(Spring)Break in Iowa (I)

Currently, most of the colleges in the US are almost empty, all the students are on spring break. Since I do not feel like getting completely wasted in Florida or getting arrested in Texas, I chose to visit friends I met in D.C. and go up north: Ames in Iowa. I know this is not in the Top 1k of places to go to for Spring Break but it was a good chance to get to a northern state.

Ames

Ames is a relatively small college town, I'm not sure if there is anything else than Iowa State University and the Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory, whose researcher Dan Shechtman recently got awarded a Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Let's start on the ISU campus. This is one of the main buildings, proudly decorated with Shechtmans face (he was also a researcher at ISU).

A figure of a fountain with the Stanton Memorial Carillon in the background. Tradition says that you only become an "Iowa Stater" once you've been kissed under this tower. Well, I can tell you I'm not a Stater ^^

The sun room in the Memorial Union building, used by students for working, looks very comfy (although you could argue about the colors...)

A little outside of Ames and near Madrid is the High Trestle Trail Bridge located. It is a 770m long and 40m high bridge that gets lit up with these squares at night. Unfortunately, I did not have a tripod to use for longer exposures and it was too cold to wait for darkness. But still it's nice to see...

Des Moines

Before exploring Ames on the second day, we actually went to Des Moines on the first day. Des Moines is the state capital and with about 200,000 people the biggest city in Iowa. It was a nice sunny day, just a little cold for my taste.

Therefore, our first goal was the State Capitol. It is quite impressive with its golden dome (on which the gold foil has to be renewed every 30 or so years, not cheap).

The capitol is situated on a hill (I guess the highest in all Iowa ^^) with a nice view over the city.

The dome from the inside.

Part of the capitol is the library, a beautifully old room with standard works on law and judiciary questions. Usually, these stairways are closed for the public and access requires the approval of the librarian...

... but we somehow met the State Representative Scott D. Ourth, who spontanously decided to show us around, tell us about his work and finally let us step on one of the stairways. Thanks :) With me are Sarini and Amanthi, who I met in D.C. and who invited me to come over.

A look into the Senate chamber. Unfortunately, the session was already concluded for this day.

The stairway to the dome.

After we finished the Capitol, we all felt hungry. Someone recommended the German Restaurant. Well, it looks kinda shady from the outside but inside it was like an old German tavern. Unfortunately, I did not take any pictures inside and it was so packed that we didn't even eat there.

Again the capitol, in a different light.

Two sculptures from the Des Moines sculpture park.

Next up: About visiting an Amish colony and my snowy way back...

A snake at House Mountain

We had beautiful weather this weekend, it was perfect for a hike. We've chosen House Mountain since it's only 20 minutes away and was supposed to offer great views. It ended up being mostly steep 4.5 miles in 3 hours and turned out to be an exciting hike, not only because of the lookouts but also because of this fellow:

Can't see it? Look closer...

We were not sure whether or not it is one of the two venomous snakes (rattlesnake and copperhead) you can find in TN so we tried to keep a safe distance. According to this guide[pdf], it seems to be a cornsnake. Lucky we! She was roughly 4 feet (about 1.2m or 12x10^9 angstrom, whatever unit you like best ^^) but we almost missed her, only her movement in the leaves disclosed her. Over at Joshsjaunts you can find another remarkable picture of her (and a GPS track of the hike)!

We also saw this lizzard. It was too fast to get another good shot...

Finally, we also got some nice views. Here looking to the north.

The same view with the 8mm fisheye (I still like this lense)

Another view, this time to the south. I assume the smoke in the left came from a fire but we decided to stay safe and not further elaborate on the details...

My daily commute into the Lab

Today is a bit special: I've been playing around with my camera and managed to mount it on my cars dash board to film my way into the lab. Here is my first attempt, it's a bit too contrasty but still ok. The original video was 20 minutes, after which my camera stopped recording. I boiled it down to 2 minutes using mencoder, I hope it doesn't make you dizzy. Also, I haven't found a suitable background music for it, suggestions are welcome! Update: The new version contains music.

We start off my parking lot, right onto North Cedar Bluff Road, then left onto Middlebrook Pike which later becomes Hardin Valley Road and leads onto Pellissippi Parkway (the sharp right turned ramp onto the highway). From Pellissippi we fork right onto Bethel Valley Road where we finally approach the Gate (you should see it in one of the last frames). Here is where my camera stopped recording, which is ok since I'm not sure if I'm allowed to take any pictures inside the lab area anyway...

Oh, if you wonder why I keep using the left lane: that is the way you drive in Tennessee! The goal is to minimize lane changes while maximizing disturbance for other cars. I think I learned quite well ;)

Here is a quest for you: Count the number of gas stations you see on the way. I know it's a tough one but you will be surprised...

Flower Bouquet

It happened sometime today: the blog went through the 1k visitor barrier :) With 20 posts in the first 5 month, that means 50 visits per post and per week on average. That's certainly nothing that brings down the Google servers hosting the blog but I'm happy you seem to like my pictures and come back for more.

To celebrate this a little I have dug out a bunch of flowers I've seen in Charleston and Savannah to bridge the time until spring finally arrives. Last weekend brought up some hope at least.

The Early Flower Catches The Eye

It was a cold Sunday (around 37°F or 2.7°C or 276 K, whatever unit you like best ^^) and so we thought we should go and look for spring flowers. We drove out to Norris Dam State Park for a short hike (earlier pictures from last year). While we almost gave up hope to find any after the first half, we finally found a few nice flowers on the way. All pictures were taken with the 50mm Carl Zeiss lens I mentioned in my earlier post. With some practicing (or trial and error) it can be used for nice macro shots.

Josh with his Nikon 105mm macro lens and appropriate flash in front of the flower shown above. Quite an impressive setup... You find his today's pictures in his blog.

Not exactly a flower, more some kind of fungus. I was impressed by the colors you can find between all the brown and grey of the winter forest.

Finally, Norris Dam as seen through the fisheye lens.