Day 0: Pre-Ramble Preamble

Elizabeth Sibert and Christina Skelton are both Junior Fellows in the Harvard Society of Fellows.  Elizabeth is an oceanographer/paleobiologist, while Christina is a historical linguist/archaeologist with a background in geology and invertebrate paleontology. 

They met for the first time at the dinner after Elizabeth's interview at the Society of Fellows.  Christina's smooth opening line, "YOU'RE THE PALEONTOLOGIST!" captured Elizabeth's attention, and she asked what Christina did.  Christina said she was a linguist.  Elizabeth said she thought the most interesting part of linguistics were phylogenetic approaches to language, to which Christina replied, "THAT'S WHAT I DO!"  Elizabeth explained that she studied fossil ecosystems, which Christina thought was the coolest part of paleontology.  Over the course of the next five minutes, they came to realize that they were more or less exactly the same person.  Christina was also quiet impressed by Elizabeth's fossil socks.

Christina and Elizabeth had both always wanted to go on a cross-country geology road trip, and they swore that if Elizabeth was elected to the Society of Fellows, they would take Elizabeth's move from San Diego to Boston as an opportunity to do exactly that.  Happily, Elizabeth was elected (which Elizabeth attributes to the fossil socks and Christina attributes to her show-and-tell fossil fish teeth).  This blog is the chronicle of that road trip, and (we hope) many future geology adventures.