Volunteer Day

 So today was a day for potential insanity.

Note that I said potential. Thankfully, the potential didn't become reality. At least, not too badly.

You see, today 300 college students descended on various parts of BLM to help out in various ways; picking up trash, dealing with invasive species.... and in the case of our group of somewhere between 60 and 80, improving the roughly 1.5 mile hiking trail by carrying large rocks up the hill that wiped me out the day before. To do this we tried to split them into four groups and rotate them, so that everyone also got to see the visitor's center and the quarry.

Those groups quickly dissolved, and people just floated around. Work still got done, but we never really knew when more people would show up at a given place.

Thankfully, however, my job wasn't to get wiped out again on that hill. My job was to hang out in the actual dinosaur quarry and talk to folks when they came through needing a break. We had first graders in the morning, and admittedly they were a challenge to keep focused (and to prevent them from taking home 'souvenirs....') but the college students had great questions and were curious about the site. I love talking to kids, don't get me wrong. But the group in the morning made me very, very thankful for the college students.

 Besides, in the morning my post was in the visitors center. Talking about the bones in the ground directly was much more interesting to me (and felt safer: there was a fence between me and the public!!)

Just to make the point that I'm not against talking to kids that come through (it really was a little rowdy in the morning...) the bus driver from the college students brought his son. He couldn't have been old enough to even be in school yet, but that little boy picked up a rock and helped with the hiking trail eagerly with his dad. Adorable. Even better though was when they came through the quarry. When he didn't understand something, he would cock his head a little bit, and then when he did catch on to what I was saying (and I made sure he did because it is so rewarding to get kids to understand science) he made a little excited, high pitched sound from his throat and got a big smile on his face. And brought one to mine.

Meanwhile, apparently the high school group showed up with they're exhibit up in the visitors center. It's a lesson in stratigraphy for the non-geologist, and is really, really well put together. If you can't tell, in front of the panel on the back is a model for deposition of rock layers. Personally I think it explains it really well, and I can't wait to hear what the public has to say about it. It was a great addition to the visitors center. These are high school students, a lot of them about to start college. If they keep up this kind of love for science and work quality, they're going to make it in whatever they want to do in life. Best of luck to them!!

 Now back to college students. After a long days work, they invited us along for a good dinner outside down in the Buckhorn area. Of course, many of them came from various places, and we felt the need to make sure they stopped to see the petroglyphs and pictographs in the valley. They got really excited, though a few were frustrated by the fact that the culture that created these is long gone and thus the stories behind the pictures have been lost. To me, that just adds to the mystery though.


Dinner was good, and better than anything I could have made in my camper. It was worth waiting for all of the students to get through the line first (after all they're help, we didn't mind waiting.) Not knowing anyone, I took my food and sat off to the side, listening as they talked about carrying rocks up a path, and as the story evolved to "carrying LIKE 30 BIG BOULDERS for 80 MILES!!"

This, folks, is how tall tales are formed. Nevertheless, very thankful for them. The path now looks amazing!