More Excursion Pics...

Pictures from the excursion have been flooding in on Facebook, and there were some pretty good ones I thought I'd share. It's a nice break from studying... on that note, if anyone knows where I can find information on storm surges in the Outer Banks, LET ME KNOW!! :)



Here I am coming out of the Bronze Age Copper Mines... I'm not claustrophobic but I had a few moments down here. We were a line of 20 people marching through narrow, low tunnels carved by BONES and ROCKS 4,000 years ago.. so the minimum amount of space possible was carved out here. The tunnels are literally where the veins of malachite used to run. My mind was blown... first, how the heck did they dig these tunnels (some were so small, clearly 4-5 year olds had to dig them), and second, how the heck did they figure out that they could grind up the malachite they found and burn it using charcoal to make copper. !?!


On a lighter, more SPACIOUS note... this is the Great Hall of Caerffili Castle! My friend tagged this on facebook as Emilia Regina...ER, like Elizabeth I... CLEVER. I'll take it.


Here's a group shot so you can see some of the faces I've been talking about. Most of these students are from Michigan (hear that gpa?? :) ) The two next to me (Kevin in blue, Curtis in green) are Environmental students. It's really a great group.


Group shot! 23 (maybe?) of us went on the excursion, but I think like 32 are in the program.


Typical me and Dr. Addision interaction.. he definitely uses the Socratic method to painfully pull information out of us. He always says we know a hell of a lot more than we admit too.. much of what we are studying involves a bit of background knowledge and then lots of logic and common sense... sigh... unfortunately, we all still leave class feeling like we need to read another 20 books before next class. This site was really interesting.. we are standing in a valley filled with these big boulders. Surrounding the valley are rolling hills with no boulders. How did the boulders get there? There's no river or water source present to move the boulders...

Turns out melting permafrost slid the boulders into their present location... that in combo with farmers attempting to roll them out of their pastures. Anyway, that gives you an idea of the type of sites we were looking at and the approach we were taking...

Ok, that about sums up the excursion. This week I have to finish two essays, because I am heading to Glasgow for 5 days over the weekend (ok, I am stretching out the weekend a bit). Next week is our last week... which is pretty darn sad. I'll think about that all later..

Love,
E