Dome-iversary

This is another post I meant to write a couple weeks ago, but am just getting to now. On October 15th, 2014 I entered the Dome with 5 other wannabe astronauts. On October 15th, 2015 I had the good fortune to spent the anniversary of our entry with a couple of my Dome-mates. Sophie, Zak and I were all in Clark County Nevada for some outreach events that we did for “Real Science on Fake Mars”. After the work, we had a couple days together to play. And how did we celebrate our Dome-iversary? By going to see “The Martian” and playing some Settler’s of Catan. It felt very appropriate.

It’s actually taken me quite a bit longer to re-adjust to “life on Earth” than I thought it would. Things that I didn’t expect to stress me out were causing me a fair bit of difficulty. #1 on that list was phones. For some reason people always called at the most inappropriate times – when I’m driving, at the library, on the toilet. Stressin’ me out people! I’ve gotten over it – now I just don’t answer the phone if I don’t feel like it – but it took me a while to be able to strong-arm the intrusions again. #2 was the fact that I just didn’t want to be inside. Ever. I’ve spent a significant amount of time just being outdoors as much as possible. This translated into time up at the cottage with family, hiking in Jasper with my sister and niece, biking through Montana for a few days with the Tour d’Afrique, hiking part of the Camino de Santiago, and a week-long camping trip in Algonquin park. The weather is starting to get darker and colder, so I’m becoming more appreciative of houses again, but if I could just live in a tent between May and October, I think I would like that.

To satisfy my need for outdoor activity, Sophie and Zak indulged me with a few hours of hiking at Red Rocks despite the rather wet weather. Here we are at the top of Turtlehead Peak:

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