Helen FieldsScience Writer

Some more of my quizzes are up at the Science Channel website!

I thoroughly entertained myself with the Science Jargon quiz.

Telescopes make the world smaller.

I don’t like Computer Viruses.

It’s the electric companyyyyyy! Electricity! Yeah!

To see all my quizzes, click here.

Hey, so all those people weren’t lying: The Grand Canyon is spectacular. We only had time for a day trip between the concerts in Phoenix and Las Vegas, but I’m told we picked the prettiest trail to go down. It’s the South Kaibab Trail. It goes down into the canyon along a little ridge, so you get 360-degree views. Wow. It was pretty. And since it’s a canyon, the trail goes down fast. It starts out like this:

and goes on like this:

We stopped for lunch at the little bump just left of the middle of that picture, which also turned out to be a prime spot for knitting.

Yes, I (1) carried a partly-finished sweater 1.5 miles into the Grand Canyon and (2) was still wearing the wristband from the concert two days earlier. The sweater pattern is here, if you want to recreate the experience.

You have to be really careful hiking in the canyon, since this is the opposite of your normal hike – rather than going up (a mountain, say) in the morning and down in the afternoon, we went down and then had to get back up. But we adopted the motto “If you can perceive movement, you’re doing it wrong” and walked really, really, really slowly on the way out. We felt great, and the hike back up only took about 20 more minutes than the hike down. It made me think I could actually handle doing the whole canyon someday. I mean, some *two* days. I’m not crazy. The park is full of signs telling you not to do it in one day, many using this example.

We often wished we had a geologist along. For example, what the heck is going on here? This is in limestone at the top of the canyon (in that first set of switchbacks dropping down into the canyon).

I got excited when I saw these ants running around on the sidewalk at a scenic overlook in Arizona, because I vaguely remembered that the ants I studied in grad school were from Arizona. But I spent a lot of quality time dotting those ants with model airplane paint, and I’m pretty sure they were bigger than this guy. Still, you get a portrait of an ant:

The little guys move fast – kinda hard to focus on them with a point-and-shoot. Little girls, I should say. Basically all the ants you see are female. The males exist to mate with a queen and die. So this is a female worker, out scavenging for treats on the sidewalk. I wonder how that’s working out for her.

After I found out I was going to Berlin, I found out U2 was touring this year. And I was like, oh, great. I bet they play Berlin when I’m in D.C. and D.C. when I’m in Berlin. But I held out hope, you know? What are the chances they’d be exactly wrong? But indeed, they played Berlin about a week before I got there, and played D.C. about a week before I came home.

This wasn’t all bad, because it meant I went to the Southwest last week to see them on the best vacation ever.

But now Kate points out: They’ve done it again! They’re playing a free concert at the Brandenburg Gate in November! Hello! Guys! I’m IN THE U.S.A. now. Could we please work this out in the future?

The best vacation ever included a stop by Montezuma Castle, a cliff dwelling just off the highway between Phoenix and Flagstaff. Our original plan for the day was to take the scenic route and stop by this place. But, thanks to Arizona’s miserable finances, it’s only open on weekends. We found this out when we drove up to the entrance. So, Tonto Natural Bridge will have to wait for another time. Fortunately, Montezuma Castle was there to heal our bruised tourism plans:

The cliff dwelling was occupied from A.D. 1100-ish to about 1400. It has nothing to do with Montezuma – early settlers connected it to the Aztecs (incorrectly) (surprise). The two different colors of plaster on the dwelling are because carpenter bees got in there and they had to refinish part of it a few years ago.

Nice ranger-type people (they were volunteers) kept stopping by and asking if we had questions – Kate wondered if it was because we were the only people there who weren’t either retired or dragging young children around. And of course we had questions. Hello, we’re reporters. (How come it’s two different colors? Where’d they get water? What are those holes? Are the swallows here this time of year? Who are you? What’s that organization? Do you like it?)

It’s a lovely spot – not too hot on a Wednesday in October, with nice trees giving shade and a stream for water a few feet down the valley. The only sounds were the wind in the trees, some birds…and this dumb diorama thing that was about 30 feet away. Ok, it was a perfectly nice diorama. I love the little people weaving and carrying pottery and stuff. But it also had a recorded narration that you could push a button and listen to, so the whole time we were sitting there looking at the cliff dwelling, we were also listening to some man go mumble mumble worple worple worp mumble in the background. Annoying.

Whew. After 2.5 months in Berlin, I came home for a week, then went to Arizona and Nevada for a week to see U2 twice and do some sightseeing. Fellow science writer Kate flew in from Oregon, we rented a car, and we had the best vacation ever. Oh, I’m sure you think you’ve had some good vacations in your time, but sorry – this was the best one ever.

