There's no place like home

Well, I'm home.  I mean, I'm in the midwest, so home...ish.  But not my homehome in Viroqua.  To clarify, I'm in Minneapolis, a city I know well enough it feels familiar.  I spent this past hitch working at sites around Minnesota with one brief foray into northern Wisconsin. Myself and my coworker, Stefano, are both from the area, so although it's not exactly exciting to survey prairie pothole trails (sorry--prairies and wetlands are wonderful, but the grasslands are kind of dead and barren right now), we were glad to see family earlier than expected.

We started in the very southwestern-most county of the state and work our way up the western border before edging in near to the Twin Cities and then to the northwest and finally east into Wisconsin.  I actually saw a surprising amount of wildlife-- I think it can be easy to become
disenchanted by the place you grew up in, especially when that place is the midwest, which is referred to too often as the "fly-over zone." Respect, please.  However, I have even given into that stereotype and expected nothing more than prairies and mosquitoes from this hitch. But I was lucky to see a rattlesnake (what?! I thought nothing deadly lived in these parts!), some cutie-pie river otters that snorted at us in attempts to frighten us, but instead garnered more of a cooing.  We saw a Sandhill Crane, a porcupine, and the coolest of all, we saw two black bear cubs at the Iron River Fish Hatchery.  awwwww they were SO CUTE!  I think I can gush more over bear cubs and panther babies than I can puppies and kittens.  You should look up baby panthers- they are deadly cute.

okay, I did it for you.  This is a baby Florida panther

We heard some fine midwestern accents.  We got hit with swarms of the first hatching of mosquitoes, but only for one night while camping, luckily, as the mosquito swarms prompt pbj dinners eaten while pacing and batting your arms madly.  Also they force you into your tent by 7 pm.  We went through tick hell, each of us regularly removing armies of ticks that marched up our pant legs after every trail that was at all grassy.  After such trails Stefano and I would look at our legs, look at each other, and, after removing as many as possible, head to the nearest gas station for a more comprehensive search. Ugh.  Ticks are truly zits on the earth- I wish I could incinerate every one I find.

We didn't take a whole lot of off time since we were focused on front-loading our schedule in order to make it home for a bit of time. But we did have a few down days.  One day we decided it would be cool to check out the North Country Scenic Trail, a trail that will stretch from North Dakota to New York when completed.  I've certainly had thoughts about hiking sections of it (I believe it is supposed to be close to 4,000 miles long) so I figured it would be good to test it out.  Well.  I'm NOT going to be hiking that trail anytime soon. Ticks, mosquitoes, ahem, no nice scenic vistas... we turned around after hiking about a mile.  Wimps, maybe.  But I spent four months working on the Pacific Crest Trail in WA, OR, and CA and land that trail goes through is unbelievable.  Now that trail is worth your sweat and tears.  In my opinion, of course.  Now I admit, I am probably a bit of a trail snob at this point.  So, that which we thought would be cool was not.  No matter.  After a quick gas station tick check we were back in the truck to go to our next mosquito-infested campsite.

This hitch, being back in the midwest, has prompted me to think more about my home--what is home for me.  The last time I packed up to leave Boise I was voicing my hopes that in a couple hitches I'll be
able to pack my bag in ten minutes flat.  Ready to fly cross-country in ten minutes or less.  Everything I need and want contained in a duffel and a cooler.  Wait-- everything I need, not everything I want.  Ever since I graduated college I've moved from place to place, starting in Alaska, the southern California, New Jersey, Washington, Oregon, and California again, now Boise, and, briefly, Arizona and Florida.  I know what I need but I'm starting to realize more and more, and miss more and more, the things I want.  Maybe that's a good lesson: to learn what you need, and then to fill in the gaps where you are missing those things you want.  For the longest time I traveled without a pillow... no room for such a luxury in my bag.  Well, not anymore!  Pillow comes with me-- and it's not a special camping pillow either.  It has a pillowcase. 

