Isabella, Riya, and Stella

Our benevolent dictator, Adam, let us start the day with a late 8:00 AM wake-up. While the extra sleep was greatly appreciated, we all would have liked to sleep for another twelve hours. 

After a quick breakfast, we gathered at the table with our notebooks and pens to reflect upon the kayak trip we had just returned from the day before. Caroline asked us three questions: 1) What did you learn from this experience? 2) What is an anecdote you want to hold onto? 3) How did you grow from this experience? As we all ponder these questions, Caroline explained that we are doing the reflection because moments are fleeting, and if you do not write them down, they fly away, never to be seen again. 

We all piled into the van for our first stop of the day, American Camp National Park. Once we arrived, we were quickly greeted by Emilio Santiago, a park ranger and archaeologist who has worked in several parks over the United States.

Emilio opened the visitor center and gave us a general explanation tour and history of the building. He explained that every plack had gone through all eight tribes that had historically inhabited the Salish Sea. He pointed out the Canoe paddles that had been hung on the wall and that each one had been carved by one of the eight tribes. He gestured towards a mural painted on the wall and told us about how the purple flowing was called Camis and has a humongous significance to the indigenous people of the area because its root was one of the staple foods. After a brief tour of the building, Emilio set the group free to roam around the visitor center. 

After we stopped at the status of the pig who started the Pig War, a war between the English and the Americas started after an English pig was shot by American farmers because he had been eating all his crops. We held a quick photo shoot with the pig and then were off again. 

Emilio led us to a spot with a great view of the park and everything around it. There he motioned toward the burial ground where thirteen soldiers had been buried, casualties of the pig war. He told us how smallpox had devastated the indigenous people and how wooly dogs were used for their fur. Emilio was an endless fountain of knowledge and was happy to answer any questions we had. We were truly lucky to get to speak with such a knowledgeable guide. 

After the American Camp, some of us decided to climb some trees cause we just goofy like that!  

We then hopped into the van and headed to False Bay. On the way down to the beach, we saw many adorable puppies and stopped for a good ten minutes to pet all of them. We also saw a garter snake in the grass! It was super cute!!!!!!!!

Although Millie was a little weirded out, haha! We all enjoyed lunch on the beach, and Stella, Sonja, and me (Riya) were crying and hoping someone would see how lonely we were……… :,((((

After that, you know what time it was: project grind time! Some of us goofballs also decided to dogpile on the couch. 

I slammed my computer closed, the undeniable pressure of perfecting my proposal too much to bare. Luckily, there was light on the horizon: swimming in Egg Lake. Ever since I read the schedule the night before, I knew that this upcoming swim would be entirely and utterly life-altering. I suited up in my swimming suit and a new coat of greasy sunscreen, and we were off!

After a group car singalong performance of “Take Me Home, Country Roads” worthy of a Grammy, we stepped out of the van into the unpleasantly brisk air. I had never experienced such a chill (a low 70° 😨). Although I had my qualms about swimming and making myself even colder, Maya, Keelin, Una, and Cleorr jumped right in.

Eventually, I jumped in, with the support of my bff4lyfe Sonya, and found that 1) It wasn’t that cold, and 2) The seaweed at the bottom of the lake was, in fact, hairy.

After a solid hour of swimming and a toe in William’s mouth (thanks to Caleb), we returned to the dorms and took a much-needed break (trying to drown your friends is downright exhausting).

After an early dinner, we were off to our final event of the day: a talk given by Dr. Rachel Collin. The presentation detailed her research on tropical marine invertebrates, specifically sea urchins. Although the graphs may have hurt my head to look at, we were all completely invested. 

When the talk was over, a woman enthusiastically reminded us for the 4th time that there was an ice cream social after in the commons (I think she might have liked ice cream). The sundaes were the cherry on top of an already great day (haha, I’m so funny).

Goodbye, for now, loyal bloggers!

