Day 25: July 2nd

We drove to Denver and made it back to New Jersey by the end of the night.

Day 24: July 1st

I decided to see a doctor. It turned out i had strep throat. At this point i couldn't even eat it hurt so bad to swollow anything. The antibiotics did the trick though.

Day 23: June 30th

We left Ely and headed for Moab. I felt a little better this day now that i was taking tylenol. Somehow i mustered up enough energy to go to Arches and do a hike to delicate arch. It was a stupid decision because i almost didn't make it. But the site was amazing. Once i got there i didn't even have enough energy to walk down to the arch for a picture. It was an experience none the less.

Day 22: June 29th

Today was probably one of the worst days of my life. We had a very long drive to Ely in Utah. I was so sick i must have had a ridiculous temperature. But the campsite was nice even though i was miserable.

Day 21: June 28th

We hung out in Reno all day. It was real nice I was starting to get sick so it gave me an opportunity to get some rest and relax in a hotel room.

Day 20: June 27th

Today ended up being long as hell. We woke up very early to have a great discussion with Bruce who helps run Hetch Hetchy. He works at a smaller dam just outside of the park. He explained the significance of the dam. It is such clean water, it doesn't ever need to be treated. This is because of the granite basin. This water is provided to San Francisco. He talked about the issues surrounding San Francisco. San Fran's population is going to increase and he has no idea where there water is going to come from. The city had already cut their water use down per person by using more efficient uses of the water. Like toilets that use less water to flush and less water pressure for showers. The dam was releasing so much water its hard to think it could be at a shortage. It was also very sad when he showed a picture of the original river valley before it was dammed, it looked very beautiful. If San Fran is in need of more water than there is no going back. After the discussion we hung out in the park for a little bit after finding out we couldn't go tubing because the water was too high. We then left for Reno which turned out to be a very long and late drive.

Day 19: June 26th

Today we headed to Yosemeti. We got to Yosemeti and hiked to the top of Vernal Falls. The park was amazing. I think it was the most beautiful place we've seen on the trip thus far. The rock faces and the water falls were spectacular. It was disappointing though because there were so many people there. There were traffic jams in the park. This was very annoying and the park should maybe considering falling in the footsteps of Zion. They could use a shuttle only policy for most of the park.



Day 18: June 25th

Today we had a tour at another dairy farm where they produce energy from methane digestors. Other farms that produce electricity from the methane given off from the waste water containing manuer will use tarps to capture the methane which is inefficient. This farmer also grows corn so any scraps from the corn can get put into the digestor. His main source is his cows manuer. The left over material is then spread on his corn fields to fertilize his crops. It seemed like a very sustainable farm. I was impressed. We stayed another night at Mike's farm

Day 17: June 24th

Today we were headed to Tait's friend's dairy farm. On our way to the farm we stopped at Altamont Pass wind farm. This is one of the oldest wind farms in the united states. Altamont pass has more wind turbines then any other wind farm in California with just under 5,000. However it doesn't produce the most electricity. It produces about 558 megawatts with a capacity of 576 megawatts and this is less than three other wind farms in California. This was an incredible site. The wind turbines went on for miles. Most of the turbines were smaller as they work at a higher capacity factor. They are much more efficient than the larger ones but you need many of them to make up for the smaller power produced by them. There is a problem with having so many small windmills and having them right in the middle of the Pacific flyway. Birds and bats are the only problem when it comes to producing wind power. At Altamont Pass, golden eagles are the victims. Any where from 75 to 110 golden eagles are killed here a year according to the Golden Gate Audobon Society. They get smacked by the blade when they swoop down to catch prey. The big turbines don't have blades as close to the ground. Now they are replacing many of the smaller turbines with larger ones. Making it less densley populated with wind turbines and less likely for mortality.

Before we got to the farm we also stopped at a living limestone cave which was neat. But after that we had gone to see gian seqoia trees in Calavarez Big Trees Park. It was an incredible experience to see all these ancient giants. These trees can live for more than 3,000 years.