The most permanent address I've held since college lasted 8 months-- in southern CA.  But I wasn't there half the time.  And my bed was a foam pad on the floor.  Now my bed is the couch- at least in Boise. Wait, shouldn't I be moving up in the world?  I feel like a real mattress (maybe on the floor) is a good next step.  I think probably the most prominent thing missing from my travel duffel is the people
I've met and come to really appreciate in my travels. 

Right now I don't have a home, but I can find it in the people I am with.  Sometimes that person is myself.

I already posted this photo, but that's my mobile home... the blue tent.  Nick is by the tent, and that's Toji on his sleeping bag

In about a week I am off to Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts.

The Sunshine State

 I’m back.  Returned to Boise after three weeks of working nearly the entire coast of Florida, and the southern bits of Alabama and Mississippi as well.

It was a grand hitch—Mike and I became quite knowledgeable on the best beaches, we ate some TWO-time world-championship-winner clam chowder, hiked bits of the Florida National Scenic Trail, visited the capital in Tallahassee, went to Everglades National Park, saw alligators and lots of birds, and, oh yeah, we worked.

We started just east of Orlando on Merritt Island.  The refuge is adjacent to the NASA space shuttle launch area, making it rather unique in it’s placement to protect wildlife.  We hiked two trails there and got our first taste of Florida’s mosquitoes.  Those guys are fierce!  We heard stories from people who worked at the refuge about how back in the old days, before mosquito control techniques existed, cattle would die of suffocation because they couldn’t breath for all the mosquitoes at their nostrils.  What??  Now they have ways to minimize the bugs by controlling water levels and, in some places, spraying.  Hmmm…  We were able to stay in a really nice bunkhouse on the refuge for our two nights there.  We shared with two other girls currently interning at the refuge but still got our own rooms and a bed each!  I found that accommodations on hitch tend to be much fancier than here in Boise, where I share a room with two girls and sleep on an air mattress (that now deflates every night as I sleep on it).

Merritt Island also happens to be adjacent to Cape Canaveral National Seashore.  So we wasted no time heading to the beach after work.

After Merritt Island was wrapped up we drove south a few hours to Hobe Sound, another coastal refuge.  It was at Hobe Sound that we encountered our first trail that literally led us to the beach.  It was a dreamy trail—popping us right out onto a white sandy stretch with warm water lapping at our feet.  Also there were no bugs and far less humidity.  Other people have also realized this piece of paradise and the nearby Jupiter Island is apparently home to many celebrities, including Tiger Woods. 

Once we finished at Hobe Sound we decided we would check out the refuge’s other beach…since we were there anyway.  The picture says it all, but it was beautiful.  I also got to jump in to the Atlantic and play in the waves.

When we’d soaked up enough sun and saltwater we headed further south and west to Florida Panther NWR, which is kind of nestled in between the Everglades and Big Cypress National Preserve.  We stayed in a very nice mobile home at the work center—it had air conditioning.  We worked on Florida Panther and Ten Thousand Islands refuges the next day.  Florida Panther houses up to 15 panthers, but we saw none.  Our contact gave us warnings of rattlesnake with rattles as loud as a chainsaw, bears in trees, 11-foot alligators, and poison ivy EVERYwhere.  We encountered none of those things, except we did see some alligators along one trail. 

Since we were already so close to the Everglades we took our weekend there.  We drove to the furthest south campground first and did some hiking and exploring there.  It was cool, but really, very buggy.  The mosquitoes and no-see-ums were out of control.  Mike and I went on a hike and it was really miserable—mosquitoes swarming the entire way.  We ran back with heads down and I tied a handkerchief around my nose and mouth and neck.  Back at camp we made dinner with no-see-ums taking bites.  It was really miserable.  Mike and I took to our tents as soon as dinner was over.  Nice,, hot tents and sticky sleeping bags.  The next day we canoed in the bay- that was great.  No bugs, first and foremost, and I’ve never canoed in the ocean before!  I wanted to jump in but they said there are sharks, so keep your fingers and toes out of the water!

