People of the Big River 2025!!! Join the Fun!!!

 June 27th of 2025 Day 13     Today we were able to wake up a little later!! We woke up at around 7:00 am and had our breakfast! At 8:30 am, we started to finish up our lab work so we could do our gram stain research later at the conference room we were in yesterday. We then picked up all our stuff since we had to be in the suburbans at 12:15 due to us going to the Walla Walla Hatchery for a tour! We arrived like in two minutes and went inside.  We met Thomas Tallbull, the manager at the Hatchery! He was kind enough to give us a tour around the hatchery. He explained how the place worked and even showed us the big control panel that controls pretty much the whole facility. We saw these tiny fish all over the facility and even saw rainbow trout. Once we were done with the tour, we headed over the Umatilla Tribal Agency to finish out gram stain research projects and worked on our water quality charts. We also met with Melissa to do our interviews and I want to say that...

 June 27th of 2025 Day 12     It was such a busy day today. We started out by eating breakfast and then got straight into the suburbans. We even had to pack clothes so we could shower right after our work. The first place we went to was to a plant nursery where we met with a very cool and fun lady.      Her name is Gail Redberg. She is the manager at the CTUIR Plant Nursery. She got a Bachelors in Biology Education at CWU and then decided to teach for a while. She even taught Bio for a year in Canada. Gail also got her Masters in Biology at Walla Walla University.      Gail gave us a tour around the plant nursery and we eventually helped her do some work. A group trimmed some the plants while Jessica and I organized the plants so they could have better access to the sun. We spent about 30 minutes to an hour out there but I didn't mind! Organizing the plants was a very fun job to do! The way the pattern flows and the way the pot just slid into...

 June 26th of 2025 Day 11     We got up at 6:00 for another long trip. It was finally time to go to our last campground which was in Umatilla. We packed our tents, sleeping bags, etc and got everything ready to go. We got our breakfast and packed our lunch and officially left the campground. We made an hour stop at The Big Obsidian Flow and hiked up for a while. There were a lot of people there too! Mainly because it was from a University in Texas. Once we explored and took pictures, we left and had so much fun on the car ride! We sang karaoke and told so many jokes! The whole car ride was literally laughs! We then got our lunch and stopped at a rest stop. I think I might take a break from sandwiches though because I have had so many on this trip.... It took like two more hours to get there and I felt so embarrassed to sleep in the car because I would randomly let out snores and wake myself up. I literally told Corbin to just leave me on the side of the road.  It was...

 June 24th of 2025 Night 9     A fter a long day of looking for plants and stopping by at the library to post our blogs, we finally got back to our campsite. Once we arrived, we instantly got off and went to get our clothes so that we could take our showers. We got back into the suburban and drove off to take our two minute showers. What really sucks is that the water will first come out freezing cold, then scorching hot. This time, I had to balance the temperatures together. Once we got out, we waited inside the suburbans so we could go back to the campsite. Afterwards, Monet started to cook dinner. Tonight's dinner was butter Chicken, rice, and naan which came out so very very delicious! Monet's cooking never fails to impress!!! The fun part was that it was my first time ever trying Indian food and I must say that the first experience did not fail to please me! Once dinner was over,  everyone started doing their stuff and Raquel and I were on pick up duty. The...

 June 23rd of 2025 Day 9:      We woke up at 6:00 and got breakfast ready. I'm back to having the same breakfast I've been having for the whole trip. We had to get into the suburbans by 7:30 so we could go to Sand Springs Deschutes National Forest! It was like a 2 hour drive so we had time to take our mini naps before arriving. Once we got there, we were introduced to someone new.      Marlo Fisher, who has been a District Botanist in Dechutes for 15 years and grew up in the North West of Indiana. She is a very nice woman who seems very passionate about her job and went right into introducing us to what we would help her with today.     Marlo explained to us that we would be looking for a rare plant named the Pumice Moonwort, or the Botrychium Pumicola. Once we all introduced ourselves, we delve into our work! Marlo handed us all flags so when we would find the Pumice Moonwort we could place the flags down in that area. What we did was we lin...

 June 22nd of 2023 Day 8      As the days go on, I feel that every morning feels the same. Although, today was a big breakfast day!! It was Raquel and I’s turn to help with breakfast. We started helping Monet with peeling the potatoes and cracking the eggs. I scrambled two cartons of eggs with a somewhat small whisk. I didn’t mind it, I’ve been baking for a long time so I worked with what I had! After the eggs were done, we waited for the potatoes and bacon to finish. Once breakfast was ready, I made myself a hot chocolate for the cold morning! Skip forward after breakfast, science day took place!! We did some more gram stains with the water samples we took from all the places we have visited. I did my gram stain with the Bird Creek sample! We did a lot of tests with our samples. After we did all our notes and research, it was microscope time! When I looked snide the microscope at the stain, it was really colorful! The first time we had done a gram stain, it wasn’t a...

