Onward to San Diego - Days 2 & 3

I spent Tuesday travelling around Bartlesville, Oklahoma, with my aunt.  The has been sustained by money from oil and was the original headquarters of Phillips 66.  Consequently the town is characterized by an mix of rural farmland, small town U.S.A., modern suburb, and major city center, all with a population of only 35,000.  The architecture is eclectic;  on a walk in my aunt and uncle's neighborhood, we houses in Romanesque, Gothic, Tudor, colonial, and Spanish styles all within a one block span.

The most famous building in town is Price Tower, one of the only skyscrapers designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.  It was originally designed for the New York skyline, so it has been nicknamed "the tree that escaped the forest".  Price Tower has hotel rooms in its upper floors, making it the only Frank Lloyd Wright building in which you can spend the night.

Price Tower is designed to remind the viewer of a tree.

On Wednesday I left early, since I had a 10.5 hour drive ahead to get to Cedar Crest, New Mexico.  Although the Texas panhandle has arbitrary longitudinal borders to the east and west, I was surprised how much those borders affected the topography and climate.  Although it had been overcast throughout my entire drive in Oklahoma, the moment I crossed into Texas the sun came out for the first time.  At the other end of the panhandle, the border lines up with an unusual geological feature.  Most of the Texas panhandle sits atop the Llano Estacado, one of the largest plateaus in North America.  Just fifteen miles from the border with New Mexico the plateau gives way to the Canadian River valley and the hilly scrubland that characterizes most of New Mexico.  Driving over the edge of the plateau is quite a spectacle:

 It's a good clue that you've reached New Mexico when the welcome center is built of adobe.

Onward to San Diego - Day 1

I should have anticipated when I started this blog how difficult it can be to motivate oneself to write while keeping up a college schedule.  The semester is over now, and I should try at least to bring everything up to date and elaborate later.

My career in the zoo world in brief:

• Summer 2007 - started volunteering as a junior docent in the children's area of the Jackson Zoo
• Summer 2009 - discovered Rhodes College across the street from the Memphis Zoo
• Summer 2010 - graduated from high school and finished my work at the Jackson Zoo before heading to Memphis for college
• Fall 2010 - received my first position at the Memphis Zoo in the research barn preparing snow leopard samples for hormone analysis
• Summer 2011 - held a brief internship at the Jackson Zoo during which I shadowed the vet tech and keepers and worked with nearly every species in the zoo
• Fall 2011 - began research with my advisor taking behavioral data on elephants at the Memphis Zoo
• Summer 2012 - held a research fellowship under my advisor to continue the elephant project taking data from video recordings
• Fall 2012 - began a second project taking data on the Memphis Zoo hippos while continuing elephant data
• Spring 2013 - applied for and received a summer research fellowship with San Diego Zoo Global

That pretty much brings me up to the present.  That list only tells part of the story, and I hope to fill in the gaps in future posts.  Currently I am on my way to San Diego for my fellowship and have completed the first leg of my trip.  I'm visited my aunt and uncle in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, and we plan to see some of the local sights tomorrow.  It's already been a very surprising city.  For a town of only 30,000, it has a downtown that could rival a much larger city:

Photo: city-data.com