h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

First, the bad day in the field-

I went out to my stretch of the Cuyahoga River to get some velocity measurements and water samples for my honors project last Saturday. I took one of my friends, Nichole, with me to help, and also because she needed some samples from the same general area. Fun fun, happy happy, right?

You would think.

We agreed to meet at 8 AM and get out on the bridges early, so we could grab lunch at a nearby sushi restaurant. At 9, I was worried because she hadn't shown up yet, so I gave her a call.

ME: Where the are you?

NICHOLE: Uhh... I forgot to set my alarm...

Now, I had done the same thing years ago, and had completely missed a day in the field with my advisor- not a good way to impress the boss. I waited on her for a little while until she was able to get to the meeting spot, but it turns out she had gone without breakfast. I couldn't let her do that because we were going to be doing some hard physical work that day, so we stopped at McDonalds on the way. I got a free EggMcMuffin out of the deal!

So, after that, we went to my first site, the Rt. 91 Bridge over the Cuyahoga River, just downstream from the dam. It's in the middle of a park, and the rangers were there investigating an abandoned car. I didn't know how favorably they'd look upon me throwing stuff in the river from the bridge, so Nichole and I took a walk while we waited for the fuzz to dissipate.

After they were gone, we set up on the bridge. Nichole measured the deck, while I got the water sampler ready- a glorified plastic bottle on a rope, with a 2 lb weight. The current took it like it was a feather! It went so fast the rope took rust off the bridge railing! I couldn't get it to sink, and it started bashing off the bridge abuttments! I had to have Nichole help me get it out, and we did, it being no worse for the wear. The next instrument to go in was the $1100 current meter, but after seeing what the river had done with the water sampler, I wasn't prepared to pay that money to the department for breaking it. We decided to throw in the towel at that site, and move on, a wise decision I found out on Monday.

After a grand total of three wrong turns, we finally found the back road my next bridge was located on- unfortunately, there was a big Road Closed sign in the middle of it! Being geologists and not bound by any common sense, we parked the car, and carried my equipment over to the bridge, which was surrounded by construction equipment of several varieties...

I knew they were supposed to be doing some work on the river last week, which may have included putting up a temporary dam so that they could begin demolition on the real one without risking the equipment being washed away.

Guess where they decided to put it...



They could not have gotten any better if they had tried! Right upstream from the bridge, on the side I needed to take my samples! After a few minutes in open-mouthed shock, and even longer jumping up and down cursing the involved parties (including the river itself), I composed myself, and we went to Nichole's sample site to get mud from the bottom of a pond. While we were there, we decided to take a drive up the river to see if we could find another bridge I could work off of- we did, in the next county over, but we didn't have enough rope to measure from it! We called it a day there, and went home.

On Monday, the department research assistant Tom went to clean the current meter, and found that it hadn't been in the water. I explained to him what had happened, and he agreed that I had made the right call at Rt. 91 not putting the meter in. We would re-engineer and try again.

I also spoke to my advisor about my ruined field site...

It turns out that bridge wasn't even necessary! I had gotten the key one last Tuesday, when I went out with Tom!

hey, you didn't tell me about that last bit

What, the bit about being passed out from exhaustion? Or the advisor saying I didn't need the other bridge?

The non-necessity of the secondary bridge

Something I found out at our weekly Tuesday meeting! I think I talked to you before that!

You know, I should have known something was up- there was less volume of water in the river on Rt 91. I could see the bottom! I should have been able to figure out there was something decreasing the amount of water going over the dam!

so did you enjoy it or not?

interesting to hear about it though...
what are you doing? i mean wiht all the water measurements?

It wasn't really fun at the time, but we had to laugh about it later!

This is for my honors project- I'm trying to get a baseline for suspended sediment and water velocity for before and after this dam is lowered by six feet- here's hoping I've got enough for the "before" part of it!

well i'm glad you enjoyed it now hmm.. that doesnt sound right...

on getting enough stuff!

Everyone has one of those days every now and then

just keep concentrating on what you will get out of the hard work


















eventually

I'm not upset about it or anything! Enough stuff like this happens to me that I have to deal with it without getting bent out of shape! I thought it was just a funny story, that's all!

it did make me laugh but i thought id be sympathetic seen as you couldnt see my face!