Breathtaking Trails, Science Geekery, and a Crazy Tree

This morning started with an early run through the trails. It was so beautiful at 6:30am! The sun had just come up. It's rays reflected off Rhode River and through the trees which covered the trail. I kept stopping to appreciate the grace of nature: the trees, the river, the wildlife. While on the banks of the Rhode River, I saw an osprey swoop down to grab a fish out of the river. It was breathtaking! Nature is fascinating, especially when one takes a moment to simply appreciate it fully.

My morning in the lab involved running CO2 and NO2 gas standards for a methane experiment in the GC-MS (gas chromatography-mass spectrometry). There's a GC-MS at Bryn Mawr, but the one in my lab here is so fantastic! I geeked out all over it. But then did not get a picture. I also got cleared to use the Smithsonian Institute networks. There was even an exam to use it, with lots of rules! They are very serious about rules here at SERC and within the whole of the Smithsonian Institute.

In the afternoon, I went out into the field to help with cleaning and fixing up a few of the old chambers, so we can use them for a new experiment out in the marsh. The chambers are stored under a shed, so they were all muddy and a few had broken sealant, which needed to be replaced. But we think we have enough that are in a good condition. We got supplies out of the tool shed, which has so many fun toys in it. Fun construction toys of course! To destroy and to create lots of things out of all sorts of different materials. There was a tree at the back of the shed which used to have a rope around it. The rope must have been on the tree so long that as the tree grew, it grew around the rope. You can still see pieces of it poking out from the bumps where the rest has been absorbed by the trunk of the tree!

In the evening, before it got dark my hall mates and I went out for a walk to explore the trails and burn off the pizza and ice cream we had earlier. We started out on the Java Trail, which winds in a circle from the dormitory on main campus to the banks of the Rhode River by the Wet Lab and the Reed Education Center.The trail becomes a wooden walkways as it crosses over a small piece of the marsh. We stopped there to look at the river and do a little bit of birdwatching. On the way back to the Green Village dormitory, we decided to take a detour to look at the forest and fields some more. We saw a new growth forest with trees that are less than ten years old. It was such a stark difference to see these young trees against the older forests which in some places is up to 250 years old.This trail came out to a dirt path road with a gorgeous view of the fields
around the main campus.  On the other side of this big hill on the right are the ruins of Contee Mansion. The Contee family is Scottish royalty who came to America in the 1600s. They used to own all the land on which SERC currently resides. When the patriarch of the family died, he split his land into two pieces, giving half to one son and half to the other. SERC is located on one of these halves. We were given a brief history of the site today at a talk by the director of SERC.

I love every single moment I am here. I cannot believe I have only been here three days. It seems like so much longer because I have already learnt and experienced so much! I look forward to doing more tomorrow and all the other days I will be here!