polar bumble bees expedition days 14 & 15: back to fairbanks

Day 14 Eagle Summit to Fairbanks 7/11
We’re done collecting! We’ve gotten all that we can on this trip, and collected a good haul of bees in the White Mountain tundra area of Eagle Summit. So we packed up our gear, and headed in to Fairbanks (the glorious land of showers! And internet! And Thai food!). First stop: The University of Alaska Fairbanks' Museum of the Arctic to check out their bumble bee specimens and get some ideas of typical Alaska color patterns for some of the orange-butted species which we’re finding challenging to tell apart. We (mostly Michelle) spent a good bit of time looking at their specimens, while others worked out the details for shipping our specimens back to UCR. The shipping turned out to be a bit more complicated than we anticipated. We went back to our hotel, sorted all of our gear, and Alan left with Jess. The Final Four of the team (Hollis, Bren, Michelle and Kristal) had some delicious Thai for dinner, then adjourned to our hotel where we spent more than an entire season of Trailer Park Boys sitting on the beds and taping individual sample tubes closed while making up for a Netflix deficit.
 
Day 15 Fairbanks 7/12
It was a morning to divide and conquer. Hollis and Bren went to ship our samples and return the truck with Alan & Jess while Michelle &  Kristal organized the Science Tote and our respective bags to get everything packed and ready to fly back to CA. We all met back up and walked to a lovely delicious healthy lunch place called, accurately, Lunch. After that we went back to the hotel where we organized photos, sent emails, and generally internetted out for a while until Bren and then Hollis left for the airport. It was weird to say goodbye to them after such a long trip together, but we’d see Hollis again back at work, and are hopeful that Bren will join us on future adventures.