First things first: we ate dinner next to Amanda Seyfried.  Let that one simmer.  The scene: a pizza place in the mid-Hudson Valley outside of the Catskills.  She is as effervescent in real life as she is on screen.  And then yeah we were a table over gobbling on pizza.

Anyways- the real reason Tess and I were there: collecting more blackgum leaves!  We had a bit of a doozy of a road trip this time around.  Over the course of four days we were slingshotting down leaves in and around Baltimore, Mohonk Preserve, Vassar College, New York City, and Prettyboy Reservoir in MD.  Tess and I met our match of slippery slopes, creeks to fall into, and barberry.  Special thank you to the one and only Cory Tiger from Hudson Highlands Land Trust for helping us out for our full day in Mohonk!

We saw some pretty massive blackgum, and they kept one-upping one another! 80.4cm diameter in Mohonk, 90.0cm in NYC, and 84.4cm in Prettyboy, We only got the weight bag stuck once, and Tess channeled big brain energy to get us out of that snafu (see photo). Long 14 hour day on our last day, but lots of leaves to take back and sample! Yippee!