Finally posting

My days off were lovely. Best part was just doing nothing, including making new posts. Heh. Sorry about that.

I spent the first day just lounging around the hotel, and then a group of six chicks went to the bar and grill behind the hotel, had dinner, a few margaritas (it magically turned into $.99 margarita night when a group of women walks into an almost empty bar), and then hung out at the pool chatting and having girlie drinks.

Friday, Christine, Cynthia, Katherine and I went to South Padre Island, had our massages, and then hung out on the beach for a few hours, vegging and swimming as the mood struck. We had dinner at a nice restaurant overlooking the water as the sun set, and then drove home. We stopped at the strangest store on our way back. Out front were huge plaster dinosaurs, and a coral reef. Next to each other. Cool to look at, strange juxtaposition. Inside was even stranger. Christian radio playing, and on the shelves, seashells, Christian paraphernalia and mementos, and pirate stuff. And all the checkers were wearing pirate garb, along with their crosses. It was so weird.

Saturday and Sunday we went to museums, we saw the torture exhibit, which was rather unsettling, and then the History of South Texas museum, which was a very cool museum, with excellent exhibits. We also went to a local cemetery, looking for ghosts, and drove by an old mission style building, which turned out to be a seminary. Also saw the movie Wanted, which wasn't that great, but entertaining enough. And then Monday was spent relaxing, hanging out at the pool, and kicking ass at Marco Polo.

Going back to work again Tuesday wasn't fun, what with the getting up at 4:30am. Fortunately, the weather was cooler, and overcast most of the day. Then at 1:30, it started pouring on us. It was bad enough that we had to pack up and head out early. The weather's been overcast and sprinkling since then, which is actually quite nice, since it's not nearly as hot, and the rain feels refreshing.

Last night, the 4th, we decided to all go out to eat at a shrimp bar nearby. All but a few people came along, including the project managers, Jim and Mike (the other Mike wimped out on us and went to bed). Had a nice dinner, and then tried to get karaoke going in the bar, but the guy who knew how to run it didn't come in until 10. Meagan had bought some firecrackers, so we blew them up in the parking lot, and had a quite a blast. I left around 9:30 and had only two margaritas and a kahlua and cream. Almost everyone else left after 11, and apparently quite a lot of beer was drunk. So today was a bit mellow, since we were all tired and quite a few were hungover.

It's still drizzling a bit outside, and it supposed to continue for the next week. The only problem is that when the dirt gets wet, it becomes quite hard to screen, but we're managing, and the water doesn't sink down very far since the ground is so dry.

I took some pictures on our various outings, and plan to take more of the site in the next several days, as it's getting quite deep and impressive, so check the flickr page for those. I'm off to watch Doctor Who and then try to get some sleep.

Yay for vacation!

Turns out we actually get five days off, instead of the four we all thought. Thankfully Jim told us this morning, or we all would've been sitting there at 5:30 Monday morning. There's a large group of people that left already for South Padre island with plans to get as drunk as possible tonight, crash eight people into a hotel room, and then drink as much as they could on the beach the next day, before driving back. Needless to say, that didn't quite sound like my thing. There's a smaller group of us going to the island friday, to get massages, have lunch, hang out on the beach, and then head back that evening. So it should be fun. Sometime this weekend we're going to check out the "Torture through the ages" exhibit, which could prove interesting.

I found a card reader at the store tonight, so I've uploaded photos to flickr, so check those out. I'm going to veg a bit, and then possibly head to the pool. Hope everyone is doing well!

Surreal

So today, we vacummed dirt up from the ground. Seriously, that's the weirdest thing ever. One of the groups found a hearth about 120 cm down, and it needed to be cleaned up a bit for the pictures and such. It is nice to be actually finding things, makes me feel more like an archaeologist, instead of just a bucket monkey.

Tomorrow, apparently we're going to have our local guy come out with a backhoe and attempt to dig 1X1 meters 10cm deep each with it, which we'll then screen. It should speed it up considerably, since the ground is quite hard in places, and we're less than 1/20th done. It's a 10X10 meter site, and we're going to be digging down to two and a half meters. So far we have 2X10 dug down to one meter.

There's one girl in particular that's been getting on my nerves, but I've been just doing my best to ignore her, which everyone else seems to be doing as well. Everyone else is cool, and we're getting along really well. Freakiest thing though, one girl, Katherine, reminds me so much of my mom, who's name is also Katherine. Turns out she's from the same town my mom grew up in, Melbourne, Florida, and they even went to the same high school. Crazy world.

Two more days of digging, then I get four days off. A group of us are planning on driving to South Padre Island to get a massage and hang out on the beach. Because I really need more sun right now. (You should see my watch tan line) It should be fun though, and nice and relaxing.

I'm still trying to figure this thing out, and can't edit my previous post. I just wanted to say, on the Google map, point A is the border crossing, while B is the site.

So it's been an interesting experience so far. I can't really say I'm enjoying it, since so far, everyday around 1:30 PM I consider just laying down and sobbing until they take the shovel from me and return me to the a/c, but I haven't. Yet. I think I am acclimating to the heat a bit, and the group is working together quite well, as we learn each other's limits, who's better at certain tasks and such.

The first site we've been working on is near the town of Los Ebanos, basically in someone's backyard, although no one lives in the house. The whole town, while very small, seems to be just dying. The few small stores they used to have are all shuttered, and a lot of houses seem abandoned. We eat our lunches everyday at the nearby border crossing, which has the country's only remaining hand-drawn ferry. We seem to be quite a spectacle, as many of the cars waiting to cross openly gape at the strange, very dirty, tired group of mostly white people who are sitting outside the border patrol agency building, eating lunch. Talk about subverting cliches.
View Larger Map

We wound up digging the site down to two meters, and found basically nothing. A few flakes at the surface, a whole lot of nothing but snail shells for the next meter and a half, and then three or four flake and core fragments, but nothing that was substantial enough to warrant us continuing the hole. Plus, once it was that deep, it was getting harder and harder to get into and out of, even with a step-ladder. I did take some pictures, although I managed to forget my camera cord, so I can't get them on to my computer. I'm hoping I can make it to Target or Wal-Mart (since they're across the street from each other) in the next few days to buy a card reader, so that I can upload some pics.

We'll be heading to a new site tomorrow, which is further away. I'm hoping to snap a before picture or two, just to see how much dirt we move. The site we've been on is 4X4 meters, while the next will be 10X10. So it's going to be huge.

Night all!

Made it to Mission

Made it safely to Mission, and have checked into my hotel. It's actually quite nice and spacey. I've got a separate bedroom, living room and bath, with the kitchen area being in the connecting hallway. No stove, but a decent sized fridge, microwave and sink. It's nice too, to be able to actually unpack my things and put them in the drawers, which I've been wandering about doing. Probably going to try to get to sleep early tonight, since I only slept four hours last night, and tomorrow is definitely going to be interesting.