Hawaii x2!

For the second time this year, I was able to visit Honolulu, Hawaii! Once good thing about the stress and low pay of my job, is all the opportunities to travel to different places! This time, I was joined by the other graduate student in my lab. It was an awesome trip! It was her first conference, and since it was really low-key, we got a chance to interact more with the professors who attended.  

 A and I on the plane!

 Quickly getting a pic on the escalator out of the airport. It was a long flight so we don't look awesome...

 So what's the first thing we did? Get some Mai Tai's!!!

That evening, we met up with the only other graduate student in our department who was on this trip for dinner. We attempted to go to this sushi place, but the wait list was until next year! The bell hop recommended another place, and, honestly, I think I enjoyed it more than sushi!

 I got a lychee martini, and it was pretty good!

 I had a seafood gumbo type thing. Yum seafood!

 View of Honolulu from our balcony.

 It was so nice to get some sun!

 I had a flip-flop mishap. My expensive, good for you flip-flops gave me the worst blister! I had to buy some new flip-flops. A little tacky looking, but they worked!

 We had to attend a mixer the first night, but we snuck away early for drinks by the pool. 

 Day 1! A is sooooo excited!

 That night we went to a luau. We were at a table with most of our department so it was fun to catch up.

 They had an awards ceremony! F (the other student) won a poster award!

One of the post-docs was here with me in May for another conference, and during that time, she found this little restaurant on the beach. After a day of paddle boarding in the sun, we had a great night just hanging out. Fresh seafood, beach at night, good friends!

 Yummy food!

 The grown-ups (the post-doc and the professor) left to catch a flight, so we went and walked around town a bit.

 F and his 'serious face'. He was just happy we found him frozen yogurt...

 A and I

 We went to the International Market in the rain. A and I both got Tiki men, while F window shopped. 

 Our last day, we just hung out at the beach. 

We ended our trip with a gorgeous sunset and a last round of tropical drinks.

All in all, it was a fabulous trip!

-amyg

KT Came to Visit!

A few weeks ago, another friend of mine took time out of her busy schedule to come visit me! I've known KT since she moved to town, but we really became best buds in 7th or 8th grade. She lives on the Texas coast working at the Texas Maritime Museum. She has a FABULOUS house down there that I was lucky enough to get the chance to see this past New Years. Even though I live so far away, I love that I can still keep contact with my friends from the south.

First thing we did was head to the Museum of the Rockies and check out the dinosaurs. 

 We also did one thing I've always wanted to do in Bozeman... We hiked to the 'M'! Now, there's something you need to know about this trail... there are multiple ways to get up and down. There's the steep way and the easy way. We ended up going up the steep way. It. Was. Hard. 500 feet strait up. And it really was straight up. But we made it!!!!

Somehow, on the way down, we decided to go what we thought was the easy way. It was not. It was the 'intermediate' way. All I know is somehow, we ended up rock climbing....

Also, I just found out, there's a black bear that lives at the bottom of this trail. While it would have been cool to see, I'm a little glad we missed running into him....

We, of course, went to Yellowstone National Park... twice! It was nice and dreary both times but we still had a great time.

 

One day, we ended up driving up to the top of a mountain to eat lunch. It was cold!!! But it was pretty and a lot of fun. 

 

And of course, we saw the usual bison causing a backup in the roadway. 

So glad she came to visit!

-amyg