It’s a little embarrassing to be a big U2 fan. They’re so mainstream. And yes, I know it’s ridiculous to fly most of the way across the country to see a band. But they know how to put on a darn good show. And due to a complete failure on their part to check with me before scheduling this tour, they played D.C. in September (while I was in Berlin) and played Berlin in July (while I was in D.C.)

If I may be allowed to brag (gush?) for a moment, this is how close I was in Phoenix last Tuesday:

(That’s Bono. Hi Bono!) The crazy huge set is like a donut with a round central stage (at right in this picture), an “inner circle” where a couple thousand fans can stand, and an outer catwalk thing. We were in the front row, leaning on the railing, right outside the catwalk. For this we got to the stadium at 7:30 a.m., prepared for a really awful, hot day – but the genius Phoenix stadium staff had put the general admission line on the north side, out of the sun. I wore a sweater most of the day. I got a lot of knitting done in the 9.5 hours we were in line.

For the show in Las Vegas on Friday, we were coming in from the Grand Canyon, which meant we would’ve had to get up at, like, 2 in the morning to line up that early. We’re fans, but we’re not crazy. Instead we strolled up at five and stood in the inner circle. Where we were also ridiculously close:

AND we got the full band-immersion experience, because we had stage on both sides of us, plus the inner stage and outer walk are connected by these moving bridges that swung over our heads:

(That’s the Edge. Hi Edge!) It was so! cool! I’m already plotting how I can see them on the next leg of their tour – they’re swinging through the East Coast again, so this time I won’t need to travel quite as far. (Sorry for the cruddy photos. I didn’t want to carry a purse, so I only had the camera on my phone.)

For the August National Geographic, I wrote a little story about the silky sifaka, a rare white lemur that lives in northeastern Madagascar. Between the time the story was written and the time it was published, a coup threw Madagascar into disarray. And enforcing laws in the national parks hasn’t exactly been a top priority. Illegal logging has taken off. The situation really sounds bad. Here’s a story from today’s Washington Post.

Read more about the silky sifaka – that website is by Erik Patel, the main source for my story.

I’m really happy to be home, but I’ve also been pleased to notice some ways that my life in Germany is sticking with me.

For example: I went to the grocery store the other day and was surprised to remember they actually give you bags here. In Germany (and in Norway, and heck, maybe in most of Europe), if you want a bag, you have to pay for it. So of course I always carried reusable bags, and so far I’m doing that here, too. I have a giant collection. Might as well put them to use. Although I don’t know what I’m going to put my recycling in when I run out of paper bags from Trader Joe’s.

On Sunday I was reading up on parking near an event I was going to when I realized, geez, it’s only two miles away, I wouldn’t have thought twice about walking that distance in Berlin. Ok, I actually would have thought twice, because two miles is far. Also, unlike this neighborhood, Berlin is flat. But I walked the two miles over hill and dale and arrived feeling virtuous. I mean, that’s three good acts in one, right? Prevented pollution, got exercise, saved money by not using my car. Oh, and saved parking for others. Four! Four good things! So my new criteria: if it’s less than two miles, why not walk? Tonight I walked to the library (two miles, then took the metro home) and yesterday I walked to Safeway (less than a mile, and now I’m embarrassed that I usually drive it).

Now if only I could convince the water in my apartment to run hot instantly like the water in my Berlin apartment, I’d be in business.

My plan for the month of November was to go to Namibia, but then the friends I was going to visit moved to Liberia. Honestly, I wasn’t that disappointed – a trip to see Namibia, with all its big game and awesome scenery, would have been great, but I’m happy to be home with no major trips for the foreseeable future.

I’m not sure I’m quite ready to visit these friends in Liberia. It’s settled down a lot since the civil war ended in 2003, but it’s still more adventurous travel than I feel ready for right now. This article is a great read – it’s a story from the Washington Post travel section by a former aid worker who traveled across the country recently by bush taxi, motorbike, and foot.

Liberia was settled by freed slaves in the 19th century. A taste of the social dynamic, from the story:

Gentlemen!” a voice suddenly boomed from the back seat. “I am Samuel Jefferson.”

I turned to see a distinguished man of about 60, with glasses and a graying Afro. He said, a little boastfully, that his ancestors had arrived from North Carolina in 1842.

With this, a hush of respect blanketed the bush-taxi. In Liberia, slave blood is blue blood; here, saying that your ancestors picked cotton is akin to letting it casually slip in the United States that your forebears had founded Princeton.

After a very long time on an airplane, a much-longer-than-planned time at the Newark airport, and a very short time on another airplane, I am home from Berlin! Hooray! Now I have to think of something to do on my blog other than make mildly amusing observations about the German workplace.