back for two days

So it's been an interesting couple of days. As the only person allowed to drive the rental truck, I had to: drive to Revelstoke on Monday, drive up to Mica Creek on Tuesday morning, around all the logging roads, and then back that evening (7 am to 7 pm almost completely behind the wheel), and then drive back to Calgary today. The highway stuff isn't so bad cause the truck has cruise, but the logging roads are tough and slow. My right calf muscle aches from pressing the pedals. Possibly I never got the seat adjusted properly.

Anyway the trip was great. I got to see my field area and now I'm really excited to get back there and get to work! The logistics problems kinda suck (it's a 2 hr drive from Revelstoke up to Mica, and there's no grocery or hardware store in Mica), but we'll work it out. Some excellent news is that there is wireless internet service (but no cell service) in Mica Creek, and although it's a secure network we should be able to get a password from the people up there (they're really friendly).

The logging roads are better than I'd expected, and we should be able to get a lot of work done from there. I already saw an awesome place where we can camp and then hike a short distance up the hill into alpine terrain with tons of rock exposure!

The truck is an F150 supercrew. It's absolutely huge. And when I say huge, I mean sitting in the driver's seat I can see over the roof of a Hummer. The truck is significantly taller than me. It's also very heavy, unfortunately (5577 lbs, or 2530 kg), which means that the brakes take a beating on the logging roads, and also that the 300 hp engine feels weak. However the truck does perform well on the logging roads, and it's very stable on the highway. It is not fuel efficient; on the highway we made 16.3 mpg, and I was light footed. It sucks for driving through downtown Calgary at rush hour, as I just found out. I'd rather have something smaller with a standard transmission. Like a Toyota Tacoma.

Here's pictures. This is from the highway between Revelstoke and Mica Creek, early yesterday morning.
This one shows the up-close power of the "macro" mode for rock photos (better resolution than the naked eye).
Mica Creek village is in the distance to the left of the truck (just right of the tree). Current population: ~30. Permanent population: 5. I'll get a shot of the truck with something for scale at some point.
I'll post photos frequently this summer. Do you wish you were a geologist yet? You probably will by August.

I'm done gloating now.