The Everglades... river of grass

Mike in the canoe

Mangrove Tree

Mike and I decided we couldn’t handle another night like the last, so we drove north to the other campground to see if things were better there.  They were.  We could actually sit outside and play cards and eat dinner like normal people.

Sunset in the Pine Flatwoods, Everglades

The following day we decided since we were so close anyway we would check out the Keys.  We didn’t drive all the way down, but we went as far as a state park and enjoyed their beach for a bit.  I also got a delicious key-lime milkshake.

After the weekend we started our journey north, on the gulf coast of Florida.  Monday was a hard day… had to take one point on Sanibel Island which happens to have, yes, an amazing beach.  So after the point was taken we headed to the water.  Once we’d taken full advantage of the seashore we got back into the car and drove about 4 hours north to Chassahowitzka NWR.  We were put up in a trailer/RV there—I’ve never stayed in an RV before! So that was kind of fun, for a night.  The trails at Chass were also abundant in mosquitoes.  We worked all morning and then drove back to the trailer to work on the data.  On the drive back we were just exhausted—I felt like I’d just been through an epic battle.  It was traumatizing.  Especially for Mike—the bugs LOVE Mike.  And he hates them more than most people I know.

From Chassahowitzka we carried on north to Lower Suwannee NWR.  We camped at a nice campground on the water and took the refuge ranger’s advice and had dinner in the town of Cedar Keys, where they serve up world famous clam chowder.  YUM!  The area where Lower Suwannee is has many archeological sites from the Native Americans that lived there long ago.  They built these massive “shell mounds”—since they relied so much on seafood for their diet, they would collect and crack open oysters (or whatever shell-dwellers they found) and threw the shells into a big pile.  Kind of like we throw all of our garbage into a big pile.  Only theirs actually helped them out.  They would create pile so large they created high ground to protect from storm surges, and now there are whole forests that grow on the mounds.  But you can still see shell fragments everywhere.

St. Marks was our last refuge where we had work planned.  The refuge is just south of Tallahassee in the panhandle.  We shared a trailer there with another SCA intern who happily showed us around the area (the best beach and such).  We had planned on there being 4 days of work on the refuge, but it turned out there was only two days.  We hiked about 15 miles of the Florida National Scenic Trail, documenting new features and deficiencies and one new trail section.  It’s a cool trail- very dense and actually not much of a trail in many places.  You have to keep a constant eye out for the orange blazes on the trees so you don’t loose the trail.  At St Marks we were introduced to Florida ticks.  We’d been told they were bad, but I thought I understood what bad meant.  I’ve been to New Jersey.  However, this was a new level.  We started our day on the trail—took about ten steps in and I looked down at my ankles and about 10 ticks were already making a beeline up my leg.  We made a big hubbub about it and figured we’d managed to walk right through a nest of them or something.  But no, that’s just how the trail was.  ALL THE WAY.  I stopped flicking them off—it was hopeless.  We had to spend about 45 minutes after work de-ticking ourselves and then showering and quarantining our clothes.  Mike ended up with about ten embedded in his ankles.  Having never even seen a tick before, that was a little traumatic.

So that was St. Marks; it’s a ticky place.  We also took in the city of Tallahassee while we were there and learned some Florida history.  Tallahassee is interesting because it is very hilly- sort of like a miniaturized San Francisco.  This is odd because the rest of Florida rises and falls about 3-4 feet in total (an exaggeration, but also kind of true in the southern portion.) 

We spent Easter at the refuge and left early Monday morning for our new work assignments in Alabama and Mississippi!  Since we cruised on through our work in Florida there was some rescheduling so we didn’t just hang out on the beach for the last week.  This was just fine with me and Mike since we were heading in the direction of New Orleans anyways, where we had a concert to go to on Wednesday.  Our first stop was Bon Secour NWR, on the Gulf shores of Alabama.  We’d been told the work there was light, so that’s what we prepared ourselves for.  There ended up being a good six miles of trails to walk and plenty of new features to mark down.  It was okay though because one of the trails led us directly into the waves of the gulf on the most beautiful beach I think I have ever seen in my life (yep, in Alabama. who knew?)