Once we got to the farm we had dinner and got a tour of the dairy farm by Mike a little before midnight. I was amazed by how much feed they went through a week. Mike had 2,00 cows to feed and it must have cost him 10,000 bucks a week to feed them. According to Mike each cow eats 50 to 100 lbs of feed a day. He has a nutritionist to help him in deciding what to feed which cows. All the cows are always in a different stage when it comesto producing milk. And certain feed is best at certain stages. I found that to be very interesting. Before the tour was over some of my classmates and myself got to milk the cows which was a real cool experience.

Day 16: June 23rd

We woke up and discussed the San Louis Reservoir. This reservoir uses pump storage rather than a dam. There are two lakes. One lake is at a higher elevation than the other. As water is released from the upper lake into the lower lake, turbines are spun to produce electricity. This is an engineering idea that benefits the environment greatly. This doesn't damage any natural flowing system and is still renewable as water from the lower lake gets pumped back to the upper lake. I feel that this is the way to go when producing hydroeclectricity. I would like to see many dams replaced with this technology, as it can meet peak demands an shows very little impact on the environment. We then headed to San Francisco. I met up with my brother and enjoyed the night life of the city. The city was very clean and nice. The entire class had taken notice of this.

Day 15: June 22

We had the entire day to relax on the island. We hung out near the dock where we'd be departing from. We found lots of star fish and went swimming next to the kelp forest. The water was frigid. Once we got back we headed to San Louise Reservoir to spend the night. We drove all into the night not getting there until about 1 o'clock.

Day 14: June 21st

We started the morning on a ferry that would take us to Santa Cruz Island of the Channel Islands. The morning boat ride was as we saw a pod of dolphins. We go to the island in after a half hour and immediatly saw the infamous endangered channel islands gray fox. It is a mystery as to how the fox orgingally got to the

island but it did evolve on the islands from the gray fox. It evolved into a smaller species due to the small amount of nutrients available compared to on the main land. The island had been through a lot. The delicate ecosystem had been significantly altered due to human inhabitants. There were originally 2,000 native people living on the island, its not understood if they had any major effect on the island. I'd like to think they got all their resources from the kelp forest. It is clearly known that the European settlers in the 1800's really started to put pressure on the island. They used the island to rais herds of sheep and cattle. Some of their pigs would escape and cause substantial damage to the plant life.

The feral pigs may have been the most damaging to the endemic fox species. The pigs provided food for the rare visitor, the golden eagle. The golden eagle began populating the island thanks to DDT. DDT is a chemical used in pesticides which find their way into the food chain. When bald eagles ingest DDT their eggs have thin shells. Bald eagles are normally very territorial and scare off golden eagles. Once they were gone the eagles made the islands home feeding on the piglets. They also preyed on the fox. Just recently all sheep herding has stopped taking place, pigs have been removed, golden eagles have been captured and relocated to give a chance for the bald eagles to reclaim the islands. The bald eagles took advantage of the removal of golden eagles, they have kept the golden eagles out and has allowed for the fox population to recover with a little help of captive breeding by biologists.

Day 13: June 20th

We left Vegas and drove to Cali. We had an appointment with a professor a CSU Fullerton. The proffesor is Harmonie Hawley who is an environmental engineer. She discussed a lot about the water issues in California and touched on air quality as well. I enjoyed her talk because she talked a lot on how the state relies a lot on ground water and the Colorado River. California has more agriculture than any other state and it is in one of the driest areas. According to the book we read, California Water 55% of agriculture production comes from California.More people live in southern California than northern California as well which doesn't make a lot of sense because there is a lot more available water in the North. The state must pump large amounts of ground water which is showing signs of problems. The land is subsiding in places at unimaginable rates. She showed us a picture where a pole was placed in the ground in 1925 and now 40 feet of the pole is visible. The figures she gave were 500 production wells producing more than 250,000 acre feet a year. To solve the problem of subsiding land, California has about 1,000 spreading ponds to recharge the aquifers. I don't think the areas are enough but she didn't give exact numbers of how much water was being delivered back. The state also turns rivers into giant gutters to reduce ground seapage. Water is clearly a problem here.
The main problem is agriculture where they are using flood irigation in the desert. This causes problems for the soil. It destroys soil fertility by raising salinity levels. Before visiting here I thought maybe a good solution would be desalinating the Pacific Ocean's water because its such a huge resource. But she explained that the water is too cold so production is very inefficient. The best solution would be for people to lwave California but that clearly isn't going to happen. She also went into air pollution and the inversion that keeps the smog trapped in the L.A. area. I thought it was real cool when we left her talk because on the drive to Ventura, you could clearly see the smog everywhere and we also passed over a few of the giant gutters they call rivers.

