On our last adventure for the fourth of July weekend the Duluth decided to go to Gooseberry Falls. I wondered why it was named Gooseberry Falls and to be completely honest, I still wonder that now. I never really got my answer, but instead I received a great experience in nature. The falls were so beautiful, it felt like I was walking through an Instagram account. It was an amazing experience and definitely
a site to see.
This 4th of July weekend was pretty epic. We were blessed enough to have a 5 day weekend. To start off the epic weekend, we decided to take a little trip down the St. Louis. It was my first time kayaking and I must say it was an absolute blast! I wasn’t able to go to the gym, so it was a great arm day workout. We ended up kayaking to Spirit Island and doing some mini hiking there. The arial view of the kayaks is where we hiked up the left side of the island and it was a great action shot. Then we decided to hike upstream go around and invented a new game. We ended up playing frisbee with the kayaks. It was pretty difficult, but we managed to each catch the frisbee and kayak at the same time.
Howdy!
Today was pretty epic! I was blessed enough to accomplish one of goals in life. That’s right, you guessed it As a native to New Mexico, the thought of ever wearing waiters was super far-fetched; however, I was able to do so today!
I felt like a water astronaut and learned about the hazards of wearing waiters. I did a mini photo shoot. Safe to say that it was a pretty exciting day.
Today was pretty epic. We were released a bit early from work, since we had finished up all the data analysis for the day. So, as every great foreigner does, we did the standard. We decided to go on a hike! It was a pretty epic hike! It’s like we left the city and ended up in dog heaven! We saw dogs jump into the lake, go swimming, chase each other. Too cute! The best part of it was that we ended up on a little pier in, what felt like, the middle of nowhere.
Growing up, I thought it was a weird concept having an annual Chile Festival; however, many years later it all made sense. When a town, village, or city has a agricultural product they are so fond of the only solution is to celebrate it.
While staying in Duluth, MN, we were able to attend the annual Rhubarb festival. It was full of live music, rhubarb bratwursts, rhubarb pie (yes, a VEGETABLE pie). Here is Rhub, he’s a nice guy filled nutritious value, good looks, and good friends.
Howdy!
On today’s adventure, we were able to meet the fabulous Nancy Schudlt. She is a kind lady who gave us an awesome tour of the Fond Du Lac Reservation, where I will be working with this summer.
This guy down here is Fred. He is a giant Sturgeon ( a native fish to Minnesota or Tiny-sota as I like to call it). Some cool facts, it takes female sturgeons 30 years to be ready to mate and 20 years for the males! CRAZY, right? Fred here is probably about 50 to 60 years old. This coming Monday, we will get to see baby sturgeons be released into the wild! Keep ya’ll posted!
Peace, Love, Tacos
-Trejo
Today we went out to the field to perform field work for our research project. The group was doing cool, science stuff, like sticking needles into bottles to help create a vacuum like area. Then out of the corner of my eye, I saw what could potentially be the love of my life. There he was, a cute, little puppy running full speed into the field. He was full of life, joy and puppy cuteness.
We did what any REU student/scientist would do. We took a 10 minute puppy break. After taking our break, we returned to do science! We had our trusty side-kick Loki (don’t worry he switched sides to become a good guy and help save the world). There were a couple of struggles with setting up the experiment, but we were able to prepare and get it started to start collecting data the next day.
Peace, Love, Tacos
-Trejo
June 11th came by a lot faster than expected. I packed up my things and headed to the great city of Minneapolis, MN. The ride was rough, my airplane hit a huge amount of turbulence, but once we passed it, I could see the great city below.
It was a hectic, but enjoyable week. We were blessed enough to spend two days with students at the Cloquet Forestry Center. We participated in helping them classify rocks, perform science experiments with the lake and enjoyed numerous, delicious, meals. After the camp experience, it was time to say goodbye.
The REU team dropped off the Duluth REU team (which is my group) in, well, Duluth. I was able to explore UMD Civil Engineering Center where my research will be happening. I must say it is AMAZING. We were given a tour of the lab and then taken to the field lab where I saw different insect species, our lab specimens and some pretty flowers.
REU on Sustainable Land and Water Resources 