We HAD to go to the beach!

Unfortunately there was no time to dilly-dally, but it was locked in my mind as a place to return to soon.  We finished up late at Bon Secour and made dinner in the parking lot before driving up through Mobile and into Mississippi.  We camped in a state park where we were joined by team Alpha: Toji and Christina. 

We split refuges the next day with those two.  Mike and I worked at Grand Bay when it wasn’t pouring buckets and threatening to strike us down with lightening.  Once we finished we were officially DONE with our work in the Southeast.  And now for the real fun… the Railroad Revival concert in New Orleans with Old Crow Medicine Show, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, and Mumford and Sons.

The next morning we drove two hours into the city.  I was not expecting to love New Orleans like I do now… I LOVE it.  I am obsessed with the idea of moving there. 

Lots of Mardi Gras beads strung up on gates and fences

I love the color and style of the houses

First on our agenda (well, for three of us) was to see a cello octet play at the university.  It was really good—and it’s not often you get to see eight cellos play together.  Then we wandered the streets a little and saw the French Quarter and a bit of Bourbon Street.  I had a muffaletta sandwich which is a New Orleans classic with lots of ham and cheese and olives.  Time soon came to head in the direction of the concert, which was in a park on the Mississippi.  The concert was simply fantastic.  Seeing Old Crow is something I’ve been wanting ever since I first started listening to them.  And they did not disappoint.  There were a TON of people at the concert and it is very hot in that city.  So being crammed in with a bunch of other hot, sweaty people, in a city that is already hot and sweaty was… very very hot and sweaty.  But luckily the music was good enough to not care.

We spent the next day wandering the city a bit more before we had to begin our drive back east.  There is so much to see and do in that city.  The art and music and culture and FOOD are all so important and prevalent in the city.  I can’t really say much more except that I love it… and I only spent one night there.

Seafood Muffaletta!

We left in the afternoon and camped nearby that beach I mentioned earlier—the prettiest one ever.  And the next morning we woke up and went directly there so I could enjoy it properly with my swimsuit on, crashing around in the waves.  We couldn’t stay for too long; we had places to be and sunburn to avoid.  We had to drive to Orlando to be prepared for our morning flight back to Boise. 

We drove and drove and drove to our hotel where we unloaded the truck and went to return it.  Returned it with a grand total of 3,100 miles on it.  Sheesh.  We packed ourselves up and went to bed for one last night in Florida.  Now I am home in Boise for one week before I head to my next exciting destination… … …MINNESOTA!  Which means I can also go home (my real home) for a few days. 

It’s good to be back.  Let my bug bites die away and my sunburn heal.  The poison ivy I apparently infected myself with is showing up all over me which is really great.  Boise is looking even more springy—lots of flowering trees and tulips popping up.  On Monday I fly to Minneapolis!

Team Echo

Well hello.

Let me explain why I have not written an update for the past three weeks... it's not because I've been off traveling to exotic wildlife refuges, rather I've been right here in Boise.  I spent these past weeks as a member of Team Echo- the Boise based team that does lots of data reconciliation and contacting refuges to start planning future hitches.  That means lots and lots of time on the computer- making maps, writing emails, color-coding spreadsheets, making spreadsheets to organize spreadsheets, color-coding those spreadsheets according to how other spreadsheets are organized, etc, etc.  It was a good month, but too much time staring at the screen.  So that is why I did not write-- the idea of MORE screen time after work was sickening.

What came out of it is plans for Hitch 2, which starts Monday.  Myself and Toji, the other half of team echo, made all the primary contacts with Region 4 (that's the southeast) and as we peppered the regional map with pins indicating where we need to go, four different trips emerged: one to Florida, one to Georgia and South Carolina, one to Mississippi and Arkansas, and one to Louisiana.  I will be going to Florida. ahem:

aaaahhhhhh

Unfortunately all the refuges we will be visiting seem to be coastal, so I will have to work on the beach.  For three weeks.  woe is me.

