End of the line for the field trip

Field trips tend to end with a whimper rather than a bang.  It's because people get tired physically and mentally; you begin to long for the comfort of the familiar, and the ease of you regular day-to-day life although TPP has on several occasions gotten into a new field trip routine where it feels familiar, sort of.  Usually that takes a few weeks.  So tomorrow the troops get packed up and depart. The mud gets washed off the boots and everything that has gotten strewn around gets gathered back up and stowed. How did it expand in size? Everything is heavier because of the humidity. Repacking is rather a depressing thing to do the more so that TPP is suffering from some sort of GI tract discomfort.  Never fun, especially when getting ready to travel overseas.  Another bit of last minute business is to make an order for Costa Rican coffee.  As you may know TPP never endorses anyone, but should you be in San Jose, TPP cannot say enough good things about Cafe Trebol, a 100 year old coffee roasting business located on the Calle 8 side of the Mercado Central. It's top notch coffee at fair prices, and TPP has been buying it for over 20 years now. Coffee is an easy to pack gift being nearly non-breakable. They also have cacoa of several grades.  Time to wrap up a few things for packing especially the plant press. 

Field trip packing

Packing for tropical field trips really bites. TPP has real trouble with this and while my brain cranks away on the multiple problems of what to bring, the rest procrastinates. When it's fall going on winter, it is hard to remember everything you need and all the things you don't need. High on the need list: really good flashlight, compact but tough umbrella, Wellington type rubber boots. If you remember these three items and the rest will more or less work out. If you forget real field clothes, the ones you have will work out and they will be real field clothes before you know it. Nothing stains quite like lateritic clay. So no problems really. It's also hard to know what little bits and pieces you may need if you are going to conduct any investigations. Bamboo skewers are surprisingly useful things as are the essential sharpie markers. You really can't go wrong with a small roll of duct tape. Ziplock plastic bags are terrific too. This particular field trip requires some cans of jellied cranberry sauce (arandano rojo?) which is pretty hard to find in Costa Rica if you plan to have a Thanksgiving dinner. Of course cranberries are one of the few native North American domesticated plants. Also have a list of house/garden things to fix/finish up before taking off for a few days, and the weather has been so crappy it's hard to get them done (terribly windy). Good thing the F1 will watch after the kitty-girls. So now TPP has to get busy. Maybe after another coffee, but oh no, we used up the milk a day too early!  

Field trip packing

The only thing worse than packing for a field trip is repacking everything for the trip home.  All the careful packing has degenerated into near chaos as students have pursued their projects, and then revised their projects, and then punted, and then finally succeeded in wringing a bit of information, some data, some new understanding, out of the rainforest.  Now all this stuff has to get put away.  You figure out that biologists use way too much plastic; what would happen without Tupperware and zip lock bags?  Biological progress would grind to a halt. But you get real pragmatic on the way home and you have to make room for some Costa Rican coffee, a lot of coffee, 40-50 pounds of coffee (it's 15 people after all).  If you get to Costa Rica, do visit Café Trebol on the Calle Ocho side of the Mercado Central. Getting everything clean including your boots is difficult; getting it all dry is next to impossible especially as it is pouring buckets outside.  The troops are sorting everything on the veranda of their cabina, so it continues.  Unfortunately, the students don't/won't pack for their instructors.  Go figure.  Monday the trip will start at 5:30 AM bus loading to reverse the trip down.  Too bad all that coffee is packed away and inaccessible.