I finished up school in Illinois in May. Shortly there after I moved to Carson City Nevada. The desert is certainly very different from the lush forest of Southern Illinois or the Oak Savannas of Chicagoland. While I certainly miss the big trees of my home state, I am learning to appreciate the natural beauties of Nevada. So far I have seen some cool looking Eriogonum and Poppies. My crew has been doing a lot of post-fire monitoring which I like because it really improves my plant identification skills and gives me more experiencing mapping and using GIS. Everyone I work with is very friendly and interesting. My mentor has also been very helpful and is extremely knowledge about our local environment. I am excited and curious about what  the future holds for the next five months!