20 January 2013 It’s 9:00am and It’s Still Dark -

"But you know you're in the largest state in the Union When you're anchored down in Anchorage Anchorage -Anchored down in Anchorage" Thanks Michelle Shocked

“Where is the sun?” Said the girl who lives in Florida? In Anchorage today the sun is not supposed to rise until 9:30am, but right now, at 9am, that does not look very promising. When we arrived last night it was twilight at 4:30pm. While the sun isn’t here, “Super Excitement” for me is here. With one student and parent already at the Hotel Captain Cook and three more students and another parent on their way..excitement is blustering.

We are here to present a poster “The Benefits of Being a “SoTRE”, Students of Teacher Researcher Experiences, at the Alaska Marine Science Symposium. http://www.alaskamarinescience.org/index.html We have been planning since August, writing abstracts, requesting funds and creating the poster.

It really like felt like last Friday was "Alaska Day"... Last week we even took a field trip to Florida International University to visit Dr. Oberbauer and check out his current research, we also saw past PolarTREC associates, Dr. Paulo Olivas and Jose Luciani. It was a great treat.

When I was in Barrow with these two gentlemen, Paulo was Mr. Olivas, now he is Dr. Olivas and works at Fairchild Gardens.

Dr. Oberbauer talked about plants such as the willow that were growing taller in the tundra for some unknown reason. Students got to see a bit of the tundra from Barrow Alaska that had been flown into Miami.

Dr. Oberbauer also talked about the snow and explained what a great spot it is under blanketed layers of snow. It is so insulated so warmth and lemmings are found there all winter. We visited the FIU garden and got to see his amazing new office. He wished us well on our Alaska adventure and hopes we see Aurora’s- me too!

Later that night I got an overnight visit from Kristin Timm- former ARCUS/PolarTREC affiliate and finally got to meet her husband Jake. Kristin lives in Fairbanks, AK and was/is a huge part of PolarTREC experience.

Back to Anchorage- Ahh- it is twilight now and I see ravens flying outside of my window at the Hotel Captain Cook will the sun really shine at some point? Perhaps I will have a “Bird of the Day” Photo tomorrow.