Almost 4 weeks have passed since my internship began and it has flown by! I thought I'd give y'all a little description of what my day to day job is like. Some days my field leader, Dave, and I go out on the river and do a "float" from one river access to another one farther downstream. We also take a look around the river accesses and maintain them regarding accessibility and noxious weeds. At one river access, we discovered a population of the worst weed regarding expulsion - Puncture Vine.
It has these horrible spikey seeds that will stick to anything and go right through your skin.
The population we found has about 30,000 plants at the Ferry Point River Access
We also pulled a couple thousand plants at Sarah Totten Campground and River Access near Horse Creek, CA.
The view from the river access at Sarah Totten
On one of our floats we stumbled upon the largest puncture vine we have found to date. It weighed 20lbs if not more and when we went to pick it up a few days later it had shed about 3/4ths of its weight from drying out.
To give you an idea of how big this plant is, Dave is my height - 5'9 or 5'10.
On that same day, hiked to the beautiful Ukonom Falls.
The view of Ukonom Falls from the trail
Ukonom Falls
Some of the wildlife I've seen: lots of Blacktail Deer, a Fisher, three Mink (in one float!), Common Mergansers, Great Blue Heron, Green Heron, Stellar's Jays, Scrub Jays, Bushtits, Dippers, Black Phoebes, Goldfinches, Acorn Woodpeckers, Bald Eagles, Osprey, a Great Egret, and a lot of salmon are running up the river! No bears or Mountain Lions yet unfortunately.
There's a surf wave on one of the runs that you can boogie board on. It's a ton of fun. I filmed a video with my GoPro of it and that is soon to come!
I left off writing updates while I was in Colorado. The first night in Denver, a woman set off the fire alarm by taking a shower. That water must've been hotter than the devil's spit in order to do that. So thank you, kind woman.
Since then, I drove through Wyoming to Salt Lake City, Utah.
From Salt Lake City, I drove to Reno, Nevada. On the way to Reno, I drove through the salt flats, so that was pretty unusual and cool.
I got out to take this picture and it was so salty, dry and the sun reflected so harshly that my eyes started to water profusely even though I had Costas on.
Nevada REALLY outdid themselves with their welcome sign. Can you even see it?
But at least the sunset was pretty.
After Reno, I finally made it to California!!
It took too much effort to take that picture so I hope you all appreciate it.
After taking a crazy winding road, I came to my destination - the incredibly populous town of Happy Camp, California. It is one of the prettiest places I've ever been and far different from most of my travel/living destinations.
Here's a video of a minute and a half of that windy ride. It doesn't have a song or anything fancy on it so don't bother with the volume. Oh, and ignore the reflections. It's really pretty though!
This is where I live. Oh and I get to kayak through rapids everyday. That's my job.
Today was my first day on the river. Six miles. I saw a Cooper's Hawk, Green Herons, Western Pond Turtles, Black Tail Deer, Common Mergansers and a HUGE turkey.
Also, I know I put up a lot of pictures; I like them more than typing a bunch.
Sadly, we left Kansas City today. The drive was relatively lackluster, but the Kansas prairie is very pretty, especially the rolling hills. I was driving through this section so I didn't get any pictures.
This sign was in quaint Russell, KS. My dad really wanted me to take a picture for some reason.
Crossing into Colorado from Kansas on I-70W
As we approached Denver, we were hit by a massive downpour accompanied by some hail. Thanks Colorado. I'm just glad it didn't ding my Jeep!
We took a little break from driving today and spent the day in our old hometown of Kansas City, MO today. This morning, we stopped by our old house, but never got a chance during the day to go inside.
After that relaxing morning, I went to get probably my most exciting purchase for the trip - a GoPro camera. I cannot wait to take this thing with me down some rapids. And I plan on recording some of the drive this week - like sunset while driving in the desert.
Following that little adventure, I finally got to put something on my Jeep that I've had for a couple weeks now - my SpiderWebShade. Here's what it looks like:
I did put the hard top back on, of course, because of all the highway driving that will be happening in the next few days. But the shade stays on under the top and actually makes the interior look a lot nicer. Another product I can't wait to test out soon!
So, this is my first blog post EVER. I'm not a big blog person; I find them cheesy at times. However, I don't know what my schedule will be like, so I wanted to do this to keep everyone who wants to hear about my internship/travels informed.
Day 1:
Dad and I began our journey to Happy Camp, CA yesterday, leaving the house around 1330. We made it to Dayton, OH, although we planned to stop in Indianapolis. Oh well. This is basically what the whole drive was like:
Also, when we got to Dayton and had all of our stuff out of the car for the night, I locked the keys in the car, including the spare. Of course I did...
Day 2:
We left Dayton around 0900 and booked it through to Kansas City, MO where we used to live. Our old friends and neighbors held a little barbecue - the best part about being back here. Beautiful drive, gorgeous day. But I'm looking forward to taking the day off tomorrow and hanging around town.
Crossing the Mississippi into Missouri
Finally back in my original home state!
P.S. Here's a reminder that the meteor shower starts tonight and ends on the 13th. (The best night is supposed to be the 12th. I hope to be in western Kansas, where the lights are few and far between.)
