Packing up and Coming Home!

Packing Up
On Tuesday we had many things do to:
1) Identify and process all the caterpillars we'd found on Monday
2) Zoo - feed, clean, and check the status of all the caterpillars in the collection
3) Pack all of our clothes for the trip to New Orleans and then home
4) Pack up the caterpillars and clean the bunkhouse
5) Drive to New Orleans and transfer the caterpillars to the Chemical Ecology lab at Tulane
6) Go out to dinner to celebrate the success of the expedition
7) Follow the results of the election

Identifying the caterpillars and gathering data was one of my favorite parts of the expedition. We divided the tasks to make sure everything got done. Here I am trying to find all those darn tortridiidae. You can see my bed in the background, I slept on the bottom bunk.














While I finished processing and doing zoo, others were cleaning the bunkhouse behind my back. I was so focused I didn't even notice them tidying up, so imagine how surprised I was when I turned around and the bunkhouse looked like this!

















Do you even recognize it with the equipment gone and when it is so neat?










While doing zoo this AM, someone noticed that the wasp had emerged from the pupae that was stuck to the webworm I showed you during the conference on Monday. In this picture you can see the webworm on the leaf with the pupae case still stuck to it, to the right of the leaf and a little lower down, you can see the brochonidae wasp adult. It died in the bag, but that is OK because the data is complete.














Here's a video showing what happened when we separated the pupae case from the caterpillar!

Rebecca put the live caterpillar in it's bag back on the rack so that it will be cared for properly, but she doesn't think it's very likely that it will successfully undergo metamorphosis and emerge as a moth. The parasite really sapped a lot of its strength.

Here is the lab rack from the field, all set up in the Chemical Ecology lab at Tulane. We were worried about what would happen to the caterpillars, but Rebecca has a student who takes care of them all.


















After finishing the lab work at Tulane, we all returned to the Park View Guest house - our home away from home in New Orleans. The people there were so kind to us - it was a wonderful place to stay!









This is the view Ms. Lewis and I had from our room - can you guess why the guest house is called the "Parkview?"














After washing up, we went out for a nice meal to celebrate the expedition. I had the gumbo sampler, of course. It turns out there are three kinds of gumbo - creole, okra, and filet (made with sassafrass leaves). They were all great - but I think I liked the okra the best. Tara is a vegetarian, so the chef said he'd whip something up for her - check out this awesome vegetarian edifice! Doesn't it look like food architecture?


















During the meal, we were all anxious to get news of the election results. Here is Katie on the phone getting an update from her husband in Vermont.














When we finished dinner, we went to the place where Mike - one of our research leaders - had a gig - he is also a musician. Here we are with Mike playing in the background.














We stayed up pretty late watching the election results. We were so proud to hear about how many people voted in this election! Did you know that more African Americans voted in early voting in North Carolina, then voted in the whole election of 2004? Isn't that awesome? What a great social studies lesson in participatory democracy!
On Wednesday, it was time for us to say good bye and go our separate ways. It was hard because we had all become a very close team while we were together - but I also missed my class and my family and was ready to come home.
Here we are - all packed up and waiting for our taxis to the airport - Katie had a very early flight, so she had already left by the time we took this picture.















Home at last!
Here I am at home with my daughter and my doggies - we were all so happy to be together again!