Kids!!!

I was a nocturnal instructor on Monday & Tuesday this week, and we got to hang out, sing songs and check out skulls with the ranger. Here's a photo of the kids pre-skull identification.



That night, we were graced with the presence of Clint & Nick who sang "Country Road" while playing the guitar and accordion. This duo has prompted my desire to acquire a banjo so i can join them during the spring mountain school session.



Then on Wednesday I went back to teaching during the day time and to say i have had my hands full the past few days is a fun understatement. Here's a photo of the boys munching on pretzels during a peaceful and stationary moment. Trust me, this was very very very very rare.



I"ll post more on my adventures with these guys tomorrow.

our new house

Tons of new places & things going on in my life lately. One of those new things includes my new house with my not quite new anymore boyfriend. Granted, i dont really live there full time, but it's still something i'm really excited about, and we have a guest room to share! So, here are a few shots from the new place... and more to come soon. So, consider this your invitation to come visit (if i know you) and spend some time with us up in Bellingham.

View looking down the hallway through the window to our front yard.

the kitchen where many cookies will be baked.

hallway with the bedrooms to the right and the storage to the left.

The living room.

Directions

So, once you get off I-5, you drive through Sedro Wooley via Cook rd.

Then about an hour later you'll go through the bustling streets of Rockport

Then you come to Marblemount. Last stop for gas for the next 63 miles.

Keep following the signs to the N. Cascades

Turn left at this sign

Go over the bridge that looks like it's from Harry Potter.

and then you're here!!! next time i make the drive and it's actually nice out and you can see the mountains, i'll do this again :)

exhausted

i am exhausted.

i have absolutely no photos.

I was supposed to team teach with Nick this week, since we had combined our groups... but, Nick got sick, and i had to teach both of our groups. However, i successfully wore the kids out. They were so tired they gave up game/play time with the other groups and went back to their dorms to take a nap before dinner. I guess that makes it a successful day... right?

I sure hope so.

Today

So, this morning was pretty rough. I came to the realization of how broke I really am, and was really trying to come to terms with why I am here. Broke really isn't the correct term I am looking for. Completely unable to pay some important bills (i.e. tuition) and unable to buy food would be a better description of where I was at this morning. Thankfully the bus full of kids that I was supposed to teach today was about an hour late, leaving me time to come to terms with my current financial situation and make some decisions which included pulling all of my "savings" and look at finding additional work while living up here. I'm not looking for pity. But there is a point to this.

On the way to the bus, i was in a pretty bad spot... I never really thought of teaching kids as a future career and really hadn't made a true connection with it yet so was really having difficulties justifying being here. That, and i'm pretty sure if i did leave, I wouldn't have a job to go back to anyway, but that's something totally different.

Anyway, the bus of kids finally arrived and 11 kids hopped off the bus, and I was in charge of them for the next 4.5 hours. No pressure. What made this all a tad more difficult was that a few of the children required special needs, and I have ZERO training on how to do this. Wait, did I mention that I just learned how to do any of this three weeks ago? But here's the thing. It all worked. The kids were amazing. Some that started out shy in the beginning were singing and dancing with me by the end. A few of the kids that knew all the answers, were encouraging the younger and smaller kids to raise their hands and providing them with useful hints. And one of the children who is hearing impaired finally got out of his cocoon and would hear a bird or animal and correctly identify it without anyone else. We got to build mountains in the sand, run screaming through wood chips, sang about evaporation and I felt a level of trust from these 10 year olds I have never even felt from an adult. To say that it was magical only devalues the experience. I wasn't able to take as many photos as normal, but here are some photos from the day:

The running and screaming game.

the kids, their teachers & chaperones

teaching the kids about watersheds & how the slightest bit of pollution can effect everything

Nick giving instructions to the kids before releasing them to construct their mountains

So, to return to my original thoughts from the day. This is worth it. Seeing a child interact with the place around him and have it provide him with a sense of self is worth all of the money in the world.

