Dream Team 3: Stories from Line 2

Dream Team 3 composed of Hannah, a PhD student from Baylor University, and John, a soon-to-be PhD student at Texas A&M.

We started our journey at a heart-wrenching 5am to flag all 94 points along our line. It was my first time in the east coast and I was as prepared as I could be for the humid 95+ degree heat of the day. On this first day, we traveled some North Carolina back country roads, encountered strange bugs and controlled field burns.

Our section was composed of endless corn, and wheat fields, with several tobacco fields on our ride back to the instrument center. We managed to flag all 94 points and be back to the instrument center by 3pm; well before any other team showed up.

The next day, the first deployment day, John and I managed to install 60 stations, leaving us with 34 to complete the next day. John took the task of digging all 60 holes where the instruments would live for several days to record the impending explosive charges. 

I was in charge of GPS point taking, bookkeeping and driving. The following day we left not quite as early to deploy our remaining 34 instruments. I took charge of digging the remaining holes on our line and driving, while John did bookkeeping. We finished our section early, well before 11am, and decided to aid a fellow team by deploying 11 of their sensors. That night was the night of the explosive charges. John and I decided to tag along to experience two of the explosions.

We left our hotel at 11pm and did not get back until 5:30am, where we had four hours of sleep before returning to the instruments for retrieval. I did all the retrieval digging and John took charge of the GPS marking and bookkeeping. 

The author of this post, happily posing with a Texan

We had one instrument wind up missing, but with no other surprises for the day. On the second retrieval day, we had several instruments dug up with bags ripped open. All together we successfully deployed 105 instruments and recovered 104. Now for a much needed semi-day-off before starting the same process on line one! 

(Post by Hannah Mejia)