to missoula and beyond

i realize, much to your dismay, that i haven't updated my adventures in a while. i haven't been on any really exciting backpacking trips lately because (gasp!) i've been out on the lake working on my project and working on writing programs in MATLAB (a computer programming language) to analyze wind data on the lake. in short, we're deploying wave gauges in various spots around the lake which will collect raw data on water pressure and velocity changes. using this information, we can make graphs of wave amplitude change over time, direction of wave propogation, and how much wave energy is directed towards certain parts of shore. i've been working for the last week on actually putting my MATLAB skills to real use and writing a program to take wind speed and wind direction data and calculate how much wave energy that would result in for 6 different wind stations around the lake. this guy living in the area works for UC santa barbara doing analysis of wave data and whatnot and used to deploy wave gauges for them out in the pacific, so he's been helping me figure everything out and debug my program. after lots and lots of errors and frustration, i got some rough, but very pretty to me graphs of wave power on the lake using my program.
here's proof i really have been doing work here...

for the weekend before july 4, we headed down to missoula to drop off robert and help him move into his dorm at the UM campus because he has to work on his project at a lab down there for a bit. the town is beautiful and green and very bike friendly. the campus has a mountain right behind it where there's a big white 'm' that you can hike up to and see the whole valley from. we hung out on campus for the weekend, exploring the town, playing ultimate frisbee and eating lots of huckleberry pie and huckleberry ice cream and trying out big sky brewery's brews, including the famous moose drool brown ale. while we were at the brewery, i saw a sign for a bluegrass festival down in hamilton, MT (about an hour below missoula) that i thought would be fun to go to. never in my wildest dreams did i think that i could convince 15 people from the bio station to come down with me to the festival for this weekend! it was quite a fun time, with lots of good bands and we got to camp there at the fairgrounds. of course, i had my cowboy hat on all weekend. yesterday, i went out to a bay on the southern part of the lake and helped jeannie survey vegetation for her project and check out this invasive plant that i'm also studying. the weather changed so quick and we ended up having to rush back to the state park where we had our truck and trailer parked to avoid the rain and hail just in the nick of time. ps. i need to learn to drive stickshift for real when i get home. oh, and we also drove through the national bison range last weekend and checked out the beautiful views of the mission mountains, glacial lake missoula and of course the pronghorns and bison. tomorrow, i'm headed off to banff national parc in canada until saturday with nate and jeannie just to hike and sightsee because i've been dying to go there forever. my mentor's gone for the rest of the week so my schedule's pretty flexible as long as i get the work done that i need to so i'm pretty psyched to head out tomorrow! and of course there will be some beauteous pictures of that when i get back.. :)