Chuck Norris will beat Rock & Scissors

Today was a great day. We were greeted with mildly chilly skies this morning and this bizarre glowing sphere (i.e. sun). The kids were in great spirits, and everyone was in the mood to learn. Snow was also visible on the nearby peaks, which got some adults pretty darn excited as well. Here are some photos from the day.

Took a hike up to the waterfall, and the kids had a "who can keep their hand in the freezing water long enough" contest. here they are still smiling. I do not have a picture of them testing the length of time it took to get feeling back into their hands.

The kids collected various objects we had found this morning and got to look at them under a microscope.

Snow on Pyramid
Snow on Colonial (7700 ft)

Erika & Emma playing "meet a tree." The kids are blindfolded and walked to a plant where they must feel it and smell it and then identify it later once the blindfold is removed.

What better way to wake up at 8am, then to go play tag with 50+ kids.

Im exhausted

so, the kids arrived today as well as a cold front that dropped about 3 inches of rain with wind gusts up to 20 mph and an average around 55 F. Hoooray!!!!

The kids were great though. We were outside all the way up to dinner time and would seek refuge from time to time in some of our outdoor shelters. We played a ton of games and learned about rocks (rockity-rock-rock-rock) and also learned about glaciers and how they carve our valleys. There was a 5 second break in the clouds and the kids were able to identify the U-shaped valley that the Piedmont glacier carved out over the last ice age. By the end of the afternoon though, the kids were starting to get a little restless and I was beginning to lose feeling in my hands. So, two things going on the christmas list (yes, i know it's only September) - Waterproof mittens & galoshes.

Now it's 8pm, and i am e.x.h.a.u.s.t.e.d. I desperately want to go for a run, but it's really hard to get motivated when all i want to do is go to sleep, and it's still raining and cold out. So, instead, i'm choosing to stay in doors and start looking at my Grand Canyon books that arrived today.

here are a few shots from today.

The glacier lesson.

Emma using heat and pressure to form her metamorphic rock

rain coats!!!

lunch under an awning to keep the kids dry.

Nick & Codi getting excited for "skit" time during orientation.

p.s. parents i was planning on giving you a call tonight, but after i got home from dish duty, it was nearly 11pm your time. i'll try tomorrow.

We measure our rainfall in feet around here

The average rain fall in the Diablo lake vicinity is around 84 inches of rain a year... which equals 7 feet.

How often have you ever lived in a place where you can say with a straight face "we receive on average 7 feet of rain a year." Now, try to imagine how that could relate to snowfall amounts for this winter... they're predicting it to be a La Nina winter, which causes the PNW to have higher rainfall and colder weather. The last time they had a La Nina here at the Learning Center, people were snowed in for 3 weeks before WADOT could plow them out.

I'm glad i have some cross country skis.

Kids... Everywhere!!!!

Kids are here!!!! Three of us drove down to meet our first school group at the parks visitor center in Newhalem. The kids get to go on a scavenger hunt and get to hang out with park rangers.

Just reviewing some of the scavenger hunt questions

Checking out the Picket Range. Killer views this morning with blue sky & sun!

Ranger Carolyn walking the kids down the board walk

man bench - lunch time

Finally, we got to the learning center, and we helped the kids lug their stuff up to the center.

I didn't get to interact the kids that much this week, since i'm not on the schedule until next week... but it's been rad just doing skits with them, having dinner and drinking cups of milk. It's amazing how their energy just totally infuses everyone here. Kids are pretty rad, especially when they're here to learn about the environment and you can play in the dirt with them. Imagine what the world would be like if we could all do this when we were growing up!

rocks, rocks, rocks, Glacier!

Woke up Monday morning to the beautiful yet eerie cloud/tree formation that is becoming a normal occurrence here.



