prepared for our oral exam with mike, which we are all TERRIFIED for!!! especially me 😦 we didn’t know what to expect!!!! it was seriously stressful and scary!!

mike talked to us all in the morning and did a brief overview sort of, and then started the exams over by his camper van! we had signed up for our time slots the previous day on the way back to camp from the pizza place, etc

somehow, I survived the oral exam. it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting! mike had us do a little rock id (schist and quartzite, if I remember correctly), which I got right (miracle), and he was really nice with the exam. it sounds like he talked everyone through it really well and gave us a lot of chances if we started with some incorrect reasoning, which… I did lol. but I kind of figured it out! anyway, we all passed our exams 🙂

after exams were over, we finished packing up and got ready to go! but one of our cars didn’t start!!! and somehow (????!??!?) neither the school vehicle or the rental car (or mike’s van) had jumper cables. truly, how is that possible! soooo I volunteered to go ask the people in the campsite down the road if they had cables… but only if someone came with me lol. all the girls ended up going, and it ended up being super awkward because it was a couple and they were in their tent verrryyyy cuddly….. but I said hi and asked and they amazingly did have jumper cables!!! sooo back to our camp, we jumped the car, and brought the cables back along with a sleeve of oreos to say thank you 🙂 they were super nice and they said they heard us cheering when the car started 🙂 also it was the prettiest girl we’ve ever seen!!!

and here’s our group pictures 🙂

on the drive home, we stopped and got food without turning off the rental car just in case it died again!! I volunteered to babysit and listened to emo music