7 hours and 450 miles later, we arrived at our picturesque Airbnb. Later that day, we met up with Matt, a post-doc in Dr. Galloway’s lab, at the University of Virginia. We told him about each of our projects and came up with a game plan for our short stay. This is what led us to call this trip Bellflower Bootcamp. We also got to see the flowers that had been growing since April and they were beautiful!

For dinner, we went to a delicious Thai place (where I almost died from eating a ridiculously spicy pepper). Afterward, we all went to a highly recommended gelato shop that had a great variety of flavors! Later that night, we decided to go to start a puzzle that was at our Airbnb and it proved to be more complicated than expected. Here is the finished product after 2 days:

On the second day, the fun really began when Matt had suggestions for each of our projects and told us about past studies done in the Galloway lab. We got to practice techniques such as emasculating and how to prevent pollinators from getting to a flower that has recently flowered. Matt also gave us a brief tour of UVA on our way to lunch and showed us the Rotunda which was designed by Thomas Jefferson.

After rearranging the flowers on the racks so that they would fit in the van, we called it a day and decided to get takeout. We were all craving dumplings so after finishing our puzzle and eating, we turned in early for the long day of driving ahead of us. The next morning, we loaded up the plants and hoped for the best as we pulled out of UVA. We will be seeing Matt again in July up in Wooster to assist us in our projects once they’re rolling.

-Ashley