Heidi's mini trip

I had the opportunity to travel to Yosemite this past weekend with 150 first-year students as part of our FYE program. This is the first year we did a "Taste of Yosemite" and I think it was pretty successful. Students were able to service projects in Yosemite and explore the park a little. Here are a few pictures from my trip:

Above is a picture of El Capitan and Half Dome. Right before I took this picture I saw a couple of bears running through the brush. It was pretty cool!

The first night there we had a campfire and some of the student staff members and I did a skit of the Lorax by Dr. Seuss. The photo above is of the group that I was a co-leader of.
My group's service project was to measure some of the giant sequoias in Tuolumne Grove. We camped at Crane Flats and walked a little over 2 miles until we found tree number 27 - our tree! I supervised a sub-group within our group to take the BHD (breast height diameter). I learned a few things about the sequoias that day and I heart 27 :-)
After the measurements were taken we walked through the grove to see some other sites. Our first stop was at Dead Fred (above). It is a giant sequoia that fell over a while ago and when it fell, it was hollow inside. We were able to crawl through the tree and had a great time. We then walked to the tree tunnel (below). It was carved out in 1886 to encourage visitors to go to the park. The neat thing about this tree is that they have no idea what happened to the top of the tree!
We then walked a few more miles to the fire station lookout. We were able to visit with the fire fighters and ask them questions about their jobs. Below is a picture of the helicopter dropping off some of the fire fighters who had been working on a small fire in the park.

I had a great time and I can't wait to go back to Yosemite again. It is one of my favorite places!

In other news, life is busy. I have class on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday nights. The rest of my days are spent in meetings for the most part! I supervise 4 graduate students, who supervise 22 RAs, who are responsible for around 700 residents in 10 buildings known as the Quads. I love the position, but it is hard to stay on top of homework and everything else. I just hired an assistant, so hopefully life will get a little easier! Our weekends are spent watching football. There is a 5k run this weekend that Jeff is running and I haven't decided yet. No official adventures planned as of now, but we are working on it! We are excited for people to come and visit though!