Laura and I left Walla Walla yesterday for at least 6 months. We caught the early flight out of the Walla Walla airport. For Walla Wallans, you know that means leaving home at 4am. After months of preparation, we threw our bags in the car and drove away from home. For Walla Wallans, you also know that not much is happening at 4am. The full moon lit the empty streets. An eerie setting to match the eerie feeling of leaving home for such a long time and, at the same time, knowing that we'll be back before we know it. Laura will continue to work remotely from Chile and has at least one flight to the US scheduled for October as part of her work. I will start working with my Chilean research collaborators next week. I spent a lot of the last 4 months reading their research papers and getting up to speed on their work. I'm asking them to treat me like a grad student or postdoc for the first few months in hopes that a productive working relationship will develop. We'll see where ...
