Finished processing the available grids and almost completed my paper. Cool thing is that in the first grid several unmarked graves were found. More will be said on that in my paper and on my poster. Worked on my tiny house some as well. We got the lofts in, the house wrapped, and most of the roof on. Cant wait for the shell to be complete to start working on the inside. This internship is challenging in a way because I have had to learn to balance my family life with what was required of me in my research.

Well this week I got a lot of writing done. On Monday went out and met with a guy from NASA who is the Chief Pilot, Autonomous Aerial Systems at the University of Montana, he brought a drone out and did some thermal and RBG scans over the cemetery. He said he would send me the data after he processed it to help with my comparison. Tuesday tried to go back out to do more gpr scans but we had a series of storms roll through so ended up just heading back home and working on my paper. I have not done a lot of analysis yet as I am waiting to have all the data collected but yesterday I did a sneak peak at one of the grids to show Carl what we are looking for. So here is a sneak peak for yall.

This week we started off by setting up the grids Carl will need and getting him trained on how to run the GSSI unit. Monday saw us having 3 grids where we were collecting data, tried to do a 4th grid but the units battery died on us half way through the scans. Found out once I got home that I got sun burnt on one side of my body to include a portion of my face. Tuesday saw 3 more grids done taking us to having half the cemetery mapped. Called it early because the sun was starting to get strong and we were feeling it on our burns. Carl also took a shot at setting up the system to run the scans. This coming Thursday is the meeting with the tribal council to get permission to start my project. Excited!!!

This week I figured out what my research topic is going to be and went out to one of the sites to see what all needed to be done. Got to the Frenchtown site on Sunday and it was over grown with lots of gopher holes everywhere. Tony and I both tripped because of them. We then started taking measurements and realized we were going to have to do it all over again when we got everything cleared. Also found out that the map we had only went half way through the cemetery and so we spent some time figuring out what went where and free hand drawing it in. Monday we went back to the site with Tony’s lawnmower and while he mowed we checked ahead for hidden foot stones. Tony got his mower stuck in a gopher hole and we had to push him out. He finished mowing just before the rain hit. Tuesday I started my paper and I am currently over 1300 words in just on the history of ground penetrating radar, site description, and methods. I know its a work in progress and will be revised again and again but its good to get a jump on everything. Going forward I guess my next goal is getting permission from the tribal council to do my research on the Flathead Indian Reservation (FIR) and help Carl get his grid set up and data collecting started.

So to start this blog…. The 2019 REU orientation was different from the one I attended back in 2016 and I am happy it was held in my favorite park, Glacier. Monday of the orientation was a little rough as we sat in a classroom most of the day, I am an outdoor girl so I find classrooms stifling to say the least. For me, it was pretty much a repeat from what I can remember so I rather not linger on that part. I really enjoyed the talk held by Tabitha Graves from the USGS on the grizzly bear, that is one of my favorite animals to study. Some of what she said I had learned about in my Ecology class. The little classes held by the Glacier Institute there was okay, they just seemed pretty much geared to a younger crowd though, not really something for non traditional students in college, more like K-12. One thing that bothered me was the fact that when the Glacier Institute instructors did the walks, they would get so far ahead that I was constantly left behind, but I really appreciated my fellow interns who stayed behind to walked with me, and I made sure I had my bear spray on my hip everywhere I went. Two of the days in the early morning hours a group of us went exploring the park before classes and some of my photos will reflect this as they were taken in the light of dawn. On the last day I drove another intern over to the Saint Marys side of the park to see the contrasting beauty of the park from east to west, as well as the disappearing glaciers. This is something that hit home as I was a Geology major before moving to Montana and he is a current Geology major. So for this post only I will load y’all down with pictures of the orientation week. Photography is my hobby so enjoy.