Winter’s Haven

I spent yesterday driving from Ogden, Utah (just north of Salt Lake City) to Albuquerque. I drove past all sorts of things that I wanted to stop and see or explore, but I wanted to make this leg of the trip in one day instead of a couple weeks. I didn’t arrive in Albuquerque until around midnight even so.

In the morning, I drove through Salt Lake City. From the freeway, it looks like a blandly generic piece of Americana. (Then again, interesting places tend not to locate themselves next to freeways.) If I get back there in the future, I’ll want to see the Mormon temples, and, of course, check out the lake.

Heading west from Provo, I climbed up into the mountains. In higher and wetter areas the omnipresent western dead grass / sagebrush flora turns into forest dominated by various juniper species and scrub oak. It doesn’t really feel like a forest since the trees are all too short and scrubby to form any sort of canopy, but they are dense enough to justify the term. It’s a very pretty ecosystem.

The next point of note was Moab. The terrain near Moab is quite alien and fantastic. It’s home of Arches and Canyonlands national parks. I want to go back and get lost for a few weeks.

I drove southeast, cutting across the SW corner of Colorado. I saw Chimney Rock (which I recognized from playing the Oregon Trail games long, long ago). I continued south into western New Mexico. A remarkably small amount of rain was sufficent to cause flooding across the highway. Not expecting it, I hit the first patch of water rather faster than I would have liked. My car now has a fine coat of mud. The sunset across the western New Mexico desert was quite spectacular. It was dark by the time I reached Gallup, so I didn’t see much between there and Albuquerque.

Albuquerque is sunny and hot (surprise!). This hotel is pretty crummy aside from the virtues of cheapness, free WiFi, and proximity to UNM. I’m looking forward to finding an apartment. The UNM math department has various in-service things planned for the week of the 13th, including TA training. I have been given recitation sessions for two classes of calculus. I’m not sure whether they’ll make me do grading for them, but it should be fairly light duty either way.

Classes start the 20th. I’m signed up for complex analysis, differential equations, quantum computing, and a numerical analysis / advanced linear algebra class. One of the physics profs told me that ordinarily, he would suggest taking the general first-year-grad level quantum mechanics course, but that the person teaching it this year is, umm… not so good, and perhaps I might want to take it next year. So, I’m taking quantum computing instead. I expect it will be very abstract; its only prerequisite is linear algebra, no quantum mechanics needed.

Now, back to looking for an apartment…

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