3 days after return

It's great to be home! Our marathon return journey took us through four continents, four countries, and four airports. The whole thing lasted about 33 hours, 22 of which we spent in the air. I wanted to sleep, but between excitement, nervousness, and a whole lot of caffeine, it was not to be. After I successfully cleared customs and retrieved my bags in Edmonton (two major feats in my opinion), I walked out of the gate to a full entourage. My parents, boyfriend, sister, brother-in-law, and brother-in-law's brother (shall we just call him another brother-in-law?) were all waiting for me! I had planned to go home and pass out, but instead I was cajoled straight into a pizza party. I think it probably helped with the jet lag because I was exhausted by the time I finally went to bed. I had terrible jet lag in England at the beginning of our trip, so I was anticipating another go of it. However, the pizza appears to have saved me from that fate. Let this be a lesson to all world travellers: pizza first, then sleep.

Since I arrived, I've been living in a whirlwind of family, friends, and unpacking. I have plans to continue this mini-vacation through the weekend, but unfortunately I'll be back to work on Monday. Our artifacts arrived at our lab yesterday and no matter how much I try to put them out of my mind, I know they're in there, waiting for me. This summer's excavation may have been one of the hardest thing I've ever done in my life, but the work is far from over. In just under two months, I have to return to Africa to present my preliminary results at a conference in Dakar, Senegal. To get to that point, the bones have to be unpacked, identified, catalogued, and photographed, and I have to cobble together my osteobiographies. I also have to select and send out samples for radiocarbon dating. If anything, this next step is going to be more intense than being in the field. If I'm lucky, I can stop and take a break sometime around Christmas.

Some of you might be wondering what's going to happen to this blog. Thanks to all of you that read it faithfully and shared my experiences in the field. I'm particularly happy that my family enjoyed it since I wrote it for them. However, the purpose of this blog was to chronicle our field season for my loved ones far away. Now that it's over, I plan to take a break from blogging. I will occassionally post on how my research is progressing, and I promise to highlight anything interesting that is revealed in the analysis phase. I also plan to attend conferences in Dakar, Sacramento, and Minneapolis this year, and will likely write about those travels. Until then, thanks for reading.