We sleep 18 hours but we always party 24.

July 21, 2008 at 12:09 am · Filed under atquasuk, Barrow, travel and tagged: fossils

The plane was only two hours late, so we had time to clean up the house and eat four Otter Pops each. Maybe only Jean and I did that. Rob just ate some more of the seventeen tons of noodles that were still in the fridge.

Should we be worried that though the airline is careful to weigh every bag and ask each passenger’s weight before flights from Barrow to Atqasuk… the return flights involve no scales, only an “all aboard?”

Should we be particularly worried when we are returning with our luggage stuffed with Important Science Items fossils that drastically alter the weights that were carefully recorded on our bags in Barrow?

Perhaps we should. Jean complained of motion sickness on the flight. We may have thrown the plane off-kilter. My favorite team of pilots was flying us today. Sarah never fails to smile and ask about our plots, which she reported that she spotted from the air. I want to learn to fly a plane.

We finally got ourselves and our thousand pounds of stuff into the lab, where we ran to check the internet. The good news is: it was still there! One never knows what could happen if one is away from the internet for thirty hours, as we were when we were in the rain-prison of Atqasuk. There is usually important correspondence to be waiting for, or at the very least someone somewhere has posted something that one simply MUST read or view immediately.

The next orders of business were: a hearty greeting from our UTEP neighbors who surely missed us terribly, and a half-hearted search for Jeremy, who had managed to wander off within minutes of arrival. When all parties were accounted for, we set off for Northern Lights, a local eatery that we hadn’t visited since our first night in Barrow. It was pleasant to reminisce about something; I think five weeks is a long enough time for an event to become fair game for nostalgia, don’t you?

One member of the UTEP crew, Adrian, was kind enough to inform the wait staff that we were celebrating my birthday. He must have known that I would be much too modest to mention it myself. As a result, I was given Birthday Soup and I decreed that the Birthday Disco Ball be lighted, and the dinner party progressed rather as well as any other birthday party I’ve attended lately.

Our night without internet last night was very pleasant, actually. We got some fossil sorting (no mammoth bones, unfortunately…) and picture drawing done, and Jean volunteered to watch The Princess Bride with me. It is my most favourite movie. The title is getting tiresome, however, as people continue to mistakenly think that I mean The Princess Diaries, which I most emphatically do NOT. I’m thinking of renaming The Princess Bride something easy and memorable like MOVIE!, as in:

Person: Hey, Jenny, what’s your favorite movie?

Jenny: Oh, it’s MOVIE!… have you ever seen it?

Person: Why yes, I have, and I fully understand that it is not about the woes of ugly American teenage girls, nor was it made by Disney.

Jenny: Quite right. Cheerio!

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