The One in Colorady

I was sadly in Ottawa for our 3rd wedding anniversary.  When I was registering for the SPP6 conference I wondered if that was going to be a big deal, but our anniversary fell on a Wed. so I didn't think it would be and went to Canada.  Bad idea.  We've had several anniversaries already (we've been together for 5 years!) and we've celebrated them all together.  Maybe once we have kids anniversaries won't be as big a deal but we've had a lot of fun on our trips and it was harder than I thought being apart on the actual day.  It was even harder almost missing it entirely!

This is a good (but long) story.  I flew home from the conference early on Friday morning and was supposed to land about 1pm Utah time.  The plan was for Justin to pick me up at the airport and drive straight to Vail, CO but I almost didn't make it!!  I woke up at 3:45am to catch my flight from Ottawa to D.C.  No problem getting back into the US although I had to wait about half an hour for customs to even open.  Tangent- I don't get why I had to go through customs when I landed in Canada but before I even left to come back to the US. Weird.  Anyway, I was supposed to fly from D.C. to Denver and then connect to Salt lake.  All the passengers were boarded and ready to go on the flight to Denver when the attendants announced we had no pilots.  NO pilots!!  The crew scheduled for our flight was stuck in Newark and the replacement crew was 45 minutes away.  I only had an hour layover in CO so I thought I was going to miss my connection and possibly our anniversary trip.  I was devastated and exhausted which made me super emotional.  I just wanted to get home to celebrate with my hubby :(  Thankfully the replacement crew got there quickly and we took off 20 minutes earlier than expected.  That was a rough flight.  I was super tired but worried about missing my next flight so I couldn't focus on my book or crocheting or sleeping.  I pretty much just stared out the window watching America pass by.  When we landed in Denver the flight crew asked if those with longer layovers would be willing to wait for the rest of the passengers to get off first.  Well, pretty much everyone had a connecting flight and since we landed almost an hour late more than half the plane really needed to get off quick.  I lucked out and sat by some really nice people though.  My carry-on was 4 rows behind me and I couldn't get back to it but this cute old man helped me out and got the others to hand it up to me.  My bag went crowd-surfing!  When I finally got to the terminal I ran to the nearest screen and couldn't find my flight so I ran back to the agent by my gate.  She took my boarding pass and said she'd re-booked me on a later flight.  A flight that left Denver at 3:30!  Not acceptable.  I rechecked the screen out of desperation and realized my flight was listed under 2 airlines (that's why I missed it the first time).  I was at gate 35-ish and needed to get to 75-ish.  So I took off running.  The night before I had asked Mark if he would be willing to take my poster home with him so I wouldn't have to worry about carrying the tube.  This was super funny because in order to make my poster tube fit in my bag I had to stuff my dirty clothes in it!  I was so glad I did that as I ran through the airport.  I might have taken out a few children/elderly people/wheelchairs with it!  I made it to my connecting gate just as the first boarding call was made.  I totally made it!  But I didn't have a boarding pass anymore, grrr.  Luckily, the customer service desk was right next to the gate so I got in line.  And it did. not. move.  As the final passengers were boarding my flight I took a chance and tried to use the boarding pass I had printed out the night before.  For some reason United does not accept these and reprints your pass for you.  My paper pass didn't work because I'd been re-booked!  But they hadn't given my seat away and let me on.  Glory be!!  There were at least 5 of us with the same problem which made it a little easier to convince them to let us on.  Once I got settled into my seat I almost cried!  I'd been trying to keep Justin updated all day and he must have gone crazy with all the "My flight is delayed!  We have no pilots!  I made it!" texts.  But I made it!!

And finally, pictures of our trip:

Justin surprised me with a train ride!!  Super cute and fun!  Justin LOOOOOVES trains.

We didn't ride this one but Justin liked it :)

 

 

 Finally on the train!!

Beautiful views.

It was chilly (obviously, we're wearing jackets) so I didn't even think about sunblock but the ride was about 2 hours long and my forehead and part burned!!

Had to get one with Justin's thumb :)

View up the canyon we rode up.

And back the other direction.

I love this picture!  So funny how enthralled Justin was the whole time :)

The end of the line.  I think this water tower looks like a teapot.  We got off and explored the mountainside and train a little bit.

I took some snacks along just in case and we apparently were pretty high up in the mountains.  Check out what the low pressure did to my granola bar.

These next pictures crack me up!  Pretty sure Justin didn't realize he was taking them.  We usually have a few pics like this after a trip.

The second day we hiked around Vail a little bit.  It was still a little snowy/muddy so only a few trails were open but Vail is gorgeous!  We also walked around the ski resort a little bit and ate some amazing ice cream at Joe's Deli.

We like waterfalls.

We decided to get back to the hotel by way of this incredibly scenic road.  It took a little longer but was well worth the drive.  The summit was over 12,000 ft!  It was already June when we were here and we had to hike out over snow that was still at least a foot deep.

Normally I don't take pictures of port-a-potties but this door was really cool.

What a great final picture!

I can't believe 3 years have flown by so quickly!!  We must be having fun :)

The One at SPP6

This summer has been super busy, crazy and fun.  I attended my last conference during grad school at the end of May.  It was my second "international" trip, across the border in Ottawa, Canada.  I don't know anybody else who has attended as many conferences as myself and none outside the States so that has definitely been a fun and unexpected perk of my studies.  SPP6 stands for the 6th annual Conference for Surface Plasmon Photonics.  We only went because it was so close.  It's generally held in Europe which means there were a lot of European attendees.  And a lot of engineers were there so it was mostly men too.  My advisor was not happy with that.  We're both slightly feminist :)

Anyway, Ottawa was a lot prettier and more fun than I expected.  Here's the view from our hotel room:

Also from our hotel window.  We never made it down to breakfast so Mark (the other group member who came) found this little scone shop and it was amazing!!  We went there every day.

