The week after Memorial Day...

The week was already screwy because Monday was a holiday and starting the work week on a Tuesday is never fun. But I was only in the office for a few hours. Just long enough to get the car loaded up to head off on a 6 hour trip to north central Washington for the annual State Envirothon Competition. (http://www.envirothon.org/ and http://www.waenvirothon.org/) This year's state event was held at the YMCA camp at Lake Wenatchee. A beautiful lake on the east side of the base of the cascade mountains. The significance of the east side (as opposed to the west side) is that the Cascade mountains are an excellent water stopper. The heavy wet coastal air hits the mountains and falls downs on the west side of the mountains. The east side remains dry and cold. So a drive over the cascades usually means going to sunshine and a completely different landscape. (Think of the movie "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" and going to Toon Town; yeah same sort of feeling when you get into eastern Washington especially when you have been stuck in rainy cold grey ick for months on end) So hear is an example of the terrain on the east side, the route we took followed along the Columbia River through the Gorge and then up through the reservation lands in central Washington. Then we cut back west again to get to the base of the cascades again.

Back to Envirothon; as the Chair of the Washington State Envirothon Committee; I needed to be at the state event to help it run smoothly. So I found myself on a 6 hour trek to Wenatchee. It is a beautiful area and the camp was a well run place. There are about 24 6 person cabins, we had a full camp! Teams came from all over Washington to compete. They arrived Wednesday night for the Thursday competition. The 5 member team of students demonstrate their knowledge of natural resources and how it relates to the annual theme (the 2008 Envirothon theme is Recreational Impacts on Natural Resources) with five different rigorous tests and an oral presentation. (Current Issues (relating to the annual theme), Wildlife, Forestry, Soils and Aquatics. I was in charge of running the Wildlife station. While at my station, students had to identify various tracks, skulls, scats, and other evidence of wildlife (see, Mom, my collection of poo and skulls came in handy after all!!) It was interesting hearing the discussion as they problem solved with their team to figure out what species the skull belonged to.

It is hard to believe that this is all part of work!

Wednesday night I was on after lights out patrol, making sure the kids are all where they are supposed to be (in their assigned cabins!) after 11:00. Of course I had the best light for the job; hand selected from Russ's personal collection. My cohorts were quite impressed with the light's brightness and beam power. We did not find any kids out of place after lights out, but I did find a few stumbling around in the dark just before bedtime that appreciated a guiding light back onto the trail.

The competition was over and kids out of camp by 2:00 Thursday, then we cleaned up supplies and organized ourselves and headed out ourselves. It was a long ride home, we rolled into the office parking lot at 10:30. Thankful to be back (even if it was grey and rainy!)

Friday in the office was like another Monday; messages to answer; e-mails to reply to; try to figure out where I left off/ wrap up for the week, etc. Oh well, that is just the way some weeks go.