2023 People of the Big River Field Class

 07-20-23 Day 13 Today was busy but fun we started off with the usual we had breakfast and packed for lunch. At 8:00 am Calvin came out to our campsite, he's the Spokane tribe water resource specialist. He took us out to dawn mill where we helped water trees that were planted a year ago. Some were dying or dead already sadly, but we also had some really healthy trees that will be a great help in the area. After we finished that task, we moved onto a river survey out at sand creek. Which was a very good experience since I'm still working out different career paths that interest me. The survey was awesome. We waded through the creek and took measurements of the width of the wet areas, we took slope of the bank of the creek, depth, and canopy coverage. All important information for keeping track of the waterway and health of our creeks after we finished the survey. Calvin showed us the electro wand they have and how it's used for fish survey we even caught a brook trout before

 07-19-23 Day 12 Today I'm going to be honest I don't have very much to say it was a travel day. We left Harris Park and started heading to Wellpinit so the same routine. We packed everything up in the trailer and SUV then headed out we made several stops mostly for gas cause the truck guzzles gas like no tomorrow. And a couple of bathroom breaks which one we had lunch at the rest stop. Once we got to Wellpinit we set up camp, did our blog, and went to bed like I said not a whole lot to write about till tomorrow.

 07-18-23 Day 11 Today I had trouble getting up I didn’t necessarily sleep bad, but I woke up really tired which mean I lied in bed unmotivated for the day. But ironically also meant that when I did get up, I need lots of motivation to scarf down breakfast make my lunch pack what I needed for the day and be ready by the time we were supposed to leave. I did it and we headed off to tribal native plant nursery where we were given a tour by Gale. Of all the native plants they grow, a list too long to mention all but there were easy recognized plants like sage and choke cherries. Then we were able to help them out because they were shorthanded. So while we were there, we trimmed branches so they can be planted and hopefully produces a lot of plants. Once we were done, we headed Tamastslikt museum which was amazing they have quite the set up there we started in the café for lunch, and I had this great salmon melt that hit the spot.   I've  been wanting salmon for a while,  after lunch w

 07-17-23 Day 10 Today wasn’t too bad we were 20 minutes away from our activity which mean we slept till 7:00. Well for me it more like 6:40 but that’s only cause a caterpillar was crawling on my face, once I got it out of my tent. I was awake and it was doubtful that I could go back to sleep, so I just started chilling. Then it was the usual we had breakfast/making our lunches for the day. Then we headed out and down the road was CTUIR or Walla Walla fishery we met up with Tila and John. Tilla was a habitat biologist and John is a tech they took us through their river restoration the Walla Walla River. It is a very fast pace and straight water way they helped slow it down and create larger habitats for different struggling species. But their job doesn’t end there they also deal with invasive species, the easiest to see were the weeds a large group was Bow/Canadian thistle. We also checked out water invertebrates which are bugs who spend at least a part of their life cycle in the water

 07-16-23 Day 9  Sunday was awesome it was our rest day and after a week on the go it was great to sleep in a bit, didn’t have to be ready till 10:00. That doesn't mean we didn’t do anything we still worked on the water experiment. We went to the Walla Walla River and collected samples of water, then used the dip stick with the NUT-TTC and MAC sides to begin the culturing of the bacteria. While working on that we also did the starch test on the samples we collected from the upper Deschutes River. But that isn’t all, like before we still had to test pH level, temp, and the canopy test. After all the science fun was had we did our favorite thing to do on the trip, we had a shower. And the best part we didn’t have to do it under three minutes it was more like 10 minutes which made us all happy never know how much of the simple's things make us happy till you have less of those things. But we did have fun after getting back to camp playing card games. Which was really enlightening

 07-15-2023 Day 8 Today travel day we got up and had our usual breakfast and lunch packing. Had to pack up my tent and shove my sleeping pad and bag into their bags which is always a pain. Not to mention packing up the science equipment into the truck always fun trying not to break expensive equipment. And after we finished, we went down to Bend Oregon library to post our blog from the last few days, when we didn’t have a signal. We were there for a couple hours turns out my blog needed some polishing before being posted. I got it done obviously if you're reading this just know it was in much worse shape before being posted. Afterward we headed to the new camping site in Umatilla, that took us what felt like forever but really it was like 4 hours. But for some reason the maps wanted to take to a scenic route, so we took a longer route along some back roads most of the time we wondered if we were going to make it (as in maybe murdered). Turns out we did but it was kind of late, so i