We'll also be taking a long weekend (hopefully) to explore the Everglades, which is a place I've always wanted to see.  Our other weekend we plan on making the drive to New Orleans to see an Old Crow Medicine Show concert.

But enough speculation on my Florida trip.  I'll fill you in on how it goes when I come home at the end of April.

I can tell you a bit more about my time in Boise.  It was great to have some time to explore the city and also pretty nice to have an entire apartment to myself for a few weeks.  Despite rainy, chilly weather, Toji and I got ourselves out and around town.  We went to some hot springs outside of Boise where we met some eccentrics and sat in warm pools while it snowed on us.  We checked out some excellent local restaurants- including the Boise Fry Co. where you can choose your potato and the cut of the fry, and then dip it into any of the 10 or so dipping sauces they have.  We spent plenty of time at the climbing gym.  Biked all up and down the greenbelt.  Picked up trash on SCA's portion of the greenbelt.  Checked out the capitol building.  I'm sure I'm forgetting some things, but you get the idea.  Boise is a great city- there's lots to do and see.

Working out of an office was an unfamiliar feeling at first.  Since for the past two years my work has been mostly field-based and kind of centered around moving.  So the 7 hours a day at a computer was a little distressing at first and Toji and I usually walked home together in sort of a daze, massaging our wrists to ease the soreness you get from clicking a mouse for too long.  I think we adjusted after about a week, but it was rough.  And reminds me how much I do NOT want that for my job right now.  I'm happy to be going back into the field- not that we don't all have our fair share of squinting at computer, and worse, Trimble screens, out there.

I'm going to give you a few pictures: one from our volunteer trailwork day with the crew in Boise.  And some from my first hitch that I think are nice.

That's all for now.  I'll write again when I'm back from FLORIDA!

Arizona

I'm back.  Team Beta (that's what the four of us called ourselves in the field) returned to Boise on March first.  After three weeks of driving, hiking, Trimbleing, camping, and, ahhh, warming ourselves in the Arizona sunshine, we have landed in our apartments once again.  Three weeks is a long time to be gone, and a long time to remember back on.  But I will try.

All ten of us woke up at 4:30 am on Feb. 8.  We had an early flight and arrived in Tucson around noon.  We met Tyler there and picked up our fantastic white rental minivans.  First on the agenda, thanks to Tyler's love of food, was Tamales! from the Tucson Tamale Co.  They had lots of tamales to choose from- meat, vegetables, cheese, spicy, mild, Indian spiced, even an Idaho tamale with potatoes!  They were very tasty and good compensation for a horrifically early morning in the airport.  The rest of the afternoon was spent finding work pants for people and then driving out to the training site for SCA member training.  Training was at a YMCA camp outside of Tucson near a town called Oracle.  It was pretty out there, but a nice place since we had cabins and bunk beds... pretty much the typical summer camp kind of place, complete with all too typical camp food.  (typical commentary on dinner was, "ah yes, steamed broccoli again." and "wait, they said this was enchiladas??" while staring that the greasy mess on cheese and meat on the plate.)  But not to be too harsh, it was all pretty tasty.

I won't go into to much detail on training, which lasted until the 15th.  It was a good time- got to meet lots of other sca people in native plant crews, PCT trail crews, and others.  Working everywhere from Southern CA, to Saguaro National Park, to Missouri, to South Carolina.  Everyday was pretty similar: wake up around 6:30, breakfast and terrible coffee, morning circle and a game, then sessions on stuff like risk management, field operation standards, group dynamics, etc.  The last few days of training they offered a Leave No Trace trainer course for people who didn't need to take the wilderness first aid course.  It was a good course- although I already knew most of the ideas associated with LNT.  We had some good conversations and also got to go hiking on the Arizona Trail.