The second day of the conference didn't have any talks my advisor and I really wanted to go to so we went on a short walking tour of the city.

World War I and II Memorial (Parliament is in the back)

Parliament Buildings

 

 
Random spider statue in front of the art museum.  I named it Shelob after the spider in Lord of the Rings :)

Across the street from the spider was this beautiful Catholic cathedral.  It's actually called Notre Dame.  The decor inside was absolutely ridiculous!  As in, very ornate.  There were hand-carved statues of all the prophets in little niches along the walls.  Crazy!  Not like the outside is plain either.  The spires are silver for heaven's sake.

 

There's (apparently) one in every foreign city.  We found Cooper St.!!!

View of the Ottawa River from Parliament Hill.  Mid-week we went on a boat tour and the dock was just on the other side of the bridge.

Pictures from the boat tour.  It got a little overcast so my pictures aren't that great.

Nerds.

Skyline and random fisherman on the dock.

This hotel was supposed to open in the Spring of 1912 but the owner was on his way back from Europe with all the furnishings and never made it.  He was on the Titanic.  I love weird histories like that!

Parliament from the back.  You can't tell but that turret is really boldly painted.

  

Ottawa is very green.  Even coming from SLC I was surprised.

 
Also pretty funny, the tour guide was really proud of these "falls" but my advisor had just attended a wedding in Niagara the week before this.

After the boat tour we had dinner here, in the Museum of Civilization.

We had a little time to kill between the tour and dinner so Mark, Jennifer and I went on a short walk.  I took advantage of the opportunity to take a picture of "Hair Band."  That's what I called the guy in back.  Mark (front) was my accomplice :)

While we were on our walk it started pouring rain.  We ran under a little overhang but got soaked anyway.  And they wouldn't let us in the door we were right next to so we had to run all the way to the front.  I didn't dry off completely until we got back to the hotel.

Our host for the evening was a native Algonquin man.  He spoke impeccable English and French.  Very impressive.  And he's a great storyteller.  Oh yeah, and the guy in front sitting at my table is George Schatz.  He's kind of a big deal in the theoretical chemistry world.  I can't tell you how many papers I've read with his name on them.

Mark at his poster.  There was a poster session every night except for the night of the banquet dinner at the museum.  Each session had competitions for best poster.  I presented my poster the first night (which was great to get it over with so quickly) and I talked to people the entire time.  The session was two hours long and I had people coming up and asking questions until the organizers finally told me to take my poster down.  Jennifer and Mark had to wait for me so we could go to dinner.  It was crazy.  Awesome that so many people were interested in my research but exhausting.  I even had people ask me later during the week if I won the poster award (it came with a $1000 cash prize) so I thought I actually had a chance.  Sadly though, I didn't win.  I think people just vote for members of their own research groups so it's more of an attendance game than a true competition.

 

The craziest thing that happened all week was something I've never experienced at a conference before.  I was attending a talk by myself (well obviously there were other people in the audience but Mark and Jennifer weren't there) and during the Q&A period after the third presentation an older gentleman passed out!  The session leader called on someone to ask their question and they said they needed help, the man next to them had just slumped in his chair.  So then people start rushing to help and there's debate whether we should lay him on his side so he doesn't swallow his own vomit or lay him on his back.  It was a little bit of an ordeal just to get him out of his chair and to the floor.  Someone said "Call 911!" but the number isn't 911 in Canada and nobody's phone worked because we were all in a foreign country.  It was a mess!!  After about 10 minutes we were evacuated from the room while hotel staff took over.  Ironic that the man passed out in a room full of "doctors" who ended up being pretty useless.  I heard later that the man was OK.  He fainted but it wasn't anything serious like a heart attack or something.  Still, that was the weirdest, most unexpected occurrence!

The One Where We Got There Late

I don't know what it is (maybe the 4 hour drive) about camping in Moab but we always get there after sundown.  It makes it very hard to find an open camp spot and we inevitably end up on the same mesa overlooking the city.  It's a beautiful view in the morning but a little chilly at night.  This trip was no different.  Justin, his dad and I went camping and biking in Moab back in April before it got too hot.  It was our first bike ride of the year so we took it easy and didn't do the big Slick Rock trail.  We hit up the Bar M practice trails which are still really fun.  I even (unknowingly) did part of Dead Man's Loop, yikes!!  I think I surprised myself the most with how well I actually did on that trail.

We also did a short hike out to Corona Arch. 

This arch is famous for being easily accessible for "arch swingers."  People hike to the top basically wearing rock climbing gear and then swing out and through the arch.  It's pretty crazy!  Someone actually died recently on that very arch because they didn't measure the rope correctly.  Ouch!

 *For some reason we didn't take pictures at the Arch so neither of those are mine.  They're from Google.

Sunday morning before we drove home we went to Canyonlands and Justin showed us where he'd been backpacking the month before.  We did a short hike and took some pretty pictures.

The aptly named Canyonlands :)

  Justin and Wes standing on an arch.  Looks totally safe right?

This is the view from below!  There is literally empty space directly below the arch walkway.  Crazy!!  Kinda like the rock bridge Indiana Jones had to cross in the Last Crusade.

 

 Me and Justin on the arch.

I just think this one is cool with the jet flying by.

Justin being silly.  As usual.

A ranger was giving a talk right when we showed up so we learned what all these formations are called.  I already can no longer tell you but it was neat.

Hmmm, this may be the only biking post without pictures of our bikes!