{"id":2279,"date":"2013-08-22T08:36:24","date_gmt":"2013-08-22T15:36:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/seagrantscholars\/?p=2279"},"modified":"2014-10-01T15:48:29","modified_gmt":"2014-10-01T22:48:29","slug":"the-final-stretch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/seagrantscholars\/2013\/08\/22\/the-final-stretch\/","title":{"rendered":"The Final Stretch"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I am in utter disbelief that this is my last week here in Bandon, Oregon&#8230;\u00a0 Week eight involved a lot of small projects, tying up some loose ends, and adding to the research I&#8217;ve done on sustainable ecotourism to my portfolio.\u00a0\u00a0A large portion of my time was\u00a0spent working on my Summer Scholars presentation which I presented last Friday at the Hatfield Marine Science Center.\u00a0 While I have no problem speaking to a room full of people, like most I still get butterflies in my stomach and have occasionally been known to talk through several slides on one inadequate breath of air.\u00a0 Thankfully I was the second scholar to present so I had little time to worry about messing up, and the presentation went better than I could have expected!\u00a0\u00a0While my mentors were unable to be there physically, they were patched in via. teleconference so they were able to hear my presentation and be there in spirit.\u00a0 After my presentation I was free to sit back and enjoy hearing about what the other five scholars have spent their summers doing; I particularly enjoyed this part of the experience because I was able to get a more in-depth\u00a0idea of their projects outside of what I&#8217;ve read about in their blogs.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><a title=\"IMG_4074 by ccourtier, on Flickr\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/97952919@N06\/9568225634\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" alt=\"IMG_4074\" src=\"http:\/\/farm3.staticflickr.com\/2841\/9568225634_0098707b27.jpg\" width=\"374\" height=\"500\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>On Saturday\u00a0I decided to make the trek to Portland since I thought it would be ridiculous if I spent 10 weeks in Oregon and never made it up there.\u00a0\u00a0I must admit that my desire was more motivated by my interest in the infamous &#8220;Voodoo Doughnut&#8221; shop than anything&#8230;\u00a0 Upon my arrival I immediately realized that I was back in\u00a0a land of traffic and bad drivers, similar to that of my beloved Southern California!\u00a0 Nevertheless I navigated my way around oblivious tourists and questionable street performers until I reached the sanctuary of what seemed to be an air-conditioned parking structure.\u00a0 So I parked my car, walked the couple blocks that separated me from my personal doughnut heaven, and what should greet me but a line that wrapped around the corner of the building!\u00a0 But neither rain, nor heat, nor annoying street performer could deter me from a place that sells such sinful treats as Captain Crunch encrusted doughnuts and Bacon Maple doughnuts.\u00a0 45 minutes later I was in possession of a &#8220;Ain&#8217;t that a Peach Fritter&#8221; doughnut which was easily larger than my face.\u00a0 From the first bite to the last, it was everything I could want in a doughnut and more, and I&#8217;m\u00a0pretty sure I&#8217;m\u00a0still reeling from the sugar buzz.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><a title=\"P8170001 by ccourtier, on Flickr\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/97952919@N06\/9568148104\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" alt=\"P8170001\" src=\"http:\/\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7342\/9568148104_d4a066fb54.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>With all my main projects completed, I have very little to do in my last week with Wild Rivers Coast Alliance.\u00a0 However if all goes as planned I hope to get some more work done on a preliminary draft of the Bandon Quest Project and do some more investigation into coastal ecotourism.\u00a0 Outside of work I have the always enjoyable task of packing my life back into my somewhat small Mazda (affectionately referred to as &#8220;The Mazzy&#8221;); I&#8217;m sure this event will provide entertainment for anyone watching since my possessions seem to have an uncanny ability to expand to fill the non-existent space.\u00a0 Friday is my last official day of work,\u00a0so my journey back to Altadena, California begins Saturday morning!\u00a0 Since the drive is a bit long (around 18 hours) I will be making stops in Humboldt, Santa Cruz, and Santa Barbara to visit friends.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><a title=\"8331848320_bcffae5d16_z by ccourtier, on Flickr\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/97952919@N06\/9568206360\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" alt=\"8331848320_bcffae5d16_z\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.staticflickr.com\/3790\/9568206360_c9262f18a9.jpg\" width=\"375\" height=\"500\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">Stay tuned for one last blog post!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><a title=\"IMG_4494 by ccourtier, on Flickr\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/97952919@N06\/9568252562\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" alt=\"IMG_4494\" src=\"http:\/\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7322\/9568252562_b36f2825eb.jpg\" width=\"400\" height=\"400\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I am in utter disbelief that this is my last week here in Bandon, Oregon&#8230;\u00a0 Week eight involved a lot of small projects, tying up some loose ends, and adding to the research I&#8217;ve done on sustainable ecotourism to my &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/seagrantscholars\/2013\/08\/22\/the-final-stretch\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5158,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1387509,1387503],"tags":[173880,517,173879,2250,173909,173881],"class_list":["post-2279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-catherine-courtier","category-summer-scholars","tag-bandon-oregon","tag-oregon-sea-grant","tag-summer-2013","tag-summer-scholars","tag-summer-scholars-symposium","tag-wild-rivers-coast-alliance"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/seagrantscholars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/seagrantscholars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/seagrantscholars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/seagrantscholars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5158"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/seagrantscholars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2279"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/seagrantscholars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2279\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2337,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/seagrantscholars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2279\/revisions\/2337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/seagrantscholars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/seagrantscholars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/seagrantscholars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}