Day 12: June 19th



We got up and headed for Vegas. Once we got past Lake Mead and entered Nevada, we looked at a solar power plant. It looked like a lake from the highway which was about 2 miles away. The plant has 180,000 mirros. These mirrors heat up pipes that have oil at a temperature of 400 degrees celsius. This hot oil decreases pressure and turns water into steam which turns the turbines to produce electricity.

The only problem this plant has on the environment is that it's situated in prime habitat for the desert tortious. The desert tortious is an endangered species. The city of Las Vegas has done a lot to help the tortious out by conserving lands containing its habitat. The city had originally planned on expanding development on the other side of the airport but had decided to preserve land instead to help attract outdoor tourists as well. As terrible for the environment that Vegas is with all the lights and using so much water in the middle of the desert, its nice to hear of them making efforts like this. The city also gives incentives for residents to find alternatives to grass lawns.

Before we made it to Vegas, we met with Amy who works as a biologist for fish and wildlife at Spring Mt. She surprised me when she explained that there were many endemic species to Spring Mt. Most of these species are plants with the only endemic fauna being a species of chipmunk. There are also a couple of rare species of butterfly. Just recently they have found evidence that may support early signs of speciation happening in one of the species of butterfly. You don't hear of this happening very often and it will be something really amazing to follow in the future. All this is happening just outside of Vegas.

Day 11: June 18th

The hike out of the grand canyon was vey interesting. Our class had to help a man's wife and kids out of the canyon and send a helicopter to take the father out. He was extremely dehydrated. We spent the night in Flagstaff at a hotel for the first time all trip. Sleeping in a bed was awesome.

Day 10: June 17th

We woke up very early to get an early start on our hike into the canyon. We took Hermit's trail into the canyon. We got to the bottom in about four hours. My knee gave out about half way down. It was terrible to deal with the injury but luckily the second half had easier terrain. It was such an awesome hike because we hiked through four different ecosystems. I gained an appreciation for what kind of hike i was enduring. At the rim we began hiking through the pine forest dominated by ponderosa pine. It was about two and a half miles into the hike where i began noticing the change in ecosystems as the pine trees were becoming less and less frequent. It was transitioning into the upper sonoran ecosystem. This environment consisted of very hardy plants. The majority of the hike was in this ecosystem, probably six or seven miles of the twelve mile hike was through the upper sonoran before it had become lower sonoran. The lower sonoran is made up of smaller and still very hardy plants which thrive in dry environments. Once we reached the creek the plants were much larger with lots of trees. This was the riparian forest.

We had half the class set up camp camp at the start of the creek and my campsite with the other half was on the beach at the river. The 2 miles to our site was like hiking through the jungle. This was very crazy because we had been hiking through desert all morning. We had the rest of the day to relax after a discussion with Patrick at our site. I was exhausted, I didn't even take notes. But I do remember talking about the natural habitat that is supposed to exist along the river and howit could be beneficial to many species. We also discussed the endangered species act. There are many endangere species which could thrive here if there were more natural beaches and less invasive species like the tamarisk. The Glen Canyon Dam is not helping this case. Patrick mentioned the mexican grey wolf could do great in the canyon but could cause controvercy with the tourists.

