North Carolina

Well, I've been in North Carolina for almost two weeks now. I had no idea what to expect coming here, but I've come to really enjoy it here. I've been working hard at mapping noxious and invasive species of weeds here on the refuge, and have been enjoying myself whenever I haven't been working. I've discovered that the beach is the best place to be when its 90+ degrees and humid and that it makes for a very good break after wading through thick vegetation all day. Luckily quite a bit of what we've worked on mapping here has been in the farm fields and along canals and ditch lines, as well as on river banks. After finishing most all of the farm fields here we took canoes and canoed the creek here to map alligatorweed, so it was a nice break from hiking through the fields.

The beach has been fun after work, I've enjoyed wading out and playing in the waves, and tried body boarding, although it is rather challenging. I bought a kite and have enjoyed flying it on the beach. We went to a kite festival that was here as well, there was a kite the size and shape of a blue whale! it was pretty amazing to look at. We also drove down the outer banks and took a ferry out to an island called Ocracoke Island. It had the best beach I've been to so far.

This weekend after working our 40 hours, we drove up to Washington DC to check out our nations capitol. I saw the constitution and the declaration of independence, and toured around several museums and art galleries as well as seeing capitol hill. I also made a trip to the DC temple, it looks like a fortress and is really beautiful inside.

Its been pretty fun being out here in North Carolina staying in a beach house, and I would definitely come back to the East Coast again.