Office

My job seems like crazy traveling all of the time (the address is "archaeologist on the road"). I do spend a lot of time all around the southeast, but then I go home to North Carolina and I get to write reports and work in the office. I process data, write reports, make maps, etc. This time starts out really nice, because I really do miss my boy and my cat. Then get kind of antsy. I like traveling, I enjoy not sitting at a desk all day, every day. This is where I am now. I can not WAIT for my next trip!

Boy and Max (Cat)!

Max and Mead!

I will take this time on my lovely Sunday to show you some more cool GPR images. Because I can not necessarily disclose information from my recent clients, I will show some images from some older surveys. The results from the data that I collect these days still looks basically the same.

Underneath the plaza at the Bluff Great House, UT

A historic site in PA.

On "the beach", South Carolina

I am in South Carolina right now for work. Current location, Litchfield, which is not too far south of Myrtle Beach (I think). We had an extraordinarily difficult time finding this hotel, we were planning on staying in Georgetown, SC. Then it turns out the local paper mill is closed this week and a ton of contractors are in town. All of the hotels were full. Even the nasty places with sketchy parking lots.

We continued to drive north and after stopping to check at a few places (what happened to no vacancy signs?), we ended up at Litchfield Beach and Golf Resort. This places has many good qualities: 1. A free huge breakfast buffet 2. Good price. But.... Begin rant. I tried to go see the "sea" today, thinking it would be a short walk from the hotel we were staying at. It seemed logical, they were offering "sea" rooms. I should have known, however, when I passed a shuttle stop. Then I passed some signs to places like blank bay and blank cove. Stupidly, I assumed these were geographic formation. Rather than condo development, which is what they were. After a 20 to 30 minute walk past several pools, tennis courts, at least three man made lakes, and a real marsh, I arrived at the beach. It was nearly dark, so I had only a few minutes to enjoy the ocean.

Then someone's dog ran over to me and proceeded to jump up on me, claw me, and lick me. This is all right after I walked by a sign requiring dogs to be on a leash. The owners did nothing. They just laughed and tried to call the dog back. NOT OKAY! I may piss off dog owners everywhere by saying this, but I do not like dogs. I especially do not like YOUR dog. I do not like it licking me, I do not like it jumping on me, it is not funny, and it is not cute. If your dog is going to run to any random person on the beach, it should be on a leash!

Sorry for rant, but it feels good to get it out into the internet.

In other news, we had a really great dinner at a place called Quigley's Pint and Plate. It was happy hour, so we got fried pickles and beer for under $5 (before tax). Then, I had some delicious blackened tuna for dinner. All for under $20. Nothing too memorable, but recommended if you happen to be in Litchfield...

Bagels

As I type this blog post, I am sitting in my living room eating lunch. This is extremely significant because my lunch is a homemade, fresh out of the oven bagel! That is right, a bagel. We were going to go on a hike today to celebrate spring, but Chapel Hill is currently experiencing spring showers so we decided to try a bagel recipe. It is from the cookbook,Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois. This is an amazing cookbook for a variety of reasons. We make all of our bread using their light whole wheat recipe, which is a great flavorful bread with a nice chewy crust. It truly takes about five minutes of hands on time.

Today, we made their bagel recipe, a rousing success. They took about half an hour of hands on time, but they were totally worth the effort. We sprinkled the tops with parmesan cheese too. Eating a fresh, warm bagel is no longer the exclusive territory of those living within stumbling distance of a bagel shop. It is worth the effort!

Lunch.

Swainsboro, GA, addendum

So, I was less than generous about Swainsboro, GA in my last post. While they do deserve some unkind words for their lack of restaurants on Sunday night, the town has since redeemed itself slightly in my eyes. Today, Monday, the clients I was working for took me to lunch at the Campbell House Bed and Breakfast. The lunch was a true southern buffet. It included many salads, pineapple dressing, fried chicken, smothered chicken, turkey, potatoes, rolls, and other stuff I was unable to identify (it all tasted good). My companions were eager to educate me about southern food, as I can easily be identified as not from Georgia (or the south). This is an education I happily accepted. This fried chicken was amazing. It had a very light breading and tasted almost delicate, but still crispy. I totally recommend this place. Plus the ambiance is pretty awesome. We ate lunch on the porch under a pressed tin ceiling looking out on the blooming daffodils in the yard.

The project was pretty interesting too. I was mapping the historic African American cemetery associated with a very old family cemetery. Essentially, I was looking for the graves of the families slaves and black servants. The cemetery is very well maintained, but there is one section with no grave markers remaining, so that is where we surveyed. It was also 70 degrees and very springy. The clients were extremely sweet and helpful. This is why I love my job.

Swainsboro, GA

Tonight I am in Swainsboro, Georgia. In order to get to Swainsboro I had to drive a very long way on a very narrow road. It was dark on that narrow road and occasionally I got a waft of cow, so I am assuming that I am in the heart of Georgia farm country. At some point I went through a few very small towns and then I arrived in Swainsboro.

This is actually a very charming town (that's right, I used the term charming). My first encounter of with the town involved circumnavigating a little town square that has a fountain in the middle of it. Nice! Then I found my hotel... It is okay, pretty typical small town hotel, not the worst I have called my home. Really the only point where Swainsboro comes up short in my estimation is in its restaurant scene.

After checking into my room I went in search of dinner. Now, I know looking for dinner in a southern town after 8 pm on a Sunday is a little presumptuous of me. But, after I saw the beautiful town square I had high hopes. These hopes were dashed to the ground after I took myself on a short tour of the town. I passed three (!) Chinese restaurants, at least two fast food fried chicken franchises, a Waffle House, a Huddle House, two Subways, and several burger places. Absolutely no local restaurants, unless you count Chinese (which I do not count in any small town). Can I ask why any small town would have so many gross looking Chinese super buffets? Could they possibly be any good? So, I did what any self respecting resident of a small town would do... I went to Wal-Mart (otherwise known as "the great satan") and got myself a frozen dinner and some fresh fruit. Now I am sitting on my bed eating the lasagna watching the Academy Awards.

Why am I in Swainsboro, you might ask? Well, I am here to do a ground-penetrating radar (GPR) survey of a cemetery out here. It is common in older cemeteries to have many unmarked graves. Often people with little money or African Americans, were buried with wooden or ephemeral markers. Sometimes people just moved headstones because they were in the way of the lawn mower. Anyway, for various reasons people need to know where other people are buried. They typically do not want to dig people up. So they hire someone like me. It is extremely rewarding to help local communities manage their resources (such as I am doing tomorrow). Also, old cemeteries are interesting. People have interesting old fashioned names and creative epitaphs.

GPR works by sending electromagnetic energy into the ground, which reflect off of changes in the physical and chemical properties beneath the ground. The reflected energy is received and the strength of the reflected energy is recorded along with the time elapsed. Because graves often have different physical and chemical properties than the surrounding ground they can be visible using GPR. Other stuff can be seen using GPR too. Such as architecture, old roads, and prehistoric and historic trash piles (we call them middens). Here is a website developed by my graduate advisor that goes into more detail.

Picture of me collecting some GPR data, in Ecuador, not Georgia. Pictures of GPR data to come...