Member training ended on the 15th.  That's when my crew began our drive south to the refuges where we would be do the data collection part of training.  We camped that night at Chiricahua National Monument, which is a fascinating place.  My car got there in time to hike around the rock formations and take pictures before dinner and an intro to "how trimbles and data collection can ruin your life." But I'll get into that later.

Chiricahua National Monument

That's Toji

The next morning we woke, yet again, too early to bother talking about.  We drove to San Bernardino NWR to start our real work of mapping trails and marking their features and deficiencies.  That day was a tangle of learning which buttons to push on Trimble, and which buttons NOT to push.  Asking too many questions and getting too few answers.  And baking in the southern AZ sun and heat.  We did set our eyes on the Mexico border-- we were literally a stone's throw away, as a kid in my crew demonstrated.  Somehow we managed to get some clear data taken on the refuge, and then the group split up-- one (mine) heading to Leslie Canyon NWR to take ONE feature point, and the other to find some internet to fix Trimble issues.  My group had plenty of driving on dirt roads before we arrived to the very important kiosk.  Then we had another four hours in the car before we'd be at our next destination.  We stopped in the town of Bisbee for some of the best Mexican food I've ever had.  Then drove and drove until we arrived at Buenos Aires NWR around midnight. 

Our morning at Buenos Aires began grossly early once again.  We had to attend a safety meeting with border patrol people so we would be aware of the dangers of the border lands.  The message was mostly to watch out for large bags of marijuana hidden in the weeds and don't confront anyone attempting to cross the border.  Once we were briefed we headed out into the danger to map an interpretive trail that hardly left eyesight of the visitor center.

Here we are, at work.  The intrepid inventoriers

Once the trails at Buenos Aires were safely stored away on the Trimbles, we returned to camp and cooked a quick dinner before making the drive to Tucson, where we stayed in a hotel in preparation for most of the group’s 7 am departure the next morning.  I was not too sad to leave the border—from what border patrol and the refuge employees told us it just seemed that wherever we went, whatever we did, we were being watched.  Creepy.

Now we are at Friday, Feb. 18.  Six members flew back to Boise that morning, while the remaining four of us began to get set up for our hitch.  We called ourselves Team Beta, and came to realize our purpose was to be thrown under the bus, and see how well we escaped.  From the start it seemed NOTHING was going to go right.  The Trimbles were failing, the GIS/GPS system on the computer was failing.  I actually don’t understand half of what went wrong.  I was there to provide trails knowledge, along with another guy.  The other two were the GIS brains.  So while they spent their weekend pulling out their hair in a Tucson coffee shop, staring at Trimble and computer, us trails people went climbing at the gym, ate burgers, did laundry, and tried to offer moral support to the computer guys.  Luckily they got things smoothed out enough to get us through a hitch successfully.

OKAY.  Now, we are to Monday.  This was officially the first day of our hitch.  We did food shopping and packed ourselves into the trucks to make the drive west.  We camped on some BLM land near Quartzsite, AZ.  On Tuesday Michael and I drove to Kofa NWR to inventory the aptly named Palm Canyon trail.  It was a gorgeous little hike back up into a shady, narrow canyon.  At the end there was a bit of an observation point from which you could see the California Fan palms.  The trail was about a mile long, round trip and took us perhaps two hours to finish.  Hiking is s-l-o-w with Trimble.  Every time there is a “feature,” some kind of structure or improvement on the trail, we must mark it with a point and take down info and snap a photo.  Also whenever there is a “deficiency,” some kind of erosion or drainage issue, we mark that and make suggestions for improvement.  At the same time we are mapping the trail, and entering data on that as well.  It takes a surprisingly long time to go through this process.  Luckily we only had one trail that day, so there was a little time to explore the refuge before heading into town to meet the other two and head to a new camp near our next refuges.

