Here I am in New Mexico

Well, Mom and I drove 24 hours to Denver Colorado. We left Michigan on Wednesday and drove to Indianapolis to stop and see Mallory, then on to Kansas City to crash at Annie and Rudy's place. The next day we drove to Denver where I dropped Mom off at Lynn's house. From there I drove to Vail and spent a day hanging out and mountain biking with my friend Suze. Saturday I drove a little over 8 hours to Bosque del Apache, San Antonio, New Mexico.

When I got here, I was pointed to the bunk house, where I was met by Lorraine, her husband, and a diamondback rattle snake anesthetized on the kitchen table, and another one rattling it's tail in a bucket in the living room. She is studying their movements by implanting a small microchip in them and tracking them around the refuge.

There were 4 fish guys staying in the bunk house that night too. They came back pretty late from working, and then we basically hung out all night drinking Tecate. Their job is to catch and kill invasive carp down here. But, at the Bosque they were catching endangered silvery minnows because the Rio Grande was drying up. They took them from the places that were getting too shallow and taking them to deeper waters. They were super cool guys and we had a lot of fun playing pool and just joking around.

The next day I woke up and went for a 2.5 mile hike in some canyons. Which may not have been the best idea, because we have some pumas in the refuge and someone's dog was attacked. There have been reports of it stalking some birders too. But, I made it out alive, no worries.

I'll be here at Bosque del Apache for this week, and then we start traveling. Here is our schedule we got today:

Week of July 19: Bosque del Apache - training
Week of July 26 and August 2: San Andres - monitoring and mapping, early treatment
Week of August 9 and August 16: Bitter Lake - treatment and mapping
Week of August 23 and August 30: Sevilleta - treatment and mapping
Week of September 6, September 13, September 20: Bosque del Apache - treatment and mapping
Week of September 27, October 4, October 11: Maxwell and Las Vegas - treatment, monitoring, mapping
Week of October 18, October 25, and November 1: San Andres: treatment and mapping
Week of November 8 and November 15: Bitter Lake - treatment and mapping
Week of November 22: Thanksgiving - not counted
Week of November 29 and Decebmer 6: Bosque del Apache - treatment and mapping
Week of December 13 and December 20: Sevilleta: treatment and mapping
Remainder of December and January at Bosque del Apache and Sevilleta