Written Sunday, September 15:

For days and days now, because of the crazy thunderstorms, we haven’t had internet in the Monument. This is because the park server is down, which means we also don’t have access to the shared p-drive, and cannot print anything. Productivity has dropped across the board, but I am spending much more of my rove time hiking. Also typing blog entries to be posted later.

How about some natural resources info for everyone? Did you know that baby scorpions are called scorplings? (Still favorite fact learned this summer. I just added the word scorpling to my computer’s dictionary. Damn right scorpling should be in the dictionary.) I have not yet seen a scorpion in the park, except for the dead ones we keep in jars under the counter to show people. My parents saw one in the bathroom when they were visiting though.

The rabbitbrush is blooming bright yellow – it’s a close relative to ragweed, and it makes people sneezy. The cottontails use it as cover, and Native Americans used to make something like rubber out of its limbs. Also, with all of the rain, all of our invasives have been going wild; the Russian thistle, the mustards, the noxious milkweeds. They soak it all up, native plants be damned, and climb for the sun.

Spectacular rainbows lately. There is something like seeing the entire spectrum of color swiped across the sky that sets off the rest of the landscape really nicely; everything is put into perspective, and even power lines and telephone poles look beautiful with an arc of color behind them.

In social life news, were back at the usual Thursday-night-Fruita-bar-crawl this week: delicious pizza at the Hot Tomato (pineapple, red onion, jalapeno), followed by IPAs and games of darts and bluegrass music at the Copper Club. Said our farewells to Ashley, whose last day of work was last week, and whose flight to Spain for a semester was today. I’ll miss that girl. Gave the leftover pizza to Michelle, who works the bar at the Copper Club and also I think owns it (maybe?), and she is awesome. Lost at darts. On Friday I took about a three-hour nap, then went to bed. (There was some very good Thai food somewhere in there.) Last night, after amazing nachos (god I love nachos), went to town for beer with Mike and Shane, yelled through Ryan’s window til he came over as well, and spent a few satisfying hours playing cards and drinking beers and listening to nineties music. I made everyone wear my scarves and gave them all marker tattoos (an arrowhead, a frog, a campfire.)

I’ve been making paper snowflakes lately, each featuring a different park animal. So far there is a bighorn sheepsnowflake, a lizard snowflake, a mountain lion snowflake, and a golden eagle snowflake. It keeps me occupied when the front desk is slow. People are kiiiind of impressed by them, not gonna lie.

I have three weeks left here. Also, more importantly, six days left til my biiiirthday. Twenty-six, batches. I am super old, huh?

Edit: Now just two days til birthday!