I wish my departure could have been as graceful as this but that’s just not my style (;

As many have written the last week was packed full of awesomeness. I had to depart early to begin my graphic design courses (which I already love!) but I was lucky enough to stay for the weekend as well as experience the eclipse.

I must admit that I’m a little disappointed the world didn’t end there wasn’t an insane overflow of crowds. The commotion and chaos is part of the fun, right? Either way the entire event was probably one of the top 3 greatest things I’ll ever have gotten to see in my life. A few friends of mine from Berkeley were able to make the drive up and join us as we made the drive to Corvallis early Monday morning. We made an ever so important stop at Dutch Bros and hustled our way to Bald Hill near the fairgrounds to gather as the sky went dark. As the air began to chill and the sky dimmed I felt so so lucky to have ended up right in the center of totality this summer.

Many of my peers know I didn’t have the easiest summer. I struggled with homesickness a lot and missed California immensely. Hot summer days and warm nights are something I look forward to every year and I felt that lacking with the crispness of the coastal Oregon air. What I will say, though, is that the Oregon coast does hold a very special place in my heart. On my last day I made myself think about all the things I will miss about Newport and the OSG program to remind myself that I was incredibly privileged to have this opportunity.

First off, I will greatly miss the ecosystem that Hatfield is surrounded by. The little bridge along the estuarine walk was one of my favorite places to watch the sunset on a clear night. The grooves underneath the bridge were either filled to the brim with the high tide or scarred the Earth when the tides were low. The salty sour smell that would drift over to the dorms in the morning was incredibly nostalgic for me and always brought back memories of the Elkhorn Slough near my house. Although the weather drove me crazy I knew it contributed to such a unique little world that we lived in for the summer.

Second, I will miss Fred Meyer. I know this sounds ridiculous but I get extreme enjoyment out of grocery shopping. The selection was always impressive and the cashiers were always kind. Safeway will never be the same (and I don’t think there’s such thing as Californian hospitality…)

Third, I will miss that bridge. Its size never failed to surprise me as I crossed it everyday to go to work. It was oddly elegant for being so massive and it added so much charm to Newport. It really was iconic there’s nothing like it out here in the Central Valley.

Fourth, I will miss the palace that is the Muscle Studio. What a great gym. I made so much progress this summer and looked forward to lifting every single day at this place. Full of such cool and interesting people that loved to workout and chat. It was such a unique environment and I WILL return to get my name on their lifter wall once I hit my goals.

Lastly and most importantly I will miss the people and all of our adventures. Meg turned out to be an incredible mentor and someone I would call my friend. The OSG staff was so encouraging and kind every step of the way, I never felt alone because of them. All the REUs became our teammates this summer, especially Angelina who was our house mom. And each Sea Grant Scholar brought something so unique to the group. Jeremy is a fascinating person and I wish we all had more time with him, Julia coordinated an entire trip for us to go to Crater Lake as a fam, Katie was so upbeat and positive, Dustin was 100% my favorite dude to have a conversation with, Catie’s artistic abilities blew me away, Sarah is one of the most brilliant and dedicated people I’ve ever met, Neal is ridiculous and I don’t have any other way to say that, Zach is the other half to Neal so you can figure that one out (add a couple inches and mean volleyball skillz), and Allie’s greatness is only measurable by the amount of post-run and pre-breakfast ice cream feasts I witnessed her have this summer (there were many).

Thank you all so much for a memorable summer and your endless encouragement. I wish you all the best and leave you with this piece of advice: Blue raspberry 5 hour energy and sour patch kids are the secret to long car rides and ultimate life success, don’t forget it.

Oh and here’s my poster lol, CHEERS TO THAT!!!

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter @orkingtide (:

Stop One: Nehalem

This week I was lucky enough to take two trips up the North Coast for both work and fun. The first place I headed was Nehalem to get some pictures of the area at an average high tide. During the most extreme King Tide events the streets of Nehalem can end up slightly flooded from the Nehalem River rising, like this:

Nehalem during a King Tide

My goal was to gather a handful of the pictures from our Flickr account that have been taken in Nehalem over the past six years and duplicate them at average tide, like this:

Nehalem during an average high tide

The drive was long but I enjoyed getting to see more of Oregon, especially since I’ll be leaving the program a week early to start school. I was disappointed that the shop with vegan ice cream was closed (along with most other things on Mondays and Tuesdays up there) but I did find this cute little spot to enjoy the river and eat some fries before heading home. Little did I know we’d make our way back through Nehalem the same weekend and I’d get to try that ice cream after all.

