Croatan National Forest, Trip 3

I am moving forward on my research project this semester. My adviser and I decided that it would be a good idea to get more samples in the area so that we could figure out how much the water in the forest is mixing with the Neuse River, the Trent River, and the White Oak River. So I used Google Maps to find some more places to sample. This time I focused on getting more samples from within the forest and more samples in between the forest and the rivers. After our last two experiences driving around the area, we knew that it would probably take more time than I thought, so I planned out our route carefully so that we could get as many samples as possible and get it all done in one trip. We also got everything ready the night before and worked really hard to leave earlier in the morning. There were several places that I really wanted to sample, but it turned out that we couldn't access them because they were gated off, so that was disappointing, but overall we did pretty well. Hopefully the samples I got will give me some useful information. I also have a sample from last semester that failed in the mass spectrometer, so I'm going to try running it again. We got twelve samples in one day (the other two times we went we only got six or seven in a day) and we were done early enough that we decided to just drive home for dinner instead of stopping at Chick Fil A like we did before. We got home at around 8:00 or 9:00 pm.

We did have a minor complication with the van. As we were driving down the highway we heard something bang against the van, and then we heard it again a minute later. After a while we stopped and discovered that the left tail light had fallen off and was hanging by the wires. After a lot of fiddling Ryan managed to take it off and stick in the back of the van so it wouldn't be banging around the whole time. We tried several auto parts stores in the area to see if they had a tail light we could buy, but none of them had one. Fortunately we never got pulled over. When we got home, at the suggestion of a friend we called the dealership where we bought the van and asked if they could replace the light since it happened just a couple of days after we bought the van from them. They happened to have one there, so they replaced it and we didn't have to buy one. Other than that, the van did great. We actually made the entire trip on one tank of gas, and on the highways we were getting pretty decent gas mileage (yes, the van can tell us what kind of gas mileage we are getting).

Mostly these are just pretty pictures that Ryan took at various stops.

 This was a huge tree that was upturned. Kevin is standing in front of the roots at the bottom of the tree that were pulled out of the ground.

On this side of the bridge the river had been dammed. The water was kind of gross because it had a lot of green scum growing on top. There was a funny man in a white pickup truck who stopped for a second while I was getting some water here, and he asked in a very slow southern drawl, "Are ya fishin'?" When I told him what I was doing, he just said, "Oohh. I thought you mighta bin fishin'." And then he left. Maybe you just had to be there to hear it, but his soft drawl and the way he talked so slowly--almost lazily--were kind of amusing to me.

We thought this sign was kind of funny.

The kids are pretty good car travelers (car seats are quite helpful too). They didn't get to get out of the car as much this time because most of our stops were just on the side of the road (unlike last time when we usually were able to park in parking lots), but we did let them get out for a while on a quiet dirt road. Ryan took Kevin exploring a little ways into the woods, and then they threw rocks and sticks into the river, which made them pretty happy. The string cheese and crackers were also an exciting treat.