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Happy Canada Day everyone!

I spent last night at a small town street dance. The five of us 'birdwatcher' girls (as the locals call us) dressed up in our finest small town garb, complete with faux cowboy hats, and went into the town nearest our study site to whoop it up with the locals while two very good bands played. The previous night, we'd stop by the local bar to pick up some beer and I'd expressed some excitement over one of the bands that I'd heard before and was looking forward to seeing again. The bartender mentioned that the lead singer and her husband happened to be sitting behind me as I said that - so I turned around and said 'hi' She remembered us and came to sit with us last night while the first band played and was so lovely I just wanted to hug her. We chatted a bunch and found out that she'd recently moved to said small town and would love to have company. She also mentioned that band on stage at the time was a lovely bunch of boys and that we should buy them some beer if we appreciated their performance. We did - and their boyish good looks - so we decided to buy them a round. Giggling like school girls we waited until they went inside for a bit, dashed to buy them beers, and set them on their table to find when they returned. They came back and we tipped our hats to them. In about a half hour, the bass player came over and started talking to us. It turned out that calling dibs on them didn't mean anything to them (well, they really didn't know we'd called dibs) and the bass player seemed to take an interest in me (though one of the other girls had called dibs on him already - I'd called dibs on the guitarist and later found out he was a chemist in training, but I digress). It was sweet, and a good way to make a girl feel, well, good about herself. In between chats, the girls and I danced, a LOT, put up with some harassment from the railway guys in town for the night, laughed as one of our crew was recruited for a beer drinking contest (and took photos), laughed off being called the 'birdwatchers', and generally had a great time visiting with our newfound friends.

As the night wrapped up, we thought it was all over and started to make our way to the truck. We happened to walk past a Saturn Ion whose bumper-sitting occupants were drawing a small crowd, as well as the stand-up bass player from the second band of the night. One of the friends of the second band happened to bring his banjo and steel guitar with him all the way from Alberta and a spontaneous jam broke out on main street at 130 in the morning. Playing old folk and country songs, and then we were all singing 'Good Night Irene', nearly 20 of us, and it was amazing. Shortly after, my bass-playing admirer returned and sat down beside me and said 'I heard you singing 'Good Night Irene' - you have a nice voice'. The boy was a charmer, that's for sure. Not only had he asked me all sorts of questions about me and what I was interested in, not only had he complimented me on my dancing, and my passion for my work and my intelligence, he'd just said I had a nice voice. I nearly hugged him. Alas, it was nearly time to go, and after contemplating taking the whole band home with us (the chemist had taken a bit of shine to my field assistant), we sadly had to leave them there. They do seem to want to come visit us later this field season though, and the bass player is looking forward to meeting my fiance...

It was an absolutely great night. I couldn't have asked for a better way to ring in Canada Day.

I hope all of you are having a great weekend.


Gallardia in full bloom at one of our study sites.