I'm a-leavin' in a Ford truck, don't know if I'll have any luck
Tomorrow is the Big Departure Day and I'm not even sure where I'm going first. How's that for seat of my pants? Those who know me know that undertaking a trip without planning every step in fully documented detail drives me *crazy* and yet now I'm doing a half-assed field collection trip for the third time. It all works out, more or less. In the places where it doesn't work out, I defiantly shout at the basswood-free woods, "It's my project and if I don't have a single sample in the entire state of Missouri, too bad!"

I spent yesterday printing maps and permits and emails and discovered that many of the firmly drawn red dots on my map actually referred to vague mentions in the literature of trees that might have existed there thirty years ago in an unspecified location. Oops. Too late to do anything about it now; I will just have to drive aimlessly and see what I find.

The Evolution poster is not done yet either, but I don't think it'll be hard to finish up. If I encounter a rainy, yucky day, maybe I'll just park myself at a bookstore and get it over with.

Today, I pack and buy groceries and supplies. Books I am taking: Darwinia, a sci-fi novel that I am close to finishing; A Mile in Her Boots, essays by women who do field work (appropriate!); and The Two Towers, since I read Fellowship last summer and it's an excellent travel book. I finished A Tale of Two Cities yesterday and it made me weepy at the end.

I'll miss my hubby and doggy and house and garden and yes, even the lab, very much. I'm such a homebody.

I will post pictures when I can. Stay tuned!


Miss Foley, who has no idea what's about to happen
- posted by Diane @ 8:52 AM