Field Trip around Oklahoma State

Just got back from a field trip which took us to 3 locations around the state to see different types of rocks for my Earth's Past Climate class. It was a bit of an early start and there was lots of sitting in the mini bus but there were some interesting features to see. First we went to Edmond, the to just outside Yale and finally to Hitchcock. Here are a few things that I saw. It was a very hot day and the sky was completely cloudless providing no shelter when we were out on the rocks.




















First Stop Edmond, there was an oil well here as Oklahoma is one of the major oil producing states in the US. This rock is a permian sandstone.

Next stop Yale to look at the alternating types of rock from the Pennsylvannian time. The road here was very dusty and scary with nothing but dry fields around it a bit like being in asome kind of scary movie.

Final stop and we are near Hitchcock, with out the trees it looks a little bit like Mars. this rock is from the mid permian and has pieces of dolomite and gypsite in which are very pretty and I collected a few small pieces for my self.

After a long day though I was happy to get home and have a rest.

Sunsets

There have been some beautiful sunsets here and my 2nd floor apartment is the perfect place to view them as I look out over the sky line and some bare land. Here are a few pictures of some of them.

The weekend of Oklahoma State fair

Last weekend was the Oklahoma State fair and I went on the sunday afternoon. I drove the car down the interstate to Oklahoma City which was fairly stressful but I'm glad that I did it as I'm a bit more prepared for my driving experiences on road trips this year.

When we got there there was a petting zoo which was fun to look around and there were loads of really cute baby goats that were tiny.

Then we walked on through the fair past all the food stands and other stalls to the rides where we went on the large ferris wheel. Our seats stopped at the top and there was a great view of the fair and the skyline of Oklahoma City. It was an incrediablt hot day and I tried a snow cone which is very finely crushed ice with flavour poured on top which I wouldn't reccomend but had to be tried once.

The day before I had a much more pleasant food experience however when I made a lasagne for 8 people which was a success. I also made some home made garlic bread with crusty french bread and garlic butter which I'd made with fresh garlic earlier in the week. One of the Robs made a salad and it was all very yummy.

Finally the last excitement of the weekend came when on the way back we briefly stopped off at Oklahoma City. There wasn't much time but we saw the edge of Bricktown and I'll be interested to go and have a proper look around soon. We saw this intersting buffalo decorated like the american flag inthe business district.

New things!

I have three new things to write about which all happened on three consecutive days.
Firstly, just under 2 weeks ago I finally mey my host family for the first time. They are very lovely and know lots of people so the house is very full all of the time. They have two dogs a red golden labrador called Myra, a little mongeral called Kelly both of whom I'm quite fond of, and two cats, one very soft grey one called Willow who dissapeared as soon as lots of people turned up, and a fat siamese called Aslan who loves lots of attention. They also have some fish and a baby ball python who I was very happy not to have to handel.
We had a lovely meal of lots of different asian food which was full of flavour and I even picked up the recipie for one of the soups there was which I really loved that was made of butternut squash- something I didn't think that I liked-I'm about to make my own attempt at it and if it's any good I'll have to send it on.

Secondly, a couple of mondays ago I decided to join the womens choir. It was really good to be singing again and whislt there are not many pieces and none of them are that long I still had a lot of fun and have met a few more new people. There are plans to go carroling at Christmas with santa hats and hot chocolate so that should be fun too.

On the tuesday, I went to the Huston Huffman centre where the gym is and tried my hand at the rock climbing wall and completed the training program for work. Unforetunately I've been a bit busy this week but I'm hoping that next week I'll be able to go and complete the belay test so that I can get a card then go climbing whenever I want.

All in all last week was fairly evenful.

A 2 week update

Due to me having a broken computer I have been unable to update for a while. So, now I'm finally back to normal, here is an update of thigs that have been going on in the last couple of weeks.

I took my laptop the the IT help desk last week and they told me a week later that my computer was broken so it has been decided that it was time for a new lap top. I went to the store yesterday and am now the very happy owner of a Toshiba M305D, a bit smaller then my last computer but it has a mic and web cam built in and runs incredibly fast. Thanks to opening one of my birthday presents early I have manged to save all the files and photos from my old computer, thanks for the external hard drive , it literally has been a life saver. I didn't much fancy having to rewrite that report for Robin Hogan that I was working on this summer holiday.

All's well here right now, I got 55/60 0n my statistics homework and did fairly well on my mid-term exam considering how I thought I'd done. All my other work is going well as far as I can tell too, but as always I've been given another load for this weekend which I will be completeing tomorrow hopefully so that i can enjoy my birthday on monday.

On sunday I am going on a field trip with Earth's Past Climate which should be fun as we are going to go and look at the rocks in lots of different areas on the State. I'm not so happy about having to be up and ready to leave from the other side of campus (a half an hour walk) by 7.30am!

I will write a short blog about a few of the things that have happened recently to break all t his up otherwise it will be one monster post.

A long week

So it's been a fairly long week already and its only thursday and there has not been much going on this week. The weather has gone down hill over the last 3 days and we haven't seen the sun just lots of cloudy skies and heavy rain. I seem to have a lot to do and deadlines are starting to creep up which is not that enjoyable.

We went to see a film at the cinema at the weekend, College. I don't recommend seeing it if it comes out, we just thought it would be funny to watch a film about going to an all American University whilst we are at one.

We are meeting our host-families on sunday which should be fun, it'll be nice to have someone to show us around some of Oklahoma throughout the year.

Dallas, land of the cow boys

Monday was Labour Day! So it was time for our first road trip, so we decded to stay fairly near by and went off to Dallas. First we stopped off at Turner Falls in the Arbuckles for a quick visit.

We then headed into Dallas on the crazy interstate 35. People just don't know how to drive here, and we all agreed that we were probably some of the best drivers on the road.

When we got to Dallas we were going to go up Union Tower but unfortuately it was closed for renovation, instead we headed straight into the centre which was very empty. I've since found out that as city centres were so dangerous in the 1970s, people went out to the out of town shopping centres where there was better security and lots os city centres are like this.

I saw the place where JFK was shot, literally, there is a cross on the road, a bit like x marks the spot.

There were some intersting new buildings being made though and it was nice to walk around although it was swelteringly hot out in the sun. We found a proper cow boy shop and I really want to get some proper boots now, I'm not sure about a stetson though.

Next we I drove us over to Arlington where the big baseball stadium is and we watched a game between the Texas Rangers and the Seattle Mariner's. It was one of the most bizarre things I've every seen as there is alsorts going on in between innings to keep the crowd entertained, but it was all good fun, We even saw some cirrus clouds that were from the outer bands of hurricane Gustav.

The game finished late and it was a long drive back to Norman which took us a bit longer than we wanted so it was straight to bed.