Well, we left the hotel at about 7 and drove up to Santa Fe. There, we had breakfast and cards and presnts and stuff were given out. Don gave us all cards and chocolate and pocket whistle/lights. Donna gave us cards and these little statuettes. We passed around our journals and wrote notes to eachother.
Back in the van, we started the drive toward Albuquerque. Holly passed out some pencils and pins she had gotten all of us, which was sweet:o) We chatted randomly, listened to some radio music etc.

When we did arrive at the airport, Corinne, Owen, Holly and I checked in for our flight - well, so did everyone else, ut.. Anyway, we were the first flight leaving an of course we had the longest line and had to take the longest;)
We headed back to the little Biplane in the lobby once we finished upwhere everyone was waiting - Daryl finally showed up, too. Then, we went down toanother airport landmark - this statue of an a eagle - and took a group picture there.
Our flight was first, so we headed toward our gat. we had only a few mintues to talk before we had to go. I finally got quotes on my tape recorder from Jim and Daryl...lost Andy's somewhere or else I would've had everyone...ah well - Andy can just have silence, I guess;) Too bad I didn't have time to get all of it done for the page...but don't worry...the stuff'll show up on the CD;) Anyway, we hugged everybody and said our goodbyes, and then we had to leave for our plane and they for their next departure.

We took our seats and the four of us were still reasonably clos enough together to hold converstaion:o) It was a short flight, though and once we got to Phoenix, we had to get some food to eat and then say goodbye to Corinne... Holly was supposed to leave soon after, but when she checked her flight, it turns out it had gotten canceled and rescheduled for a later tim - about 4-ish which was near to ours. So all three of us spent or random 3 hours in the airport together playing cards for a while, eating snacks, chatting, etc.
Well, after saying goodbye to Holly, Owen and I boarded our plane. This time we were seated pretty far apart...I didn' midn too much - if we had sat next to eachother we would've had to talk more and I liked havng a couple hours of quiet reflection time abut the trip:o) Well, we got back to Oakland and met our parents and family and everything and finally got home!

After Trip Reflection
Well, I couldn't just leave off with "and then I left everybody at th airport". That's much too sad and doesn't tell you anything;)
Sooo - my thoughts about the trip.:o) At first, I wasn't too excited. I mean, I was really happy and pleased I had gotten chosen and and that I got assigned to the astronomy trip and I was really excited that I would get a chance to visit the VLA;), but I wasn't exactly excited and talking about it everywhere. But now that it's happened, I'd have to say it was great. It took me awhile afterwards to get over the fact that I'd probably never see anyone again...but now that I think about it, I don't mind. It was a great two weeks and I'm glad I met everybody:o)
I dunno - I personally learned quite a lot...but I was pretty interested in astronomy in the first place. Corinne also seemed really interested in science...and well, the world in general:o) I think she must've had a good time. For most of the others, I guess Earthwatch did what they wanted - got kids interested in the fields of science:o) I like that being immersed in Astrophysics for two weeks - while when we were there it felt like not that much...in retrospect that's just because we were getting used to all that information coming at us:o) We had lots of awesome experiences and learned a lot:o)
Anyway, I'd like to apologize for taking so long to put this webpage up;) I had a really busy summer after the trip and we had to fill out those nifty evaluation sheets from Earthwatch, too;) I feel kinda bad that I didn't get to do the audio clips and that not all my picutres and drawings got put somewhere, but c'est la vie!
But, it was a very memorable experience and I'm glad I could participate!

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This page last updated November 14, 2000.