Riverside N’ Chips

Stop Two: Astoria and Seaside

A childhood favorite of mine.

Although Friday morning I woke up feeling under the weather and not very optimistic about the day it turned into the beginning to a great weekend. That night the group convinced me to head over to Rogue and check out the “Dogs & Brews” event. There were pups galore and it’s always good for me to get out of the dorm and socialize. Unfortunately I can’t find my camera adapter, but when I do I’ll add the video of a wonderful husky named Orion that our entire group fell in love with.

The next day we headed up to a motel in Astoria in anticipation of the volleyball tournament a few of the interns had entered in. I discovered that Astoria is where The Goonies was set and filmed and was SO EXCITED to see the Goonie house until we got to the driveway. Whoever owns it now has a sign up asking people to stay away. Party poopers. I was still thrilled to be in the area and see all the references to the film in little shops around town. We had a great meal at an Indian restaurant, got caught in the rain, found a random piano, and soaked in the hot tub for a bit before crashing out.

The next morning we drove down to Seaside to watch Zach, Megan, Gabby, and Sawyer play in the volleyball tournament. I’ll let Zach tell you more about that one though because he was one of the true stars of the show. Overall it was a great beach day but definitely made me miss the California beaches of my childhood. Seaside reminded me so much of Santa Cruz and all the time I spent there growing up.

The Home Stretch

With my departure being next Tuesday I am officially beginning my last full week here as a scholar. I am anxious to be back and FINALLY settle into a place with some permanence. For the last two years it always seemed like I was packing a bag to go somewhere, whether it was for the weekend or for the semester. I’m excited to have a steady home and some HOT weather!

The last big thing that I’m working on is a video for the Oregon King Tides website. It’s nothing too fancy but I’ve really enjoyed putting it all together and hope you all have a chance to see it before the end of summer! Cheers to the last week and to my favorite weekend yet.

View from Crest Motel in Astoria.

Well I’m incredibly late to the game in finally watching Moana, but let me just say that in the middle of all my emotional turmoil this movie has really brought me happiness. Never really thought that I would find an animation so inspiring but I truly do, especially after our Crater Lake trip and my hesitancy to enter cold water because 1. I hate cold anything and 2. I can’t really swim all that well. So I’ve watched this video approximately 37 times in the last few days and aspire to bring out the Moana in me exhibited at 2:17 in the song below.

Moving Forward

Our current struggle with the King Tides project is our reliance on our partners to supply us with the information we need. We are working with the Oregon Coast Visitors Association to host a photo contest this year and are now just waiting to hear back about the details so we can start spreading the word. We also have a few meetings with members of the Coastal Management Program coming up to get our photo submission form published and accessible as well as some contact information for potential new partners like REI.

In the mean time I have planned more field work for myself to get out of the office and enjoy the Oregon coast. I will be heading to Nehalem next week to take photos and spend a few hours around the Newport Bayfront as well. I am really happy to have the chance to be outside for a bit because I must admit that I’ve been really jealous of other scholars getting to be out in the field so often!

How to Share King Tides Photos

I have also been working on some content for our social media including tips on how to take good King Tides photos and how to share them online!

King Tides Tips and Tricks

My mentor Meg has been incredible in working with me this week and helping me find ways to benefit as much as I can from this opportunity. As Neal would say, “Top 3 mentors, top 3 opportunities.”

A Big Hole With Water In It

This weekend was exactly what I needed to get my head back on straight. A handful of interns as well as my boyfriend and best friend from back home came to visit and we headed down to Crater Lake to camp and hike.

Little did we know the so called “campground” was a pot farm run by two dudes and 3 dogs living out of a school bus. Their names were Austin and Norton and they were actually really kind and interesting people. They had about 20 ducks and ducklings as well. If the bathroom wasn’t just a trail into the forest I would say top 3 camping trips but that’s still a bit of a stretch.

I’ve been slacking on my photography game lately so I literally only took one okayish photo of the lake which wasn’t even at the peak of Mount Scott, though we tackled those 5 miles like champs.

Still, cheers to week 6, a beautiful view, and great company.