Day 9: June 16th

We sat through ridiculous traffic to get to Glen Canyon Dam because of road construction. Our tour guide for the dam did an excellent job in relaying the importance of the dam, the history of it, how it works, and it's effects on the environment down river. I had no idea that this dam was bigger than the hoover dam. Hoover dam is just 16 feet taller but has less concrete. He gave us many important facts an figures. He explained all the great benefits of hydroelectricity. For example no fossil fuels are burned and no emmisions are released. But what i found really interesting was that it only takes five minutes to start producing electricity as it would take a half hour for a coal plant. This is very valuable when demand spikes at peak hours.
He claimed that Lake Powell took 17 years to fill and that the lake collects 37 thousand acre feet of sediment a year. What I liked about this tour was how he kept mentioning the dam is not a "free lunch." What he means by this is athough it has no emissions and uses a renewable resource to produce power it does have effects down river. Its estimated the river needs 1 million acre feet of sediment to pass by that dam a year. And clearly the sediment is being trapped in the lake. Now they are trying to find ways where they can release water from the dam to produce artificial flooding. The natural floods that once occured revived the riparian forests and created important habitat for the fish in the river. From the book we read for the class, Restoring Colorado River Ecosystems these floodings have given a new light to the understanding of the river. The beaches that the floods create don't last forever, the river's beaches are always changing. Now with such little sedimentation the beaches last in an even shorter amount of time. This is why the floods are so important. According to the book after the dam was built just, 16% of the original amount of sand was being delivered to the beaches. Not enough to sustain these beach habitats. These beach habitats form backwaters imortant to native fish reproduction. The book mentions that high waters in the years of 1984 and 1985 showed increases in native fish populations. The relaying theme of the book is that decommisioning the dam would be the only way to recover the natural ecosystem that once existed on the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon. I agree 100% after reading the book. I think it should really be given a shot. Its our nation's most visited park and its sad to think the river that created it isn't even in its natural state. I think they should build a pump storage plant with the water they already have stored in Lake Powel. I'm no expert but i believe it could be done. Hopefully some day the dam will be decomissioned and the river can go back to its natural state.
Before we made it to the Grand Canyon we stopped at Horseshoe Bend for lunch. This place was absolutely unbelievable. It gave a great appreciation for the power of the river to carve such a spectacle into the earth's surface.

We got our campsite, ate, and then hade a discussion. Patrick explained to us how we would hike through four different habitats on our way to the bottom of the canyon. Also explaining our campsite would be on one of the few proper beaches that have formed on the river. We went to bed early to get lots of sleep for hike into the canyon in the morning.

Day 8: June 15th

We left Zion very early to make our way to a geothermal power plant. This power was produced at Blundell Plant in Utah by Pacificorp Energy. Rene Andrews, who was in charge of safety and security as well as environmental supervisor gave my half of the class a tour around the plant. The plant uses wells drilled at 1700 feet. The ground water at these depths is at 400 degrees. They use this hot water to produce steam by expanding the water. The steam spins the turbines and generates electricity. Just 18% of the water flashes to steam and so once the water is reinjected, 82% is returned to the aquifer. I would consider this very efficient. In comparison to coal plants which use a tremendous amount of water to produce energy while polluting the it on top of its pollution of the air. Steam is then produced at the plant in a second phase where brine is used to heat iso-bentene. The iso-bentene is kept in a closed system as the water and brine are returned to the ground by injection wells. They claim that their plant is one of the least regulated because of their excellent track record in keepking the injections clean and free of iso-bentene. I feel that this plant is extremely sustainable and has a minimul impact on the environment. My only concern is that the water being reinjected to the ground is at a temperature of much lower degrees than when it was taken out of the aquifer. This could cause problems in the future.
After the power plant we drove to Lake Powell. We stayed in a campsite a mile from the lake in Arizona right at the Utah border. We went for a swim in the lake when we got there which was a great time. We all decided to sleep under the stars that night. It was incredible.

Day 7: June 14th

Today completes our first week on the trip. We started the day with a discussion just a mile from Bryce Canyon. We had a discussion about Utah prarie dogs in front of a prarie dog town consisting of about 150 prarie dogs. I think they are so funny because they have lookouts that stand a top their mounds caling out alrams to the others because we were in the vacinity. There were also two pronghorn fauns laying in the grass perfectly camouflaged. Their mother must have hid them there for the night.