Our next refuges were Lake Havasu NWR and Bill Willliams (or “the Bill Will”) NWR.  The refuges are in Arizona, but the refuge headquarters and the maintenance yard where they put us up were in California.  There is a time change right there, and we had no end of confusion figuring out what time it was where and when exactly we were meeting whom in what state and in what state’s time zone.  hilariously confusing.  We spent the next few days hiking short trails along the Colorado River.  The refuge let us stay in the little office building inside their maintenance yard.  Not the softest floor ever, but there was heat and a bathroom.  We finished our trails on Thursday and met with the refuge manager to debrief on Friday morning.  Then, thankfully and at long last, we were free to spend our time however we pleased.  For us, we chose hiking.  Trimbles were deposited into their case and latched in—no more talk about GIS, no more clicking away on annoying, unresponsive screens.  Free!

For the break, Michael split off to hang out with his dad and brother.  Me, Toji, and Nick decided to head to Arizona Hot Springs—a place Toji had been plenty before and highly recommended.  We drove to the trailhead, a bit outside Bullhead City and hiked the three miles down through canyons and washes to the Colorado.  We had to hike right through the pools at the end in order to make it to the camping area.  That first step in the hot water was so good.  We stayed for one night and had a great time.  It was so incredibly nice to relax in hot water and not think about logistics of work.  And there were lots of cool people there, so we had a bit of relief as well from hanging out with the same people day after day.

Near the hot springs, and a view of the Colorado River

Nick and Toji, setting up camp at the hot springs

We hiked out of the hot springs the next day… we really wanted to stay another night but it was starting to rain, and a giant wash isn’t where you should hang out when it rains.  We ended up going to Flagstaff and exploring that city.  We stayed in a hotel and woke up to about 8 inches of new snow!  Our plan was to see a little but of the Grand Canyon but all roads into the park were closed.  So we went on a short, very snowy hike and then wandered the streets of Flagstaff for a while.  Well, I less wandered and more sat in a sunny café window with coffee and my book.

We drove to Tucson that night and then flew out the next morning.

Phew!  Have I exhausted you? 

So to recap, with a visual now: We landed in Tucson, trained just outside.  Then drove south to San Bernardino and Leslie Canyon.  Then west to Buenos Aires and back to Tucson.  Team Beta gets into their trucks and drives north through Phoenix and then west to visit Kofa and Cibola.  Then north to Havasu and Bill Will.  North again to Bullhead City and Arizona Hot Springs, then east to Flagstaff.  And back south through Phoenix and into Tucson once again.  Then north to Boise!  I know Arizona pretty well now.

It's been nice to be home and sleep on a bed.  Well, an air mattress bed.  And working in the office has been a good change of pace.  We got our assignments for next hitch, which begins March 14th.  I will be staying in Boise!  The three traveling teams will be visiting refuges in New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma.  I'm not to sad to be staying back in Boise.  It will give me a chance to explore the city and just sit still for a while.  Toji is staying too, as well as a still unknown new girl.  We lost one crew member while I was gone.

Well, I hope it wasn't too difficult to make it through this massive post.  Perhaps I will write with more details at a later date.

Enjoy the weekend!

 

Arizona-bound

Here I am again.  We’ve been having a bit of a weekend here, well, sort of a working weekend.  Still trying to move ourselves in to the apartment and finish up some training bits and pieces before we head to our second training in Tucson.

On Friday Tyler and Alex (who are, by the way, my venerable bosses) took us to dinner at a Vietnamese place in downtown Boise.  It was delicious food, and afterwards they walked around the downtown with us and pointed out all the hot spots to eat and hang out in.  We saw the capitol building, the library (which in Boise has a big sign that says: Library!), lots of good restaurants, the Basque district (although “district” is a bit of a misleading word for this block-long neighborhood).  We didn’t stay in the downtown too long that night, but the next day some of us went to a rock climbing gym to play around on the bouldering wall.  After that we went to the Boise coop and found an amazing cornucopia of good food and drink.  Mmmmm!  I want to live there.

