Eaten alive

Luckily it was only the black flies that ate me alive at the conference I just went to. The conference was actually just the thing I needed to renew my interest in science and continued to prove to me there is a better world out there. My research spans a couple of areas of research and was pretty much right in the topic of this conference. It was the first conference outside of my advisor's direct field of interest. It was the first time I felt like people were truly interested in what I had and what I am doing with the data and when they said, "Great job, keep it up," they REALLY meant it. There was a group of older scientists (my old boss being one of them) who have been in this controversial field since its early days. They are an amazing support to each other and talked about how they got to where they are and it was actually very inspirational. I met good connections for my research now and possibly for the next step in my career as well. Plus, with a lobster dinner the last night and a view like this from where we stayed, how could it be bad?There was a hike planned one afternoon. We were assured that anyone could do it, that it would take about 2 hours (4.5 miles), and that we would be back for the poster session (during which I was presenting my poster). SO, this is when I got absolutely eaten up by the black flies. My ears were swollen and nearly purple from all the bites, but are healing nicely now. (I highly recommend some combination of calamine lotion, AfterBite, and antibiotic ointment.) The hike definitely took me 2 1/2 hours (and I am much younger than some of the others who went and exercise regularly) and I definitely missed the first hour of my poster session. Oh, well. It was a gorgeous hike and I would do it again, I would just be prepared next time. It was so worth it for the views too. See?
I took this photo and someone commented that I found the only dead wood to take a picture of. I said that I was taking it with all the green and blue in the background though!
I found this crab spider when I picked up a clover flower to tell the people with whom I was walking that you can eat the flowers. I worked with crab spiders as an undergrad, so I was very excited. Look at how pretty she is (the males of this species are black with no pink stripes on their abdomen! They are colored such that they can blend in with the flowers they hunt on and then use their big front legs to grab prey.
And this is what I was REALLY excited about. Pink Lady Slippers! They are wild orchids that are basically endangered (I think Wikipedia says imperiled) and even growing up in New England, I do not remember having seen them blossom before. My sister says that our grandparents had them in the forest near their house. We saw white ones too, which are apparently more rare, but I did not get a picture of them. It was funny because I noticed these leaves and thought they looked like orchid leaves and a little further up the path were the first blossoms we saw These flowers were quite literally EVERYWHERE on the path. It was unbelievable.
I have to go type up my notes to prove to my advisor that this conference was totally worth it!