Thwarted by a rhino

Busy days, long hours, manual labor... I am so tired. It's only been two days.

I will recap some fun things soon. It's been a lot of information in a short amount of time. Right now we're working 5-9 hour days, starting at 7:45am with one hour for lunch. When daylight savings happens, we will be switching to 4-10 hour days, starting at 5:45am (for about a week, then we come in at 6:45am).

I'll bet you're wondering about the blog post title. "Thwarted by a Rhino". An (carnivores lead) and I were checking on the black bears (still very sleepy from winter) to see if we needed to bring out diets. We had left the truck outside the exhibit on the road with the gates locked (as opposed to driving it all the way to the huts). Our rhinos have free range of certain areas of the park, and Jack (male rhino) happened to be standing on the other side of the fence from us as we were leaving. He was about 5 feet from the truck. Jack was sort of stalking us and tried pushing against the fence at us. With him being so close to the truck, we couldn't safely exit the exhibit so we had to wait for him to walk away. Jordan (another carns keeper) was driving a bobcat (golf cart type vehicle), which the rhinos hate, hoping to encourage Jack to move along. Well he moved alright. Right up next to the truck. The fun thing about rhinos and trucks.... Rhinos have sharp horns and trucks have tires.... Hmmm. Fortunately we avoided a popped tire incident but Jack was all up on that truck like it was a new toy in Christmas Day. Eventually he moved far enough away that we could unlock the gate and make a run for the truck. Jack realized we had escaped and then starting chasing us.... Turns out the truck is pretty fast in reverse. 

Oh and because I know you're all wondering... I passed my "driving test".

More later!

At least I found the grocery store

So, today has been an interesting day so far. It started out good, then less good, then better, then really bad, then pretty darn awesome. Let's recap:

Good: I got decent sleep, and found the urgent care in Roseburg for my drug test with no problems. 

Less good: problem with drug test. Needed to be sent for further evaluation. I took an anxiety pill (Rx) Wednesday night to help me sleep. Forgot about drug test and that it could skew my results. Whoops. Panicked that I wouldn't be cleared to work till Monday. 

Better: told by my supervisor that I was fine to work tomorrow, and then successfully found grocery store and supplies. Was thinking all was going so much better, when I tried to get back to the intern house without directions.......

Really bad: took a wrong turn literally 100 feet from the intern house. Tried to turn around and didn't see the ground wasn't flat..... So dumb. So so dumb. Ended up getting my car stuck in a ditch where I couldn't go forward or backward. Panicked again. Called a tow truck. They came quickly despite me not being able to tell them were I actually was. Oh and it was raining during this fiasco. 

Pretty darn awesome: got out of the ditch, made it home and then went out to wildlife safari to get my work shirts and take a tour of the facility. This was cool because the majority of the park is a drive-thru safari so animals are literally right next to your car. Mmm llama butt.

Obviously (or maybe not?), this is not a llama. 

I've determined that Charliego is, in fact, most definitely a cheetah. More details to come. 

Welcome to Oregon.

I have arrived at my intern house. 

There is not much to be said except:

1. I have a 7"x7" cubby to call my home. I have a couch and a chair. I have a tiny set of drawers (it's more like a bedside table, which doesn't fit next to my bed which is actually a couch), a lamp and a space heater. I had to safety pin a sheet to the wall as a makeshift curtain so that the neighbors can't see me in my birthday suit. This means I don't actually have any real walls. I have two boards set up as dividers opposite each other, a sliding glass door, and a curtain opposite that as my "bedroom door".

2. There are 12 of us. One bathroom with a shower, and a port-a-loo outside. 

3. There is a hot plate, a microwave, a toaster oven and a coffee maker. I have yet to find any mugs... I also have yet to find fridge space.......

4. No cable. No Internet. This means my posts will be infrequent. I can only do so much from my phone. 

5. Everyone gets up at 7am. Everyday. Even on your day off. Because you hear everyone, and everything. 

Oh and most importantly: 

6. It's a big ol' red house that looks like a barn. And it's in the middle of nowhere. 

Am I actually being kidnapped??? If you get an "S. O. S." text from me: Get on a plane, and come rescue me. 

Tomorrow I go for the drug test, and find a grocery store. My adventure really begins on Saturday when I have my first shift. Full speed ahead. 

Stay tuned. 

The intern house, with a view of the neighbors house. The house also expands to the right quite a ways if the picture were to continue. 

My cubby. Since the photo was taken, it has been expanded about a foot (towards the right of this picture) and I acquired a bedside table (not pictured).

Update: from Northern California

I hope the future posts (however infrequent they may be) are more exciting than this one, but I feel I owe it to my readers to keep them informed along my journey. 

Yesterday was drive day part 1. Drove 545ish miles from Santa Barbara to Redding, CA. I thought, since google maps said it would be around 8-8.5 hours, I'd have no problem driving during daylight hours (I hate driving at night, it makes me anxious). I've driven to Phoenix many times before, which is about 8 hours, had no problems, so why not?

I. Was. So. Bored!!! For whatever reason, driving north is super boring to me. I have no idea why. I also go into a fight with my car CD player and was musicless for a while. That certainly did not help. I played an alphabet game, where you find a word or a sign or car starting with that letter in order (alpha, bob, car, drain, exit, freight... You get the idea). I thought I'd get stuck on Q. Nope. Quality Inn. X? A truck goes by, "xtra" spelled just like that. No "e". Lucky me! Ok, surely I will get stuck on Z for days... Nope. Not 5 seconds after finding Y I pass a sign talking about zones. Ha. Win. I got stuck in things like G and O. Anyway. That helped a bit. 

It rained half the time I was driving. I do believe in magic. In Harry Potter (Prisoner of Azkaban, Chapter 9), when Hermione puts the Impervius charm on Harry's glasses to repel water during the quidditch match? That's what was happening to my windshield thanks to Rain-ex! Impervius!!

Anyway, after all that excitement, after many, many random rest stops (including one at Yolo County - hashtagyolo ??), and 10.5 long hours later, I finally made it to my hotel in Redding. I spent the rest of the night curled up in my king sized bed (or should I say, spread out?) watching The Big Bang Theory on TBS until I fell asleep.

Now, today, I have had my free hot breakfast - courtesy of the hotel (Yes, there were waffles, but no, I didn't have one). I am ready to begin the drive into Oregon! About 4-5 hours and I should be in Winston!

Cheers mates!

Coming soon to a blog near you!

That's right folks, I just may be dusting off my blog and starting it back up again. "Why?" you may ask. Well, dear readers, I'll tell you.

I am done with undergraduate work and am on to bigger, better things. That is to say, I am job hunting. In order to get very far, I will need to put a lot of time in volunteering and taking internships.

My first internship is in Winston, Oregon at a place called Wildlife Safari. It's about 2-3 hours south of Portland. I will be helping with the Carnivores (mostly bears and lions), though I really wanted to get into the Cheetah internship (they have a huge breeding program!). Gotta love me some cheetahs.

So that is where my next adventure begins: March 1, 2014. Winston, OR.

Stay tuned.


*Update: Adventure will technically begin on February 26, 2014, when I begin the drive from Southern California up to Oregon. Either way: be there, or be a rectangle.