A few important notes

-I love love love staring at polygamists at the grocery store. I love it even more than staring at people at the gym. If I ever see a polygamist running on a treadmill, I will pee my pants.

-If you ever thought that my bangs were poofy, you have never seen a polygamist mormon lady. God obviously approves of hairspray.

-Curiously, people love mopeds here. I never thought they would be so popular in Utah, but I think people around here love just about anything with wheels that requires gasoline. Today I saw an enormous lady, dressed head to toe in brown, riding a tiny moped. She was wearing ski goggles and no helmet. Word.

-I'm getting my haircut today. There is a Paul Mitchell hairdresser school around here somewhere, and it's obvious because I see a lot of dumb haircuts. A lot of girls here have haircuts that look fresh out of those books they have in salons. Angular and 3 different colors. I really hope that they don't give me one of those.

gah!

Work and Play

Work is in full swing right now, so I've been super busy. I saw yet another tortoise yesterday on the land parcel that I'm working on (that makes five)! It was quite interesting yesterday out in the field, between talking to a hard-of-hearing retiree walking his dog on the land, startling a Latina woman tending to a chicken coup behind her trailer (which curiously, also housed cockatoos), and listening to the morning announcements from the high school bordering the western edge of the plot (no facial piercings allowed at school).

Anddd right now I'm preparing for a conference call that's coming up so I basically have to know everything about everything that involves this project. It's awesome/scary being in charge of this thing. I'm learning a lot in a short time.

A and I are going to San Diego this weekend for Labor Day! We are driving down through some of the national parks in southern California, and staying at a little motel on the Pacific Beach in San Diego. We are spending all of Sunday at the San Diego Zoo!! Woop.

FLDS

Colorado City is right in the middle of the AZ Strip, where I happened to work, so it's hard not to be curious. Obsessed with Big Love right now, via Netflix. Keeping track of the Warren Jeffs trial through the local paper. Under the Banner of Heaven is a crazy book, just finished it. It's all so much more entertaining than OK! and Springer combined.

torti tort

I saw this guy the other day. Some torts are braver than others. This guys was brave, but suspicious.

Zion, pt 2

I went to Wyoming for most of last week for an intern workshop. The workshop was useful, albeit a bit long, but I did meet some awesome people there! The evenings were awesome and hilarious, and I was in rare form. The last night we stayed in Denver at the apartment of a friend of friend that I met at the workshop. He took us all to a piano bar, where good times were had by all. I was exhausted after I returned here, and it was a great trip-I met so many cool peeps. Pics soon mebee.

Here are the remainder to the zion pics-













okay, I lied, there are more after this. Only a few more.

Another Desert Tortoise

Yesterday I went out to the Arvada site that I have been surveying. I mentioned earlier that we saw a tortoise in a burrow out there, but yesterday I saw this guy just hanging out, grazing, and pretty much just moseying about. He was smaller than the tortoise in the burrow- about a foot long. He looked very healthy, and only mildly concerned with our presence.

Zion, pt. one

Here is the first part of our trip from last weekend. This is the beginning of our hike up Angel's Landing.

Snow Canyon

I mostly did office work this week. Someone had a birthday at the office, it was straight out of Office Space. There is even a guy here that looks pretty much just like Milton. I just wanted to scream "THE RATIO OF PEOPLE TO CAKE IS TOO SMALL!!" No worries though, I'll be out in the field most of next week hanging out with tortoises. The week after that, I'm get to spend a few days in Wyoming!

Here are some shots from last weekend's hike. Tomorrow morning we leave for Zion National Park to camp and hike.