Taylor leaving with a bang! - April 27, 2014

   Sadly this is myself and Taylor's last day together. We are up bright and early and ready to go at 7:30 A.M down to Watsonville. She rented a Zip car and we are head down south for about 2 hours until we are at our destination. 2 hours later... we arrived! Elkhorn Slough is a estuarine reserve so we had to go to their visitor center and pay $4.00 to be able to go on a hike and just wander were we wanted to. We were going to go on a tour at 10 A.M but we were super early so we decided to wander off and go to Moss Landing Harbor about 10 minutes away from Elkhorn Slough. We arrived and we got to see 2 Sea Otters! It definitely made my day that much better, and we also saw a lot of California Sea Lions. After 10 or so minutes we decide to head back to make our tour on time. Casually as we're leaving, we get in the car and BOOM! Taylor backs up and hits a truck parked behind her. Instantly we both panic because it was a complete accident and never saw it coming, she immediately goes and finds the owner and exchanges information since it isn't Taylor's car and the Zip car company will be doing all that for her. Already the day is off to a some what bad start, after that we head back to Elkhorn Slough and are late to the tour. We decided to go off on our own hike when a ranger approached us and asked us if we wanted a tour, of course we accepted it. I have to say that the tour was so peaceful and everything was beautiful, with senior project in the process and going to college soon, it was nice to relax and escape from the world for a while. Unfortunately Taylor wasn't having such a good day so we decided after our hike to just head home. We just got on the free way and we're a good solid 20 minutes in when Taylor realizes that we're on the 101 South when we should be on the 101 North! That day couldn't get any worse, we had to exit and find our way back to the correct free way entrance. Despite all the issues we faced that day we still kept our heads held high and made the best of it. 2 hours later we are almost close to home, the closer we got to my house the more I thought about how this was the last time I will be seeing Taylor. It was a bitter sweet feeling saying goodbye to her. Sweet because I am done with one aspect of this project, but bitter because I learned a lot from her and had a blast while going on these adventures with her. She will truly always have a special place in my heart. I Cannot wait to finish high school and finish this project to get to college and start my life already, I'm almost there, I can taste it.

Time logged for this session: 5 Hours
Total time logged: 28 Hours

Office day! - April 25, 2014

   The last time Taylor and I were together she had given me 2 different options, go on another survey or go on a different event that is similar to a survey. Well none of those ended up happening, before I went on spring break we both had a chat about what was going to happen next. We decided that taking a break from being in the field would be nice, to finally take a look at how it is to work in a office and working with the data you collected, and we did just that. Side note, I will be attending San Francisco State University in the fall, therefore I have been going to the campus often due to meetings and turning in important documents they've been asking for. Since I cannot drive I have been using public transportation A LOT more now and feel more comfortable wandering around the city. That being said, the FMSA is located on Crissy field and I would have to take a similar route to get there as I would if I were going to SFSU. We scheduled to meet at 10 A.M, so it is Friday morning and I am up at 7:00 A.M preparing to leave my house by 8:00 A.M. Lets just say that public transportation sucks! in the aspect that it takes forever to get to your destination, I mean who wants to be on a bus for 15 minutes, then take Bart for another 10 minutes, and then take Muni for another 45 minutes, twice a day. Not me! In reality it is all worth it in the end but for the mean time you gotta' do what you gotta' do right? Back to my day, finally I've arrived and I am 15 or so minutes early. Taylor meets me outside her office and we head on up to get to work. She briefly shows me the data base where they enter all information they collect on surveys and what not. Then she grabs the form of our survey, and uses it as an example to show me how to double check that all the information that is input already is correct. I am left to do that for a whole basket full of survey forms, about 2 hours later we decide to take a break and go on a walk. Mind you that it is sprinkling but we don't mind, we are on our walk about 10 minutes in and all of a sudden it starts raining a lot harder. We make our way back to the office completely soaked from our clothes and shoes. That didn't bother us though, we got back to work. It was really interesting looking at different survey forms, some has no dead animals on that beach, but others seemed like the list never ended. Some beaches had a wide range of animals, others not so much. The day is coming closer to the end so we decide to stop and help me with my presentation. Taylor was more than happy to let me use pictures from their data base to use in my presentation. I was super excited because the pictures were so cool! It got me thinking and how I've made the right choice in choosing this career. After giving me a couple more details and advice for my presentation she walked me out to head back home. In the end I really liked working in the office, maybe not 24/7 but every so often would be nice. I am super excited for our next meet up, we're suppose to go see Sea Otters! They are so dang cute!!! We're going to go to Elkhorn Slough down in Watsonville and go on a hike and just have a "Fun day" to reward ourselves for working so hard. The only problem is that we might not be able to get to see Sea Otters, either they're there or not. Hopefully we get to see at least one! or maybe not...

Time logged for this session: 5 Hours
Total time logged: 23 Hours