Trip to Chaa Creek Lodge in Belize - Day 1

Note - writing this with some help from my daughter.

My family and I went on a trip to Belize in early August 2017 and I am posting some notes and pictures from the trip here.

We chose Belize for a few semi - random reasons.  First, we had wanted to go to Europe but we really only could travel just the week before school started for my kids and we felt like Europe was (1) too far (2) would involve too much jet lag and (3) would involve too many Real Madrid fans.  So we started looking around closer to home.  We wanted to go out of the country (out of the USA - not just out of California, though it really is it's own country).  So - well - we looked at Mexico.  And Central America.  And we settled on Belize.

We decided to spend the whole week of our trip at one place and, since we have been going to Hawaii a bit recently, we decided we did not want to spend our time in a beach-like setting, so we looked for places in the inland rainforesty areas.  My wife spent quite a lot of time searching for possible places and she came up with some candidates and after discussions on the pluses and minuses of all the places and after also asking Twitter and friends and such we settled on Chaa Creek.  An ecolodge of sorts with a slight upscale angle.

More on the place and such later.

Right now I really want to start to get some pictures posted.  So here are some from our travel day.

SMF to Dallas to Belize.

On the plane

I did not take too many (well, more than one) pictures on the actual trip.  But suffice it to say we flew on a plane.

An interesting shirt at a shop at the airport

Waiting for our ride while all the local taxi drivers, well, tried to offer us rides in ways I found to be, well, dubious. 

The ride to Chaa Creek was about two hours long.  I took some pics along the way.  Here are some of them.  Oh - and our driver, Edward, was an FC Barcelona fan.  Yay.

On the road to Chaa Creek

On the road to Chaa Creek

On the road to Chaa Creek

On the road to Chaa Creek

On the road to Chaa Creek

On the road to Chaa Creek

On the road to Chaa Creek

On the road to Chaa Creek

On the road to Chaa Creek

On the road to Chaa Creek

On the road to Chaa Creek

On the road to Chaa Creek

On the road to Chaa Creek

On the road to Chaa Creek

On the road to Chaa Creek

On the road to Chaa Creek 

On the road to Chaa Creek 

On the road to Chaa Creek 

Off to the reception building 

Off to the reception building

Off to the reception building

Off to the reception building

We settled in, got some dinner, and were very hot.  Like really very hot.  Like really really warmer than warm.  It was beautiful.  And interesting.  And hot.  Really really hot.  Or, more relevant.  It was hot and really really humid.  I mean, I grew up in the Washington DC area so I know hot and humid.  But I live in California now, where hot and humid usually do not go together.  We get hot in Davis.  Really really really hot.  But dry. Like really really dry. .

Pics from the Redrum hotel in DC where we stayed for #SAMG12

Notes from a trip to Woods Hole, MA to teach #genomics at the MBL Microbial Diversity Course

Here are some notes from my recent trip to Woods Hole, MA where I went to give a talk for the Marine Biological Lab "Microbial Diversity Course".

Day 1:  Thursday

My trip started quite poorly.  I wrote a whole post on the first day so if you want more detail go here: A squatter's journey to the Marine Biological Lab (MBL).  I posted (of course) to twitter along the way.  Here are some of my posts:

• Heading to Woods Hole/MBL-giving talk for symposium for the Microbial Diversity Class http://t.co/o2hx0tf #fb
• Anyone out there recommend best way to get from Logon to Woods Hole after 10:30 PM (no Peter Pan bus) w/o renting car? 
• Got lots of responses to this including from @ctitusbrown and @PhoebeFossil and @larry_parnell
• Best suggestion was from Julie Huber
• Thank you Delta for out early arrival in MSP- not so many thanks for sitting on runway for 20 minutes ad more waiting for gate
• Yhgtbfkm - we finally got to a gate at MSP and the gate agents keep missing our door with jetway
• @nwheat maybe I'll see you as I head to my connection
• Had a long twitter conversation with her about the fact that both of our flights were becoming disasters
• Plane was very late bit now in a nice Prius from Green Shuttles on way to Woods Hole #gomicrobes http://t.co/zwAHWy
• UGGGH - arrived Woods Hole/MBL; got dorm room key at 1am; woman in room not very happy; finally got other hot crummy dorm room; Ahh MBL

Day 2: Friday: Hanging out at MBL

Woke up at the Swope Dorms and, thanks to the lovely reception I got from the Housing Staff (see A squatter's journey to the Marine Biological Lab (MBL) again for more detail) I was not very happy.  I went in to town to get a latte and something to eat and then made it over to the Microbial Diversity Course to hear a few talks and see some of the folks there.  Then I went back to my dorm room, packed up my stuff and abandoned Swope and went to the Sleepy Hollow Motor Inn just up the road, a bit out of town.  I had already called and they held a room for me (I tried the one place actually in town but they were full).  So I checked in, dumped my stuff and then walked back in to town.  I eventually ended up going to dinner with some of the course TAs and other personnel.

A squatter's journey to the Marine Biological Lab (MBL)

Well, I have arrived at the Marine Biological Lab in Woods Hole after a pretty disastrous journal.  I am here to talk in a Symposium that is part of the "Microbial Diversity" summer course: Microbial Diversity - Mbl.edu.  I am hoping all goes better in the next few days than it did yesterday.  I flew from Sacramento to Minneapolis and the plane arrived early.  Then we sat on the runway for 30 or so minutes because first, we did not have an open gate to go to and then second, because the gate staff could not get the walkway to connect to our plane.  Then I thought I was going to barely make my connection to Boston.  Alas, my flight to Boston was delayed due to engine trouble.  I discovered via twitter than some others were also stuck waiting for Delta to fix their planes.

Finally, we boarded and then we sat in the plan for an extra 20 minutes to load luggage and cargo.  Finally I got to Boston - about an hour late - and got picked up by a nice Prius from GoGreenShuttle (thanks Julie Huber for the suggestion) and got to Woods Hole at about 1:30 AM.  I called Lizzie Wilbanks, a Phd student in my lab who is one of the TAs for the course this summer, and she came down with what were supposed to be my keys to one of the dorm rooms in Swope Hall.  She went back to her room and I went to open mine.  Alas, the key did not work.  It was late and I kept trying to get it to work, when a very unhappy woman opened the door and said, in essence "WTF?"  I said, well, this is supposed to be my room.  And she said basically "I don't think so" and shut the door.  Fun.