The prarie dogs are endangered because so many people shoot them because they are considered varmit. Prarie dogs have a natural symbiotic relationship with bison. The prarie dogs replenish the soil through digging and the bison keep the grass short enabling the prarie dogs to see predators in the distance. Prarie dogs could thrive on ranches because the cattle fill that niche the bison have left in Utah as there are no longer wild bison in the praries of Utah. With proper education for ranchers they could set up a system to benefit ranchers with the prarie dogs on their land. 

We left the prarie dog town and headed to Zion. Zion was a short drive not longer than an hour from Bryce. The park was amazing and once again there were way too many people. We did Angel's Landing, a very neat hike. The trail was tretcherous but it made for a great experience. We had to hold on to chain linked railings on parts of the hike because of the dangers of falling to our deaths. The risk was worth it. the view from the top was awesome.

When we got back to the bottom we discussed how the park is very "green." It is the most environmentally friendly operated park in the US. Their buildings were energy efficient with solar chimneys and they use a unique shuttle service. Their visitor center uses  windows as natural lighting and natural ventilation to cool and heat the building. There are parts of the park that you can only access by using the shuttle. This decreases emissions tremendously and prevents the more touristy people from crowding the more scenic challenging hikes. A lot of people like to do parts of hikes but this may prevent them from even bothering to attempt it. Before the day ended we tested the currents of the Virgin River that runs through th park. It was a lot of fun. Some of the lighter weighing girls got swept off by the currents. It gave us a little scare but all and all they were fine making it kind of funny. The water felt amazing after the strenuous hike.

Day 6: June 13th

Our day consisted of a lot of driving. We left Antelope Island for Bryce Canyon. We drove close to seven hours. At this point were used to long drives, so seven hours is really nothing at this point. We entertain ourselves enough to make the rides seem shorter. Sleeping helps as well.

We got to our campsite first which was about 35 minutes from the canyon. The campsite was 15 minutes down a bumpy dirt road where we had the entire site to ourselves. We did a three mile hike in the canyon. There were people everywhere, it kind of took the experience away a bit. But I told myself to ignore the croud and appreciate the spectacular geology. I got some great pictures, the sky was amazing on this day, making for an awesome background behind the red rock of the hoodoos (hoodoos are the eroded rocks that you can see in the picture). Hoodoos are made of stone more resistant to the weathering than the surrounding sedimentary rock. The size of the canyon wasn't too impressive, but its beauty sure made up what it lacked in size.

After the hike we got to take showers and do laundry. It was very relieving. I ran out of clean clothes a couple days earlier. The laundry took a while so we had gotten back to the campsite kind of late. I was shocked by how cold it had gotten after the sun set. It was one of the coldest nights so far and it was 90 degrees earlier.

Day 5: June 12th

We left Flamming Gorge and headed to Great Salt Lake. The drive wasn't bad, it was close to four hours and we cut through the busy city of Salt Lake. When we got to our camp site on Antelope Island at Salt Lake State Park I was shocked to see bison. Apparently they reintroduced the bison to attract tourists. There are between 500 and 700 on the island. The population is kept in check so the island isn't overgrazed by the population. The camp site had a beautiful view of the lake with lots of wildlife in near site. The only problem were the insects but once the winds picked up they seemed to go away. While we went on a short hike we were attacked by mosquitos and gnats. I got to within fourty yards of bison and probably even closer to a coyote. After dinner about 12 of us decided to on a late night excursion. We walked through the meadows, the brush, the bogs with think reeds, and a beach 10x wider than Wildwood's beach to get to the salty water. We rolled our pants up and walked about a mile into the lake until the water finally began to get a little deeper. Someswam out, I decided to walk back to the beach. A classmate and I drew an enormous figure in the sand which we hoped we'd be able to see form the campsite. It didn't seem to be large enough but if one knew what they were looking for they could see it. We ended the night with sitting by the fire.

Day 4: June 11th

The day's events consisted of us traveling through three states. We began our day very early, just before the sun had come up. We broke out tents down around 5 a.m. We were headed Northwest for Utah. To get there we took Trail Ridge Road, which is the highest continuous roadway in all of North America. At the highest point on Mt. Evans we were well above the tree line in alpine tundra. Its funny to find yourself in the tundra after being in the valley just hours earlier where temperatures were in the upper 60s. Patrick explained to us how the disruptive elk are pushing higher in elevation every year closer and closer to this ecosystem. And sure enough i saw an elk laying behind a rock just a few hundred feet from the very top. How and why it was up there baffles me.