We were graced with the presence of Jon Riedel, North Cascades National Park Geologist/Glaciologist. Some of the fun facts we learned were:

- Lake Chelan is 1500 feet deep with 1700' of glacial sediment below that, meaning that the glaciers carved out nearly 3200' of relief in this lake.
- 30,000 years ago, the big beaver glacier flowed out into ross lake blocking the skagit river, causing it to flow north and out into the Fraser River.
- The technical term for kitty litter rock is grus, which is weathered granite
- NOCA (north cascades national park) has had a 50% decline in glaciers in the last 100 years.
- Thunder Creek (literally, right up the road from the ELC) is the most glaciated watershed in the continental US. 13% of the water flowing into the creek is 13%, while 35-40% of runoff in the summer months come from these glaciers.
- Bad news, streamflow in the thunder creek drainage has decreased nearly 30% in the past 100 years, which can be attributed to the shrinking glaciers
- The skagit watershed has 2.1% glaciation.
- This same watershed has lost over 400 billion gallons of water flow in the last 17 years due to diminishing glaciers.

Here are some photos of the day with Jon.

pointing out some glacial erratics we found along the trail side

View of the dormant Skagit Fault. Jon believes this fault is what caused the pickets to the north, and then forbidden/eldorado & etc to the south. Look at a map and draw a line, it totally makes sense

Jon pointing out to the group the skagit fault line

silence is golden

So, i blew it and left my note pad AND camera in a class room, so instead of writing about the amazing fun time we had with the park geologist yesterday.... you're just going to have to wait until tomorrow (since i know so many of you check this thing daily and are very disappointed when you have nothing to read... right?!)

Just a few quick notes:
- today is the last day of training
- tomorrow kids show up
- i dont start teaching until next week (whew!)
- Frankies last day is Friday (give him a high-five)
- It's 70 & sunny outside
- i start work study tomorrow on my number one job choice!!! (group events - yes!)
- i want to create a get away weekend here for trail running and yoga. would anyone else attend except me and maybe frankie (he's obviously required due to boyfriend requirements)


That's all i got. I'll post something way more legit tomorrow

Oh, and Jeff Corwin is here tonight and will be taping with the kids tomorrow for some Electronic Field Trip thing (more on that later this week). If you want to know who he is, go here: important link

night walking

During Mountain School, we take the kids out on a night hike. During the hike we discuss the kinds of animals that are out at night, and what makes them different from diurnal animals.

So, in order to prepare ourselves for this, we went on a night hike on the Trail of the Cedars in Newhalem. We were led by one person with a very small light that only shone red.

So, this is what we would normally see




and this is what we actually saw



It was fantastic. By the end of the hike, we all had to walk in a line holding onto the person in front of us in order to find our way through the woods. We played games along the way like "what's the smell in this container" or "draw on a piece of paper and identify the color."

Only about 5 more days until the kids show up, and im getting pretty excited. I better get over my fear of the dark immediately!

rocks

So, we started working on learning the curriculum we are supposed to start teaching when the kids show up next week.

The focus yesterday was on abiotic things such as watersheds, glaciers, orographic lift, geology and the encompassing topic of ecosystems. So, how did we learn about this?

We got to play in the dirt for about an hour building mountains, then ramming gigantic ice blocks (glaciers) into them and then dumping water on our mountains followed up by taking a sponge and ringing it out over the peaks. Last but not least, we played with play-dough and created rocks. Not only was this incredibly fun, it actually was a learning experience (shocking, i know.)

