visiting the b's: berkeley, bolinas, buffalo, mojave (with a B)

I have been out of town (except for about three days) since Dec 10. I spent a week in berkeley, seeing old friends and attending AGU. K was nice enough to get me two jackets at the mountain hardware sale! My old one (from the sale many years ago) smells like wet dog whenever it gets wet. I don't want to know what causes that smell.

Then, eight of us rented a house in bolinas and hung out there for three days. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera at S's house and couldn't document our trip. We made many yummy meals, hung out in the hot tub, visited the beach, went on a hike and just relaxed. I can't remember the last time that I have felt that mellow. It was a great mini-vacation.

I went to good old b-lo for christmas and got to see family and old friends. My parents were nice enough to drive me to niagara falls in 31 degrees and raining weather. I haven't seen the falls in years and for some reason really wanted to see them again.

My friend B and I decided to go camping over new year's eve. The nice thing about living here is that you can actually camp in the winter. It was not very warm though. We went to Mojave national preserve. We spent the first night in a tiny campground where we camped as far away as possible from a (female) couple but could still hear everything they said, and I do mean everything. We visited an interesting cave that morning: and then went to Kelso dunes where I saw my first (non-beach) dunes!

We made our own pathetic ripples too and then saw some lava and ash deposits.
We decided to move to a bigger campground at a lower elevation for new year's eve. It was a mistake. It was freezing. By the time we had made dinner, water had frozen on our plates. We spent the night huddled by our campfire, drinking champagne and running after our tents as the wind kept blowing them over. But we had fun anyway.

We visited a "slot canyon" that morning and then drove home. Overall we saw a huge range of geologic processes in only a few days.

Now I am back in tempe and am really enjoying that it is 68 degrees and SUNNY in January. Catching up on blogging for three weeks means that my posts are more summaries than anything else. I am sure that there are exciting stories that I am forgetting....