 June 23rd of 2025 Day 7      Rise and shine!!! The new day is here and it’s time for a calm, relaxing, travel day! I started off by packing everything and helping Lis take our tent down. I wanted to get everything done before eating breakfast! I had the same breakfast I’ve been having for the past days now but I freaking love Kix! I also mixed in a bit of cheerios in there!! I quickly packed my lunch and helped load the waters and coolers onto the truck! We finally got into the suburbans and left our campsite! We stopped at a gas station and McDonalds in the morning and I got myself some drinks and a breakfast at McDonalds which would probably explain why I didn’t eat my lunch…. But, the car ride was super fun! No awkwardness at all and we were all joking and having fun! We shared stories and listened to music! We of course took naps because the ride was long! I kept snoring out of nowhere and waking myself up l. I would get so embarrassed and even apologized a bunc...

June 20th of 2025 Day 6      We woke up from a chilly night and started straight into breakfast. The good thing is that we didn’t have to pack our lunch because we were staying at the campsite the whole day to do our posters! I’ve been having cereal in the morning but honestly it doesn’t tire me! After I had Kix and a hot chocolate for breakfast, Raquel and I washed dishes and we got ready to head over to the area where there was WiFi! Jessica then explained what we were gonna do and we started talking about doing our hypothesis for our posters. Soon after we had an early lunch and I had another PB&J! Also I won’t get tired of those! After lunch we went over again to the WiFi area and started our posters! After working on our posters we posted our blogs up to date and now, dinner time!!! Night 6      Monet has said that dinner was going to be a surprise, so Lis and I just sat at the table to wait to see what it was! Soon enough, we found out we were goi...

 June 20th of 2025 Night 3      When we got back to the campground, everyone started prepping for dinner! Everyone was tired after a long day in the heat but the hard work definitely paid off! For dinner, we had chicken fajitas, rice, and tortillas! We decided to make ours into burritos though! Lis, some of the other campers, and I, decided to play Uno as well while we waited for our food! Sadly, the second round wasn’t too kind to me as I kept picking up card after card. We didn’t even finish the round…. It was a really good night though and our last day on that campsite! I miss it already! I also was showing Corbin a lot of my horror movie and we all came to the conclusion that his favorite scene is where my character gives these other characters sass by asking them "You guys slept in the kitchen??". The context being that these people weren't seen at the place the night prior and all of a sudden they are there the next morning. Hence the question my character was ...

 June 17th of 2025 Night 2:      After we got back from the gas station, we arrived to the campground and everyone started to prepare for dinner. Lis, Raquel, and I started helping Monet make chicken alfredo pasta and caesar salad for dinner! We even had poppyseed pasta leftover from the night before and we ate that as well! While I was cutting the chicken, Raquel was preparing the vegetables and Lis was making the grape and cherry juices. After Monet was done grilling the chicken, she added everything together and we all got seated for dinner! We had some more laughs and shared how our days went. What sucked was that there were a lot of little flies sticking to our food and I believe one died of cholesterol overdose because it died on my pasta.... I couldn't get it off... Anyway, on a more positive note, we all got news that we would be making s'mores that night! Beforehand, Jessica explained how the schedule for the next day would look like but afterwards, the fun ...

 June 16th of 2025!      It is officially Day 2 of the trip and surprisingly, I slept very comfortably in the tent last night! I did move around a bit but I didn't fall off the mini air mattress! I also woke up a few times when it got cold outside! So I just got in my sleeping bag and went back to sleep! Anyway, we all woke up around 7:30 but I got out of my tent like around 8:00 to go have breakfast! Today I had cereal and coffee for breakfast! Lis and I then went to a table where we packed our lunch for the day! After that, we picked up everything and headed to the suburbans to get ready for our science project! We started off with funny stories and laughs! I eventually put on my earbuds and went on my device and listened to some music while it was quiet! (Yes, we don't have Wifi but I have my own music).       First, we headed to Bird Creek River where we got water samples and did some research! Lis and I talked to Corbin and Monet as they kept...

  My first day at camp was kind of busy, we had to set up at Heritage, wash dishes, and make sure that we had everything packed. Beforehand though, we did a lab with Corbin called a Gram Stain Protocol and it was Lis and I's first time using a burner. The fire attacked us.... After that jumpscare, we finished our lab and got into the suburbans! We got to our destination, Bird Creek Campground, within an hour and a half as the car ride was um.... let's say awkward... Nobody talked until we got the the Dairy Queen which I was told by *cough* Corbin *cough* that the ice cream tasted questionable! After the awkwardness, Lis and I started to put up our tent! We struggled a bit… We eventually got it up thanks to Raquel and got ready for dinner and then got into our tents. Smoked burgers and poppyseed pasta! Thank you Monetttt!!! So delicious!!! We sat at the table and all formerly introduced ourselves! Lis laughed when I would look at her so I had to cover my face... The overall firs...