Sarah Salamandering in North Carolina

For those of you who try to keep track of Sarah's whereabouts (as I occasionally do), you may be interested to know that she is in Highlands, North Carolina on her lab's annual salamander harvest with her professor, three other Oregon State graduate students, and some folks from other universities who are also salamanderphiles. She thought she was going to be out in the wild but she is actually in a town that is sort of a tourist destination. Highlands is in southwest North Carolina; here is a link to a Google map of its location. Town slogan: "Highlands--Above it all!" Other interesting facts from the Highlands Chamber of Commerce:

• Highest incorporated town east of the Mississippi River at 4,118 feet
• One of the few temperate rain forests in North America
• Year Round population on Highlands Plateau 3,200 swelling to over 18,000 in the summer
• Salamander capital of the world
• Lichen capital of the world

Anyway, she's there for about three weeks or until they run out of salamanders. Then back to Corvallis. She left our Orcas Island vacation to attend an animal behavior conference in Vermont and then went straight to North Carolina. I think she's unreachable by email but seems to have good cell phone connections.

We called her on her birthday on Tuesday. I asked where she'd had her last five birthdays. Three in New Mexico, one in Cape Cod, one in Florida, and now North Carolina. This salamander hunt is a regular gig for her lab, so she will probably see several more birthdays there.