Winter in Mesa Verde

Hi, all!  I hope you're doing well.  I've had a quiet winter here at Mesa Verde, but I've had the opportunity to do plenty of snowshoeing, and a little cross-country skiing, which was very fun.  I'd definitely like to buy some more winter sports equipment, if I ever settle down somewhere that has a winter.  For the moment, though, it looks like my peripatetic lifestyle is going to continue.  I've got another week here, before leaving for Phoenix to attend a weeklong training (paid for, very generously, by my supervisor in Mesa Verde).  The course is GIS for Incident Management, which in theory could let me go out and make maps for incidents like wildfires, hurricanes, etc. - though of course it would be up to my future supervisors, whether or not I could actually go.  I'll be leaving straight from Phoenix Friday morning to go back to Oregon, where I'm hoping to have time for a dentist appointment and various errands, before I leave Tuesday morning (March 16th) for my next destination: Costa Rica.

 

I'm going to be doing volunteer work for an environmental organization, COTERC (the Canadian Organization for Tropical Education and Rainforest Conservation) at a field station near Tortuguero, in north-eastern Costa Rica. There, I'll potentially be assisting with projects like marine turtle tagging and monitoring, bird monitoring and surveys, community reforestation, children's environmental education, and large mammal/primate monitoring.  Hopefully.  We'll see how it goes.  If they set me to work digging ditches 16 hours a day, I may have to start looking quietly for opportunities to practice my Spanish somewhere instead.  In any case, I'll be in Costa Rica for about a month and a half, until April 30th, at which point I'll return to Oregon, pack my bags, and set off immediately for Voyageurs National Park in Northern Minnesota, where I'll be working as a seasonal Biological Science Technician (Wildlife).

 

I'm scheduled to start work there May 5th, and I'll probably stay until the end of September, conducting radio telemetry of cormorants and sturgeon via aircraft, monitoring GPS collars on moose, conducting studies of beavers, deer, and loons, operating a motor boat, and designing a website for the program.  Either that or collecting deer fecal pellets, cormorant vomit, and miscellaneous corpses for necropsy. 

 

It wasn't entirely clear from the job posting.  (Either way, I should have an interesting summer.)

 

After that of course, as always, everything's up in the air.  I've started applying for various permanent jobs with the park and forest service, but those may or may not go anywhere.  In the meantime though, I'm having a fun time traveling around, seeing new places and meeting new people, while picking up plenty of good job experiences.

 

I posted some photos from my time in Mesa Verde on Picasa, if you're interested.

 

Best wishes,

Nathan