Our apartment is a bit more on the homey, furnished side these days.  Today we bought a table and chairs, some hanging shelves so we can finally move our clothes out of our suitcases.  And other boring but necessary items like brooms and toilet brushes. 

So on Tuesday we are flying to Tucson for a member training.  I think there will be about 40 people at the training, including my old project leader on the PCT.  We be put through all kinds of enlightening things like Risk Management, Drive Safe Drive Smart, How to Use Your Chase Card, and probably community building, because they really like that stuff.  Following the member training our crew will have a short field training where we’ll actually do the work we’re here to do for a few days.  And following that most people will return to Boise to plan the next hitch, while four of us remain in AZ to work on some refuges there.  Myself and three of the boys are staying to do that work—two of us have lots of trails experience and the other two are good with GPS/GIS work, so we are kind of the guinea pigs being sent into the field first.  We’ll be working in the refuges on the border—I believe the names are Buenos Aires NWR, San Bernardino NWR, and Cabeza Prieta NWR.  Part of the reason they are having four of us work on those refuges is because of their proximity to the border—there is a good chance we might come up against some shady characters.  But they’ve warned us of the potential and we’ll be plenty safe—so don’t worry, MOM!

I’m really looking forward to getting out into the field and getting into the work.  I think it will be good for the group to be broken up and go separate directions.  And when we all come back to Boise we’ll be a whole new group.  You get to know people in a very different way when you go out camping with them for three weeks at a time.  It’s hard to imagine but I won’t be back in Boise until the beginning of March. 

So I guess I’ll be posting again in March!  Enjoy February ya’ll.  I sure will, down in the sunshine and heat of Arizona.

Home

Well here I am in Boise, my home city for the next ten months.  Since arriving on Monday it’s been a packed schedule of meeting my crew, meeting all the other people we’ll be working with in the office, moving into the apartment, and slowly finding out the details of the season.  Its almost deceiving to call Boise and this apartment my “home” for the next ten months… while my few nice clothes I brought with will live here, I will be traveling all over the country for about three out of four weeks each month.  So… home?  Home is in the woods I guess.  Airports might start to feel overly-homey as well, I suspect.  My boots will be home for my feet.  My sleeping bag  is my traveling home.  The smell of coffee is home.   Guess I’ll start to find it in all kinds of places.

There are ten of us traveling interns.  Well, nine at the moment.  The tenth will be arriving shortly.  Five guys, five girls.  Two apartments.  Approximately 250 wildlife refuges to visit between us, located in all 50 states plus US territory in Puerto Rico and some Pacific islands.  Yeah… it’s overwhelming me a bit at the moment too.  Luckily before we jump into it all we’ve got this week of training in Boise and then about ten more days of training with some other crews in Tucson, AZ.

I guess I can explain the purpose of this job a bit, because it IS a job.  As much as it may sound like a year of touring US wilderness areas there is Work to be done.  We have been hired as trail inventory interns.  Our objective is to travel to Fish and Wildlife Refuges throughout the US and walk the trails.  While we walk the trails we will be mapping them on a GPS and collecting data on the trail.  Noting where the trail is eroded, sunken, impassable, non-existent, etc. Who knows really what we’ll find.  But we’ll find it and then we’ll mark it so future trail crews can be sent to these places to repair trails and keep public access open in these areas.

There are going to be plenty of challenges: travel delays and the airport run-around, encounters with alligators and grizzly bears, walking trails in the deep south or on the border, and learning to live with one person pretty closely for three weeks at a time.  But I’m really looking forward to seeing places very few people will ever visit.  Few refuges have the notoriety of National Parks, rather they are expanses of land protected mostly for the sake of wildness and wilderness, research and study, and as a retreat, or refuge, from development.  At least that is my thought as I go into this… 50 wildlife refuges later I might have a different perspective.

Much love to everyone!  I’ll try and keep this updated with photos and such.

first tracks

Weather allowing, I'll be in Boise tomorrow.  Here's to the next ten months!