So, we built our mountains out of rocks, sand and gravel, which is a good illustration of how the mountains around here are built. By taking a glacier to our mountain, we were able to show how glaciers carved the landscape, leaving U-shaped valleys behind in their way. We were also able to carve out cirques and some people got creative and formed hanging valleys. For the watershed project, we were able to pour water onto the peak of our mountain and watch how it drained into different areas, clearly identifying where each watershed is. The lesson also showed how some of the sand was carried away, depicting erosion. To take it one step further, we could have added soap or food coloring and poured again, to show how pollutants can affect the entire water shed instead of the little place you dump whatever it is you're leaving behind. Finally, our mountain received it's last battering when we took a sponge and showed the effects of orographic lift (or rain shadowing), where air is squeezed together as it impacts mountain ranges, forcing it to release the condensation it has accrued in the form of rain or snow, and then how there is no rain left as it passes over the mountain causing a rain shadow. (sorry, long sentence). Finally, we were all handed out different colors of play-dough to represent different layers and forms of rock:
igneous - volcanic/molten rock from the earths core/mantle
sedimentary - layers that are accumulated on-top of each other over time
metamorphic - rocks that are smushed together with heat & pressure.

we got to mash our different rock layers together, which represented the rock type surrounding us "Skagit Gneiss."

I didn't take too many pictures due to the consistent fun that was being had, but here are a few. Today is biotic day and carnivores. school is fantastic!

Dennis creating a u-shaped valley

my mountain deemed - Mount Hunger. It was 11:30 and i was starving

adults getting carried away with rocks & sticks

p.s - starting to feel like fall is really early here up at the ELC. it's been rainy most days and hasn't' gone above 65 yet. Curious to see the snow line when/if the clouds clear later today. Word on the street is that Washington Pass got snow on Saturday during the day, and that's around 6,000 feet. Winters coming early this year!!

welcome back from the long weekend!

i took a longer weekend break from this thing since it's been slightly hectic around here and trying to get down south.

Frankie & I went on an adventure this past labor day weekend which was comprised of:
- a lot of time in a car
- multiple food stops in Astoria, Oregon
- puppy watching
- biking
- volcanoes
- abrupt car camping

All and all it was a pretty fantastic weekend regardless of the circumstances we found ourselves in (i.e. driving a lot).

The highlight of the weekend was going on a trail called Ape Canyon/Abrahams Plains on Mount St. Helens. It was a 20 mile out and bike mountain bike on some of the most varied terrain i had ever seen. The first 4 or so miles are in beautiful old growth that somehow has survived logging and the eruption 30 years ago. You then abruptly turn a corner and you are on this barren plain that was scoured by the volcano, and barely any growth (except a shrub here and there) has popped up. You look across the plains to pumice butte and you see the trees bent over at a 90 degree angle from the blast. And let me continue to reiterate that this all occurred 30 years ago, and it looks like it happened yesterday (minus the molten lava part).

If you happen to have face book, the following pictures will be a repeat for you... and if you haven't checked your status updates in quite sometime, then these will be new to you. Thank Frankie for the photos, since he was staff photographer on this journey (i was on vacation).

Frankie on windy ridge

me on plains of abraham

riding through the woods

Also, here's a map for future curiosity
Tomorrow - reflection on the tour of the diablo powerhouse. Possibly the best and most ridiculous tour i have ever had in my life. hands down.

paddln'

On Thursday we took out the big canoe and shoved about 16 people into the darn thing and spent the day paddling around Diablo Lake. We were graced with blue skies and warm weather (by warm, i mean almost 70 degrees). Along the way, we would stop at various spots on the lake and play games or various teaching exercises to get us ready for the 5th graders that will be invading our space in two weeks. So, if i see you this weekend, don't be alarmed if i start chanting big booty big booty big booty or patty go perch go peep. I'm just trying to remember everything right now. Also, if you are intrigued by any of these games, i'm pretty sure we could integrate them into drinking games as well. Regardless, it was a fantastic day on the lake. It helped ease a lot of the stress i've had getting ready for teaching since i've never done it before. Now, all i have to do is learn the curriculum and more of the various plants i listed the other day and i'm totally set. no pressure.

frogs eggs!!!

the infamous "Monkey Island." In the 1930's, they set chimpanzees loose on the island as a tourist attraction. Nice work Seattle City Light

Paddling up the gorge to Ross Dam

tippy canoe

views of hwy 20 from below

Ross Dam