From an excerpt written by Jeremiah Barber, the teaching assistant for the class Cissy was participating in when she took these notes.
"The language in which one is trained to hold a scorpion is not quite the same as to write a canto. In 2010 I was asked to be an assistant teacher for a class called Fusion of Art and Science: Along the Track of the Yellowstone Hotspot. Professors Liz Hadly (biologist), Robyn Dunbar (geologist), and Gail Wight (artist) would lead the dozen students on a two-week expedition through the western landscape. The students, through some almalgam of art, writing, and research would explore new avenues at the intersection of their varying disciplines.
Four days into the trip we woke up in the middle of the Black Rock Desert of Nevada. To get there we drove first off the freeway, then off the highway, then off the road itself. We plowed through miles of sagebrush in our row of four-wheel drive trucks. We set up camp in a valley, a dry lakebed called Massacre Lake. I later hiked to the cliff above--there wasn't a single road, building, or telephone wire in sight."
