New England for the first time Ever

When we last left our roaming correspondent (that would be me), she was seen with Lobsters obtained in Florida...Next (well not really next I did this before lobstering but I am posting my summer as just a random progression, rather than things happened chronologically) she was off to Rhode Island....

I had never been to New England (my eventual goal is to be in all 50 states, and this racked up two New England states nicely) before this trip. The trip was, fortunately or unfortunately, for work. I was attending the Gordon Reaseach Conference in Ecological and Evolutionary Genomics (fancy for a lot of scientists (myself included) talking about DNA and evolution)). The conference was cool, if you are a geneticist or biologist like myself...for those who are not, I will spare you the sciencely details, and give just this summary: There was lots of science, we attended lectures for most of the day by some VERY VERY top notch researchers, including but not limited too: Dr. Greg Wray, of human genetics fame, Dr's Mike Eisen and Sergey Nuzhdin of Drosophila Notoriety, my own advisor Dr. Doug Crawford, and many more. I learned a lot, made a new friend or two, learned my technology will be obsolete yesterday (I already knew that and have future plans) and generally had a good time learning. Oh, and I presented a poster of my own work, which went relatively well I thought.

And I ate A LOT of Lobster.

Here now is a small photo summary of my trip.
The conference was in Newport Rhode Island, home of many famous manions...this one was on the campus of the University...in fact it was the building next door to the lecture hall we were using.

Newport is a very cute little maratime town, I had a good time. The weather was overall good, but we had a few days of intense fog...which led to buildings LOOMING (my dads favorite word) out of the fog at you...and give the size of some mansions, that can be quite impressive.


And this Gem. The University is next door to the rather famous Breakers Mansion (summer home of the Vanderbuilts. This is the Doll house...literally. They built this mini carriage house as a doll house. What doesn't come out clearly in the photo is that the columns are creepy children.

I enjoyed the cliff walk, which can give you views like this (the Tea house)


and if you are more tide pool oriented like me, this

After the conference was finished, I spent an afternoon in Boston. Boston was great, I went to the aquarium, which had a fabulous jellyfish exhibit going on.

And believes Pacific Northwest Tidepools look like this

I had a lot of fun, ate lots more lobster, had the greatest "Dark and Stormy" (Ginger Beer and Rum) of my life, and saw this sign...

I realize you likely cannot read it. The sign reads "If you are not on fire you can NOT use this hydrant"

It was an awesome trip...
Next time, going to Seattle, and on an awesome hike.