My favorite part of the day was when we were at the end of trail ridge road. We stopped in to see La Poudre Pass. This is the very start of the Colorado River starting right at the continental divide. It was so cool to watch this water flow by knowing that it originated in the snow peaks of the mountains in the distance which we just drove through and ends up in the Gulf of California becoming a part of the Pacific Ocean. What I loved most about this spot was the wildlife. There was a moose, a small elk herd, and a coyote. All three species were within 25 yards of each other, it was an amazing experience.

Eventually we drove through foot hills. We stopped at Lake Grand which was the largest natural lake in Colorado. It was huge but it seemed the water level had dropped significantly . A couple hours later we were in Utah and it became a little more dry and more wild as there was less farmland. I saw lots of mule deer and a some pronghorne. We eventually drove into Wyoming for about 10 minutes. Making it three states in one day. Our campsite was great, right on Flamming Gorge in Utah just at the border of Wyoming. About 8 of us decided to go for a swim because we hadn't showered yet on the trip (even though there were showers at this site). The water was frigid. We skipped rocks for like an hour. Took a shower, watched the sun set and called it a night. The sunset was awesome.

It was hard to believe we saw everything that we did in this one day. Probably the craziest day of my life.

Day 3: June 10th

Today we did our first significant hike. We hiked about 7 miles to Cub Lake in Rocky Mountains National Park. The hike was great, it was my first opportunity to take some great pictures with my new camera. It also was the first time i had ever been out in the wilderness in the West and it was great to know i had much more of it ahead of me with it only being the third day of the trip. During the hike Patrick discussed the wildlife in the park. We learned about the problem with controlled burning in fire management. I had no idea but natual fires don't burn as hot so they are less damaging. According to Patrick most of the landscape in the park was in fact unnatural. This was largely due to poor fire management and an overpopulated elk herd. Many of the forest was too dense with ponderosa pine bringing stress to the trees and causing them to be more vulnerable to pine beatles. The pine beatle damage was evident all throughout the park as well as the elk damage.

 The forests in the park should have been more balanced between aspen and ponderosa pine. But clearly from what I saw it was unbalanced. There were a lot more pine than aspen. The elk feed on young aspen but not the young pine saplings. The park had fenced off areas to deter elk from eating young tree saplings. The fenced off areas were full of aspen stands but just outside the fence was nothing but grass, this gave me a great appreciation of the balance in ecology. Elk populations are high because of a lack of predators. There were once wolves in the park that kept these populations in check. There were also once beavers in the valley but the elk have eaten all the young willows which grow along streams and provide timber for the beaver to build dams. Now there are a shortage of wetlands in the valley, an important habitat for many bird species. Much of the stream was fenced off as well to encourage willow growth, so the possibility of beaver can be reintroduced. The picture shows a great example of the way the valley's streams should look. This was thanks to a fence around the stream. The politics of the park are getting in the way of solving this problem. If hunters were aloud to come in and cure the population, damage could be kept at a minimum. But the park doesn't want tourists to see them being hunted in park boundaries.

We stopped on our hike to talk about the Endangred Species Act. We discussed two species in particular, the lynx and the wolverine. There is prime habitat at the snow capped mountain tops of the Rockies. The wolverine prefers tundra like conditions. Skiing is a huge part of Colorado's tourism and this has effects on the wolverine who is only found in snow and it even has effects on the lynx. Skiing requires places for skiiers to stay, so it is very popular to stay in fancy mountain resorts. Patrick told us the story of the reintroduction of the lynx to Colorado's Rockies. A resort wanted to expand tremendously on the other face if the mountain they were occupying. There location they wanted to expand at was prime habitat for the lynx. The resorts didn't see how this was at all fair due to the fact that fish and wildlife introduced the species. So the resorts decided to pay off the fish and wildlife to reintroduce even more animals so they would be no longer in danger of becoming extinct. This would then allow for them to expand their resort. This was an example of the complexity of the Endangred Species Act and the controvercy it causes. I think it is a great act as it does give full protection to species and I believe it is saving many species regardless of its loopholes. Every law in this country has it's downsides and loopholes.

