May 22-26th

Kee and I headed south of Moab, UT early Monday morning to attend our second half of training close to Canyonlands. The camp site off of Beef Basin road that was 1.15 hours from town with no service which for this week, I was ready for it. That morning we learned about fish coverage and how to measure thalweg which is where the main flow of water is moving.

By lunch time we were provided our coordinates to start sampling half of a reach. We were then finally putting together what we had learned last week and that morning to use. Kee and I set up our site and got to work. It was a slow start because each step had so many things to remember but were able to move through the protocol nicely. One of the trainers was close to our site so we were able to ask her questions whenever needed.  As we went I think that we did pretty well at assessing where we thought bankfull was but not all were correct. We were not able to finish our half site that day as the Rawlins crew was able to. We also had to switch our iPads that morning so I did not realize that our data selected was set up differently to enter compared to what we will be collecting this summer. It was a pretty long afternoon so it was nice to hang out with everyone that evening.

Tuesday, we headed back to our site to finish up what we had left. Kee and I finished by noon and then were sent on to do another half site. We were able to move faster but were told to wrap up early so there could be a group discussion back at camp over any questions. Being down here is really neat in that the landscape is pretty in its way like Wyoming. Also there was a lot of lizards but I have not been able to get pictures of them because they move too fast. That evening I had fun catching up with a Buggs who I worked with last summer. This world is really small due to the fact that I did not think I would be working with or along side with any of my past technician co-workers. The sunset was beautiful that night so I took a walk with a gal that I met and ended up wondering around looking at mine shafts.

Wednesday was another calibration day. We all drove up stream from our camp to test our skills on slope, pools, vegetation, canopy cover, flood-prone width, bank stability, and what to do when we come across a dry section of water. Where we parked our trucks there was a large area of bedrock and I have no idea to figure out bankfull. Haha This is the spot that we had to measure slope and I decided to take over setting it up and reading the measurements while Kee stood with the stadia rod moving up and down our "reach". I thought that I read the first one wrong so I was sweating really bad in the hot Utah weather freaking out. BUT at the end, I had not error!! I rock!! Once we were finally done that day, Kee and I drove into Canyonlands and looked around the area. It was gorgeous! We did not have time to hike anywhere so I hope that I can come back someday to be able too.

Thursday we all found out that it was our last day! We were suppose to have a full days training on Friday also but they said they felt like we understood the material well enough to be dismissed. So for the rest of the day we were told to go and find service and submit all of our data for the past two weeks. Then we all sat around and discussed different safety situations, how to drive off-road, and how to deal with people that we might run into out in the field. Once we were finally done for the day, Kee and I went to look at some petroglyphs at Newspaper Rock. On it is 2,000 years of early human activity from B.C. time to A.D. 1300.

Back at camp that evening, everyone stayed up really late to enjoy one last hurrah together. Had fun talking about Sprocket with another Pitbull/mix owner, laughing with Kate, Carp, and Buggs about last season as fish techs, and listening to live lessons/adventures from the instructors.

At 7 am the next day, Kee and I left camp for the long drive back to Kemmerer and then for me back home. On the way back I decided to count all of the Corvettes that we pasted; total count of 11! Stopped to eat at Cafe Zappas again. I finally made it home around 6 pm and started unpacking everything in the new house. Mike's parents and him were able to get everything moved over and clean the apartment. It felt really nice to be home.