I find everything slow because of the previous job I had in the summer of 2023. I worked at a Tennessee state park and almost every day it seemed as though something crazy was happening there. Thankfully, field trip season is picking up at the Refuge so it’ll start getting active! I have had some more fun adventures these past couple of months. One was heading to the Natural History Museum of Utah in Salt Lake City. I went with my coworkers to meet with some NHMU staff to discuss/collaborate with them to offer educator and master naturalist training. After the fact we got to explore and it was beautiful. That was my second time ever going to a museum but my first time seeing fossils! Most of the pictures I took were from the fossil exhibit because simply said dinosaurs are amazing! I took more pictures of the fossils than anything else, but for me, that was the highlight of the trip. 

On the second Saturday of January and February, we did bird-themed events! We had an Owl Day in January and an Eagle Day in February. Both were fun but long days because we would have significantly more visitors show up to the events compared to a regular day. We had guest speakers on both occasions that brought owls and eagles. Owl Day had ~190 people attend which was amazing because a snowstorm came crashing in about midday so that was interesting. Eagle Day had almost 500 visitors and the weather outside was perfect. It was cool but the sun was shining and there was some breeze throughout the day. One thing that we did for both events was a puppet show! Our educator had put together some amazing puppet show skits and even built a puppet stage out of cardboard. They were both fun to do and I believe a lot of people had fun watching them as well. In March, we will have our Swan Day and I’m sure it’ll go just as well.

Outside of work I’ve been exploring a bit more and hanging out with some new friends. The most fun I’ve had since being in Utah was going to this massive arcade-like place called the Funplex. They had bowling, arcade games, skating, go-karts, laser tag, and much more. We had a blast being there and played laser tag more than anything else. It was tiring but it got the blood pumping so that’s good! The go-karts were very popular at the Funplex because of how long that line was. I enjoyed it but wow. We ended the night with some good ole bowling, and I, in fact, did not win. That was the best so far but as it warms up I know I’ll be looking forward to when the rodeos really start kicking in!