Day 2: June 9th

Today we visited the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL)  in Boulder. We discussed wind and solar in great detail and touched on energy efficient buildings and biofuels. I was shocked by the size of the largest wind turbines. The 3.0 megawatt turbines have blades as long as football fields. and they aren't the largest. She was mentioning how the Dakota's have great wind potential but the only problem there is mineral rights. All the land is already bought up for possible extraction of minerals in the future. So they have trouble finding areas to build wind farms. NREL provides a map of the United States that shows areas with wind potential . You can see that the Dakotas have great potential and also that New Jersey has excellent potential off shore. She also mentioned this and the debate happening in New Jersey over it.

She brought up the point of migratory birds but she believes the birds wouldn't be affected to greatly. And the other topic of debate is that the turbines may disrupt the view of the ocean from the beach. But she mentions that the turbines would be so far out in the ocean people wouldn't even be able to notice they were there. This shows on the map, the further off the coast the better the winds are for turbines. I defintly believe power will be produced more and more by wind in the future because according to the speaker, the technology is growing at a tremendous rate. I also found it interesting when she was explaining that the scientists at the lab come up with ideas by accident. Many energy efficient building designs they have come up with, they have come up by accident through experimentation for other proposed designs.
After our visit at the NREL we drove to a library where we would discuss water resources of the west. Our speaker was Karen from Western Resource Advocates. She is a lawyer who specialized in water rights. She shocked the class when she told us the seriousness of laws invloving water rights. There are serious fines and even jailtime in some cases. Water is scarce in the West and taken extremely serious. I learned that many of the laws are from the early 1800s and are very unfair today. For instance water rights only acknowlegde the people with the rights. If one has the rights to the water they can do whatever they wish with it, they can dam it and prevent it from flowing anywhere. This leaves people with no water rights in a hard spot and they have to be careful with what they do with flowing water. I really enjoyed her discussion because she touched so much on the restoration of the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon. She had a lot to say and was highly acurate with what is happening to the ecosystems in the portion of the river thanks to the damming at Lake Powell by Glenn Canyon Dam. Everything she touched on about the river's troubled ecosystem was mentioned in the book we read prior to the trip. We read Restoring Colorado River Ecosystems by  Robert W. Adler and I really enjoyed this book. I thought it was very thorough and gave a great sense of what is happening to the river. This speaker was excellent because of how concise her lecture was and again how the class could relate a book that we read to her talk.

The day wasn't over yet after Karen's talk. We stopped in Boulder to take a look around before we made it back to the campsite. Patrick Hossay (Stockton professor that was with us for the first week and a half) discussed the development of the city of Boulder. He explained how the city has become much nicer after its redevelopment. The city turned their industrial area into a tourist attraction. It is now a nice downtown area with shops and restaurants that are set off from the roads to encourage walking or the use of bikes over driving. I fell in love with the downtown area and we were only there for a half hour. I wish more towns decided to take this approach for their downtown area.

Day 1: June 8, 2011

The day was filled with traveling. We flew into Denver's airport around noon and waited to get picked up by the convoy until about 3. We were rollin deep with a suburban and two 15 passenger vans. Once we got into the van it truely set it, my van was great. I'm very satisfied with the people in it not to say any other combination of people wouldn't work, the entire class is cool. So we drove through the prarie with the rocky mountains in the background. This was getting me so pumped for the rest of our trip to come. I hadn't ever seen scenery like this before. Eventualy we began driving into the mountains into some elevation, we were all silent. Then the chaperon Dave asked, "are you guys tired or just takin in the scenary?" The moment we arrived at our campsite I saw with a doubt the most beautiful site of my life. It was the sun setting behind the rockies. We took some pics and then hurried to set up camp before it got too dark to see. Once we were set up we had our discussion on energy as tomorrow we will be getting a tour at National Renewable Energy Lab in Boulder. Right as we finished the discussion the rain began and a nasty storm hit in the middle of the night.