This week I had a grand realization ultimately leading me to entirely rethink my career path, and that’s only ONE of the many events over the past 7 days that has caused me to be a late poster yet again (apologies!)

What was this realization you ask? Well, I’ve decided I simply cannot sit at a desk for eight hours a day unless I’m doing something creative. Quite frankly I find myself going a bit stir crazy and questioning why I studied the social sciences to begin with. After really thinking about it I came to accept that although I may not go in the exact direction I expected to go with my degree, I don’t regret the field I studied at all. Knowing all that I do about the environment, agriculture, and society as a whole has very much shaped me as a person. I did go vegan so if anything it’s drastically changed my eating habits and I’ll mark that as a plus. I love food more than most things and my degree has only helped grow that love.

I came to this conclusion after working on the website for the King Tides Photo Initiative. And this may sound odd but I actually LOVED it. Let me explain.

http://www.oregonkingtides.net/

Being given the opportunity to redesign the oregonkingtides.net website confirmed that graphic design was something I need to allow myself to continue exploring after this internship. Most days I find being in an office very hard, but when I’m working on something creative I get lost in it. I knew I would probably go back to school at some point but just didn’t know what for. I am now enrolling in a few graphic design courses back home and hope to eventually find a career that ties everything together for me.

The content of the website is still a work in progress but it has definitely improved! I now have a renewed excitement and hope to take this project to a new level in the next 5 weeks.

Meetings and Mexican Food

On Wednesday the Newport office and myself (total of 4) hopped in the car to attend the Coastal Management Program’s monthly staff meeting in Salem. Most of the meeting was focused on picking a new logo for the program (which I obviously truly enjoyed) but I did have the chance to show everyone the new look to the website.

I also learned of a new application through ArcGIS called Survey123 that will help us collect the King Tides’ photos in a much more efficient and organized manner this year. After only one YouTube tutorial I was able to set up a mock collection form that we’ll be testing out this week. Keep an eye out for the next blog because I might as for y’all to try it!

On the way home we stopped and grabbed a bite to eat at a little burrito place. It was one of the first opportunities I had to chat with Matt and Dave, the two older men who work in my office, and I really enjoyed getting to know them

NANOOS

On Thursday Meg and I attended a workshop at the community college on NANOOS – the Northwest Association of Networked Ocean Observing Systems. Although I didn’t have much to offer to the conversation it was really interesting to learn about the software and what it could do. To my understanding everyone from biologists to fisherman use it to check water temperatures, buoy locations, tsunami danger zones and more. The learning curve seems steep but once one understands how to utilize all the information it really is a goldmine.

Inked

Once again I headed up to Portland for the weekend (that’s 3 out of 4 weekends now) to see some of my best friends from college and to FINALLY get my tattoo! I had been planning this for a while and looking forward to it since I arrived in Oregon. I really wanted to represent womanly strength.

I think the relationship between the moon and the ocean exhibit the same kind of quiet power women often do in the world. At the same time the ocean can be intense and mysterious as all of us women are in some way or another. The moon is also representative of my mother, we both feel very connected to it, and her being a marine biologist makes the whole beach theme even more significant. As exhausting as it was to sit for 5 hours straight being poked by a needle I am absolutely over the moon (pun intended) about it and excited for when I can wear real pants again.

Cheers to week 4 and art in all forms.

Instagram, that is.

This week I only worked about two and a half days total, which was kind of a bummer but I think I’m FINALLY getting better!

I was in and out of the doctors for chest x-rays and though I don’t have pneumonia (whew!) I did have to go on steroids to get rid of whatever was happening in my lungs.

My mentor was on vacation this week so I had a few tasks to tackle on my own. As I’ve said one of our big goals is to increase participation, especially among younger crowds. This week I spent a lot of time digging through social media platforms like Instagram to find photographers that had a knack for capturing beautiful scenes along the coast. You may be surprised how many people in the PNW are incredibly skilled photographers and how simple it is to get in contact with them.

Social media has made it so easy to discover new people, especially when it comes to photography. And with our initiative I think we have the ability to really strike a chord with the outdoorsy Oregon youth. Through their participation they are not only serving as citizen scientists but truly helping educate the public about the future of the coast. This year, with the introduction of our photo contest and increased outreach efforts, I think the project will diversify and grow significantly.

