Too much awesome in too little time!

I am behind updating you in all I've been up to!

As I wrote earlier, Thursday was a field day working out on the water (photos coming soon).  It was great.  I learned a lot of the practical how-to's of oceanographic monitoring.  As an added bonus, I also got to see a lot of the greater Kachemak Bay area, and eat at Finn's in Homer for dinner!  Finn's is a fantastic little pizza shop with a greenhouse-like sitting area in the second story that looks out on the Bay.  As we ate our Blue Pear pizza (bleu cheese, other fancy cheeses, pear, pine nuts, basil), we watched hardcore kite surfers on the water, and gulls and bald eagles swoops over head and in front of us.

Friday, I was pretty wiped out from the field day.  I received the historical data I'm going to be working with for my research project.  It is A LOT of data, some of it going back to the late 1800's.  Luckily, most of it has been digitized.  Unluckily, I am not very good with computers/get angry at computers very easily.  I realized this, and began taking myself through a crash course on all things Excel, via online videos and tutorials.  In the evening, my fellow interns and I walked down to McDonald Spit to visit some friends we made on the water taxi ride over here.  That was super fun, and a great excuse to explore the Spit, which is entirely private property, and beautiful.

Saturday was Trails Day!  We interns got up early (we, especially I, and very bad at that) and took a water taxi down to Bear Cove, where we assisted clearing trails for the State Park.  It was a little bit silly, because the trained men with chainsaws could have done all the work much more efficiently without having to deal with us putsy volunteers.  But I enjoyed feeling like I was helping a little bit.  I also enjoy hiking, which is what we did most of the time.  I also met some really neat people.  Very cool folks end up in Alaska.  I can't help but laugh at my day Saturday.  How many times in your life do you have snowball fights and go sledding (in T-shirts and jeans, mind you), then walk and hour or two, and sun bathe on the beach looking out at the ocean?  We also ran into Seldovia for a few groceries, and ended up getting even more pizza at the restaurant there.

And now we are at Sunday.  This will be a work day for me.  More Excel learning and then I will continue analyzing my data; hopefully, much more efficiently!