Gabcast #2

Gabcast! Mr. Lafond in Puerto Rico #2

And... here comes the rain!

After a couple dry days, all the visitors here (including myself) were beginning to wonder why they call this a "rain" forest. Well, today I got a taste. I awoke to heavy rains at 4 a.m. and then it continued most of the day. Despite making the steep forested slopes extremely slippery, the rain didn't stop us from trekking into the forest to collect more data. Equipped with rain gear and waterproof notebooks, we surveyed an acre of forest. I worked with another teacher on the trip, Ms. Matheson, to determine of how wide the canopy of the largest trees are. This wasn't an easy job since every time we looked up we would get large rain drops in the face. As you could guess, we had fun getting wet and muddy.

Hiking in the forest... ready for the rain!

My muddy boots!

Some snails I encountered during today's trek.

An amazing stick bug that literally fell out of the tree on to my sleeve.

One of my favorite trees, the prickly ash.
Check out those crazy spikes on the bark!