We also plan to reach out to Sunset Magazine, REI, and the Travel Oregon group to see just how much coverage the King Tides can get before they arrive. I attempted to draft all the communications I could for the upcoming season – fingers crossed it works to get some attention!

July 4th – Newport Style

Amongst the doctors visits I was still able to enjoy the holiday with the clan of interns. I have always loved fireworks so the hype I heard about the show down here gave me high expectations. For a little beach town I was very impressed with the display, but in bed promptly. I am but a graduate, no longer the college party animal of my past.

I found it almost funny that so many of us said things like “I hope people don’t just dump the fireworks in the water when their done” and “I bet the wildlife around here is a little freaked out.” The reason I found this amusing is because it clearly demonstrates how we’ve transformed into the budding environmentalists we always dreamt of being.

As kids we only thought about the food, family, and fireworks. We didn’t have the knowledge or worries we have now about polluting the planet and saving the animals. As we weaved through the cars I noticed so many kids full of pure joy watching the sparks squeal and explode. It made me incredibly nostalgic for the days when we used to be so carefree, but also proud that all of us have chosen this path. No matter what we were all still able to truly enjoy it the show and spend time together as a group.

Cheers to week 3 and let’s hope I’ve got a lot more to report on for week 4!

As much as I would love to be referencing myself with this title, I’d have to say my mentor is the Queen and I am but a princess of the tides.

What are King Tides?

Week two was a whirlwind for me that picked up right at the end, but let’s start with the knowledge bombs first.

Many people are still new to the term King Tides so I wanted to discuss a little bit of the science behind the grand daddy of tides. Although Oregon experiences their highest high tides in the winter, some places around the world (like Hawaii) also have theirs in the spring/summer. The height of the tides has to do with the Moon’s proximity to the Earth and the Earth’s proximity to the Sun. When all three are aligned at there closest proximity to each other (the Moon at perigee and the Earth at perihelion) the tides reach their highest heights.

It’s always been fascinating to me how much the Moon influences our life on Earth and this project has helped me explore that even more. I also love listening to the TED radio hour and they JUST brought up one from the archives called “Peering Into Space,” so if you’re interested in hearing more about the universe take a listen! http://www.npr.org/2013/02/15/172136499/peering-into-space

Oregon experiences its King Tides with the New Moon in winter.

Back to Hawaii: A week a two ago the islands were experiencing their King Tides and I noticed through researching their project that the news was alllll over it. University of Hawaii Sea Grant made many appearances on news stations and their photo initiative got a lot of press. For us the publicity is harder because the tides have yet to be catastrophic for the Oregon coast. This is a GREAT thing, but it makes drawing in the public to participate difficult. The Oregon King Tides aren’t urgently impacting us yet, but tracking them can still be so beneficial for predicting issues the coast may have with sea level rise in the future.

Beyond the Tides

Outside of my exploration of other King Tides projects I got to sit in on a few meetings within the department regarding another sea level rise project and the content of the website. Meetings are often regarded as boring but I enjoy getting to see the inner workings of the department. I see this a great opportunity to gain insight as to what I want to do with my future and also witness how state government functions behind the scenes. I really appreciated my chance to discuss this in my expectations meeting as well!!

I’m just so dramatic, really.

Another great opportunity I have with this internship is the time I have to explore GIS and Photoshop. I’ll be spending much more time trying to learn GIS but have yet to create anything impressive (or at least pretty,) so here’s something I was able to do in 5 minutes on photoshop! The techniques are interesting and hard to master, but I hope to do some cool things towards the end of the internship with any new skills I’ve learned.

Portland Round 2

As for the end of the week I discovered I was yet again off to Portland for the weekend. One of life best friends had a break from her naval duties and I got to see her for the first time in about 2 years. We enjoyed the sunny Portland weather and sipped wine on the balcony of a friend’s condo in the Pearl District. It was very bougie and quite a dream. We also went about 40 minutes East of Portland to have fun in nature and get some mountain air. A very refreshing week (:

Some place somewhere in the PNW

That was until I came home Sunday and the cough I’ve had for over a month got even worse. Last week the doctors said I had asthma and told me to come on back if nothing improved with my new, fancy inhaler. Well I’m heading back because I sound like I’ve smoked a pack a day for 30 years (I’m 21 so I hope that puts this all into perspective.) I’m hoping the holiday tomorrow is fun and that I have meds coursing through my veins by then.

Cheers to week 2 and getting healthy!