So far, my adventure with the Conservation and Land Management internship has been exciting to say the least. After leaving the workshop at the Chicago Botanic Gardens Friday night, I only made it a few hours before totaling my car. Around 9:30pm I had an unfortunate encounter with a deer on interstate 88 near the border or Illinois and Iowa. Long story short, my car ended up 150+ feet from the side of the road and I was still 1300+ miles (over 20 driving hours) from my destination. With a lot of help from relatives, strangers, and my coworker Zack, I was able to make it to Escalante, Utah and in time for my first day.
The first week of work really revealed what my partner and I had gotten ourselves into, the position is driving intensive to say the least (something I didn’t take out of the interview). The Escalante Grand Staircase National Monument spans nearly 1.9 million acres and it’s our job to find important plant species to eventually make seed collections from. Don’t get me wrong, I really don’t mind having to drive so far each day, I really love the scenery; even when we’re driving through unbearably hot desert-like areas, I still find it beautiful. Sometimes the roads are pretty rough, we’re lucky to have such a large work truck otherwise I doubt we could make it. Sometimes the roads are paved, sometimes not, sometimes you’re on the edge of a mesa and the two-way road is barely more than one lane wide and you have a wall to your left and a sheer drop off to your right. I live for those roads, they’re exciting and terrifying all at once.
In terms of botanizing and plant identifying, the experience has been incredible. Back home in NY, this is part of what I do for fun, I know I’m not cool but I’m lucky to have nerdy friends that like the same thing. Often for me, the recreation and exercise of hiking is secondary to identifying plants, birds, fungi, etc. It’s great to be forced to do it for part of the job. Of course, identification is really as far as we take it for most species in the field, but when we get out of work, I get to studying the plants further, including associates, etymology and anything else I find interesting. I’ve really felt that pay off when I get back to work the next day. Knowing the Latin really helps you connect with the plants in an interesting way. A lot of the time the general and specific epithets are pretty descriptive if you know what they mean, and since I’ve never been to Utah before, I tend to learn what names mean before I actually get to see the plant in person. Finally seeing the plant and realizing why it’s named the way it is, really makes for a fascinating moment. Learning characteristics of plant families and having a good base knowledge in etymology is a great mechanism to identifying plants in the field you’ve never seen before, and it works no matter where you live.
I think this internship is a really great opportunity to study what you love in a place you’re not familiar with. It’s a rare opportunity, and I’ve been lucky enough to experience it twice. I went to school in New York, took an intensive field ecology course in the Florida Everglades during my last semester, and now I get to work across the country on the Colorado Plateau. Each experience so far has been so unique, but at least when I came home from the Everglades I was mysteriously a bit more knowledgeable about ecology in New York. I’m excited to see how 5 months here pays off back home, and I already feel like it will a great deal. I’m sure I won’t live in NY forever, but I know a broad range of experiences in different environments will pay off anywhere I end up.
To wrap up, I’d like to add that I don’t mind not having a car here in Escalante, sure it limits me to areas that are within biking distance but there’s so much to see right in and outside of town that I may have overlooked had I had a car here with me. I’ve had a great first month and am looking forward to what the next 4 will bring.