Hello, and welcome to ellilis.wordpress.com! This serves as a record of my past adventures, however quickly summarized, as well as an update on current ones. You can find out about some of the species I’ve worked with and things I’ve been doing by clicking on the appropriate tab above. Home will take you back here, to see the latest field update. Thanks for your interest, and if you’d like to know more about anything, or would like to contact me, just send me an e-mail.
The first day on any job is always a bit crazy, and this was certainly no exception. After a whirlwind of forms, informational packets, names to memorize, and field equipment, I was given the honor of driving to the Hopper Mountain National Wildlife Refuge. Let me tell you, if you’ve never driven an overloaded Chevy Tahoe up a winding one-lane dirt mountain road, you’re missing out. Rumor has it that there are oil trucks which also make the same trip, though I can’t understand how such a thing is possible. Nevertheless, I eventually made it down to the ranch and met some of my fellow interns. My first interaction with them involved their planning on how to rid my trailer housing of a nest of starlings, and a short discussion on rattlesnake sightings in the immediate vicinity. ‘Nuff said.
Making our way west in a 1995 Honda Odyssey, my dad, uncle Ben, and I managed to travel 2,078 miles in less than 48 hours. We stopped briefly to take ourselves within a few miles of a grand cement Cheetoh™ in Utah (yet avoided seeing the monument), and to purchase tickets so we could sleep our way through the newly released Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End. The road was strange, littered with phantom IHOPs and all manner of rocks and cliffs above and below us. Of course, we were prepared for anything; we had Daniel.
Armed with a 3.5″ LCD screen and a British accent, he took us through clover loops with construction and up mountains too steep for the little purple van’s engine. Yes, even as we crawled our way uphill at 40mph, every other manner of vehicle passing us at 75mph, the warm electronic glow of Daniel the Garmin assured us that it was only 148 more miles until the next turn.
It wasn’t until the massive traffic jam that we knew we had arrived in Southern California. Ben bravely navigated the 101 to the Ventura Holiday Inn Express. As we carried our bags in to the check-in counter, we passed a carpeted car proudly announcing the owner as a lover of Jazzercise, complete with an “I love to Jazzercise” license frame and car shade reading JAZZERCISE. Yep, this was the place. The room itself was facing the marina, and had a kitchenette, two soft beds, and a shower the size of my room back home. Throw in a Monk marathon, a tour of Pt. Mugu, and some Red Brick Pizza, and you’ve got one great place. My Dad and Ben stayed until Monday, then flew out, leaving me alone in California.
