10/14/15 Steve Nutt

Journal Entry October 14^th, 2015

Today I woke up to Jazzy Jeff in the kitchen whippin’ up some gravy for some biscuits. Aww Yeah!!!! We slammed some biscuits and then ran around like a bunch of chickens with our heads cut off trying to pack up our stuff (at least I was). Sometimes a therma-rest and a sleeping bag are more tempting than packing up a day pack at 11pm. Today was the first day at Yosemite National Park and we met with an agency called Nature Bridge. Caleb and I met with our educator, Deebs, who was in charge of a group of sophomore high school students from the San Francisco Bay Area. The main activity of the day was called “take a stand”. In this activity, students would stand in between two trees, labeled strongly agree and strongly disagree, based on their opinion on issues brought up by the instructor as well as give reasoning where they were on the scale. It was really cool to see high school students so engaged in an activity like that and the level of respect they had for each other was phenomenal. Our last activity of the day was to help remove the invasive species, Virginia creeper, from the park. All of the students were really pumped about it and I must admit that I have never seen a group of high schoolers so excited about getting dirty and pulling up plants. It just goes to show that if your instructor is excited, the students will become excited as well. We finally ate lunch and students reflected on how their week went. Just by the excitement of the students and hearing how this week opened them up to outdoor education, you could tell that they were itching to get back. If the rest of American high schoolers are like this group, we will have a lot less problems on our hands. It just goes to show what type of impact a program like this can have in shaping our youth.

Steve Nutt

10/07/15 Raquel Leal

On the road to the Tetons!!

What a memorable way of saying goodbye to Yellowstone National Park! While driving away from this magical place the group was able to spot a mystical place male elk! As well as the elk we spotted a grizzly grazing near the bobby socks trees. It was an overwhelming feeling leaving this beautiful place, and to be quite honest I am coming back to this place! Abundant amounts of scenic locations that seemed to merely be a dream, but seriously this is all real! It is truly just as magnificent as the good Ol' Faithful and the shooting steam rockets. This environment out in the West is a complete 360 difference from what I am accustomed to seeing in the Midwest. How could I have been deprived of such diverse landscapes? It is just so serial to me... Why won't someone pinch me already?! Jeff kind of reminds me of Miss Frizzle from the magic school bus, taking all of his students to places that are unheard of. Expect we are the ones setting the culture for this trip! Never too sure what to expect next, but always excited for the next step. Never saw a grizzly, elk, or bison before in my life and it brings this sense of enlightenment because these animals are apart of our history, life, and longevity. I am honored to be apart of this expedition although there are moments when I want to jump out of the moving van. Just kidding, but seriously... I cannot seem to wrap my head around all this beauty. The Grand Canyon at Yellowstone had to be my favorite place to be, I could say that I never wanted to leave but on to the next destination! By the way, those Tetons were glorious! I was speechless when I saw the mouton top and how high up it was at! Man, I could stay there forever as well, now I know why they are called THE GRAND TETONS! Only stayed there for a few hours since we were on a bit of a time crunch. Currently in Idaho, making our ways to California! Gosh we are all so blessed, writing in the car is not such a great, but I wanted to give a perspective of on the road notes! Peace, love and hair greece.
-Rocky

10/06/15 Kyle Salz

10/6/15

                  Today was our second full day in Yellowstone we got a great opportunity to get to have a meeting with a park ranger. Ali was here name her job as a ranger was outdoor education, interpretation, and skype education. She had a very intensive knowledge about Yellowstone and the history behind the park. We got to go see the skype studio. Where park rangers will use skype or face to face communication over the internet. While we were there a ranger was doing a live skype with a class. Ali had one to do after we left with a group of fourth graders from North Carolina. The technology is letting students study from all over the country and learn about Yellowstone from that far away. At the same time the rangers are not just promoting Yellowstone but all National Parks in general and trying to get the students to go to their closes National Park as well. After, we got done Bobby did an interpretation on settlements in the West. We then proceeded on to Mammoth Visitor center which was totally redone in the spring. It was all new, modern, and nothing was over polluted in words in the whole center. It was off to see the

, springs, and pools for the day. We stopped at a few places along the way to see Old Faithful. The place near Mammoth had different terraces of activity it was very different from everything else we have seen so far. We arrived at Old Faithful around 3:30pm and saw that she was not going to go off again till around 4:42 pm. So, we had some time to explore other geysers around Old Faithful. Caleb, Josh, and I got lucky and got to see the Lion and the Castle ones to go off while we were walking on the board walk. Returning from our stroll around we had a few minutes to go into the Old Faithful Inn and get some ice cream. From there we went and sat on the porch on the second floor of the Inn. Where we viewed Old Faithful go off. It was very cool to see and how to think that this happens just about every hour, every day of the year is remarkable. Oh, I forgot that we all got to view a lot of elk this morning while visiting with Ali and on the drive. 

10/04/15 Steve Nutt

Journal Entry October 4^th, 2015

Today I woke up and gazed at the mountains of Custer National Forest. The fog was coming in and the setting reminded me of my trip to Bavaria, Germany, another trip I was lucky to be a member of. We left around 7:30pm to go meet Pat Pierson of the US Forest Service and talked about everything from forest service jurisdiction to current environmental issues, which just goes to show that being politically informed is important no matter what field you go into. After we said our goodbyes, it was off to Yellowstone, one of the biggest highlights of the trip. We all stared at the pristine landscape hoping to see a bear, bison, elk, or mouse. Not a moment later, we stopped by to see the row of tourists armed with 10,000 dollar lenses all aimed at a grizzly bear and her cub. This whole trip I had been dying to see a bear in the flesh and now here it is. Part of me, though, felt odd seeing an icon of the wilderness with so many people around to take photos and drive by with cameras ready. While Yellowstone seems very touristy, this is a once in a lifetime experience and I already crossed off something on my bucketlist 20 minutes into the park. I know there is so much more to come in the next couple days and I  know this is just the beginning of my own self-discovery of the Western United States.

10/03/15 Bobby Liston

10/3/15

            The west, I can’t believe I am here. Who cares about the ear-popping elevation, Jeff’s endless I-Pod love song shuffle, the bad cases of SB (sore-butt), or your neighbor drooling on your shoulder with a Yellowstone book in their hand. I have all this week to do as a leader of the week, on top of my outdoor education lesson, interpretation lesson, book report and other teachable moments on mammals as the perfect opportunity arises. I work like an animals preparing for hibernation, but trying to avoid putting on the fat. When long hours of reading Scorched Earth, a book about Yellowstone’s fire ecology and deep history becomes a little too long, I have the beautiful foothills of the majestic Rocky Mountains to gaze at as I daydream about all of the people who roamed on this same route before the creation of the automobile. All of this work is worth it though. Taking a vacation to Yellowstone, you might pick up a few mental pictures and a couple facts that could be forgotten along the way. ECOEE is way different from that. It connects every topic imaginable and creates a vivid mental encyclopedia full of pictures and facts that will be carried with us for a lifetime. If work and research is not complete, it’s a loss for the individual and the group as well. I try to be as prepared as much as I can, but nothing can hold back my excitement for these places. As I sit here in Custer National Forest in Montana, near Red Lodge, I receive a moment of relief, a moment of reflection and appreciation. It’s cold, rainy, and scenic and still worth every second. People who are not involved with ECOEE just see the pictures on the good days we have, but need to realize the work that is involved and how much it pays off. I have learned more in the field than I ever would have in the classroom. Take risks because life has limited opportunities, because I am sure glad I did.