DC

Can't believe tomorrow i'm headed back to Maine - it's been a busy and whirlwind visit - and awesome to see the D's! Yesterday I did a talk at National Geographic about the Chile work - it went okay, but was not one of my more spectacular talks unfortunately, just too nervous all the way through. Maybe they'll invite me back at the end of the project so I can kick ass a little more....:) It wasn't a bad talk, I just didn't relax enough to be able to enjoy it much. I had meetings with folks after though which went well, hopefully some exciting education and outreach things to follow. 

Sunday morning we went to the botanical gardens at the mall. It was a beautiful day - warm and sunny, but without the humidity. 

Davin adjusts the signage on the Voodoo plant - a plant I actually think is pretty so need to look up and see if it grows in Maine. 

My favorites - the orchid house! 

Dahlia filling her watering can in the childrens garden. We all sat here for probably nearly an hour, it was so peaceful as Davin and Dahlia watered and pottered. 

Filling their watering cans. 

The rest of the week has been in the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History - pulling out corals to sample for a histology project. These beautiful corals are from 500m depth, and collected on the Albatross in 1888! I hope they work for this study! 

Big jars of corals! 

Little delicate corals. 

Stacks and stacks of corals. Kid in a candy store comes to mind, if it wasn't over airconditioned, I could spend many house here. 

In the hallways behind the scenes. If you look closely at the head end you can see why I took this photo. Curators can indeed have fun!