Xoxo,

Isabella, Riya, and Stella

By: Stella, Isabella, Riya

Today’s destination was Shaw Island, the smallest of the four San Juan islands. At 6:30 am, we were awoken by Barry’s quiet knock (or by our roommates if the knocking wasn’t enough). We ate breakfast, packed lunch, and debated whether cheddar cheese and strawberry jam were a good combination. We loaded up the van and rushed to the ferry terminal, only to find our ferry was delayed a little over an hour. After some aimless wandering and stopping at the Salty Fox for drinks, we boarded the ferry and proceeded to reenact the Titanic (a rite of passage for ferry rides).

While the ferry was parked at one of the stops before Shaw, we observed a few seagulls and passionately discussed lesbian seagulls. You had to be there. Sorry blog readers (not sorry).

When we arrived at Shaw, we made a quick stop at the best (and only) store on the entire island, the Shaw General Store. We picked up snacks (we were already hungry) and admired the Dr. Bronner’s soap selection (more on this a little later). Once back on the road, we made our way to the beach, excited to collect Eelgrass seeds to assist Dr. Sandy Wyllie-Echeverria, Dr. Cinde Donoghue, and DNR in their conservation efforts.

Half of us suited up in waders, and the other half were left with rubber boots (I’m still salty I didn’t get waders)

We were given a brief on how to identify the flowering shoots and the phases of the seeds to ensure successful collection, and then we were off to work!

Some of us were more successful than others, and some simply provided moral support, like our BBBBBBB (beloved beautiful bashful best bag boy Brian). If you can’t tell from the name, he held the net for the seeds we collected. We lost some steam as we went on, but we were pretty successful (expected as we are such a hardworking, amazing, and cool group). 

After collecting eelgrass seeds, we stripped off our boots and waders. Our gear managed to keep most of us relatively dry, with the exception of Brain, who fully imposed the fact that his boots were filled to the brim with water. As he walked up the path to the parking lot, his boot squelched loudly, and water poured out the sides. 

We ate lunch in a grassy field. It was a much-needed break after the hard work of eelgrass seed collection. Sadly our break was not long because, after about fifteen minutes, we were informed that the tide was too high to go out again and that we had two options: 1) Race across the island to the ferry that left in ten minutes 2) Spend the next five hours on Shaw doing who knows was and get back late. Needless to say, we chose the former. So in the blink of an eye, we packed up our lunches, put our boots in the back of the van, and were off.

Little did we know that when we arrived at the ferry terminal, the ferry still had not reached the terminal. So the group decided to go to The General Store again to see what Shaw’s only store had to offer.

Once again, Caleb was enamored by the bottles of Dr. Bronner’s Soap. He loudly touted the many amazing uses of the bottle of eighteen-in-one of soap. When asked for a comment about the Dr. Bronners for the blog, Caleb said he would be keeping all of his Dr. Bronner opinions to himself for now so that he would be able to later share them on his own. I encourage you, dear reader, to keep a lookout for Caleb’s Dr. Bronner opinions which hopefully will grace the internet soon.

On the way back from Shaw Island (a very fun but tiring outing), the ferry which we ran to catch ended up getting delayed by an hour. We were “sooo disappointed” that the cars couldn’t get out of the ferry because that meant we wouldn’t have to – oh I mean GET to! – go to the Friday Harbor Labs and instead got a chance to explore town.

Me and my gals (and Brian!) decided to check out the various nail-bitingly-expensive goods of San Juan. First, we headed to a toy store appropriately named Toy Box to get some fun games for us to play. 

After that, Cleo joined us and Brian DITCHED US when we went to some boutique shops (wait that makes sense: I don’t know why he’d wanna go to a boutique) that were WAYYYY out of our budget… 

But besides that, we were too broke to afford any clothes or good stuff, even though we found some gems: toddler sunglasses and an overpriced fedora (it was $50)!! 

It’s all good though – we visited a thrift shop right after where Cleo got suchhh a good deal on brand new Levi’s. Like $30 dollars – for a brand new pair! The thrift store was definitely more in our budget. Oh yeah – and the thrift store also had so many Barbie dolls… 

After our shopping, we strolled back to the school and met up with the hardworking essay writers Keelin and Maya and walked home. Super exhausting day, but so much fun!!