Jeremy's Two Cents

Well we have been here for a little over a month and Erin has FINALLY let me write a blog!!!! jk. She has been doing a great job of keeping everybody up to date about the goings on with us, our travels and everything in the Valley. I know everybody's probably been anxiously awaiting my first entry so here it is! Let me tell you the hardest thing for me in the valley is that for some reason, nobody cares about the Buckeyes, Indians, or Browns!! Erin and I almost got kicked out the Wagon Wheel, which is La Jara's local sports bar/banquet hall/Mexican restaurant/antique shop/all around local hangout place, when we inquired about watching something besides the Broncos. But hopefully they will decide to air some Buckeyes games here soon.

Anyway, things here are going good. Contrary to popular opinion we have been working, and it hasn't been all fun and games, hiking, going to plays, cookouts etc. A little about what I have been doing here, as most of you know I am working with the Colorado Rio Grande Restoration Project. One of the things I am working on is coming up with an Acronym so it's not long to write/type.... so if you have any ideas forward them our way...or we might start calling it CRGRP. Right now I am the only full time person working on the project; we are housed in the offices of the San Luis Valley Water Conservancy District offices, where my supervisor Mike Gibson is the Manager. (See attached picture...yes that really is my desk, I expect something similar at Zande when i get back!!! :-) ) Mostly I have been keeping busy monitoring recent stream bank stabilization projects that our non-profit has helped to fund, so it has been great to get out and enjoy the river and the mountains while the weather is still pretty good. We did see some snow on some of the peaks the other day, and everybody here is telling us the weather will break any time now. Some of the things that I will be working on later include helping develop a water quality database website for the project, which I will know more of what that means after I go to training in November, and also some community education stuff...including a website...when that finally comes together we will be sure to let everyone know so they can check it out. One exciting thing is I am headed to Breckenridge for the next several days for a Colorado Watersheds conference. I am looking forward to it; it it should a be a great time learning about Colorado water issues and also meeting with people. It would be even nicer if the conference was in January, and included several days on the slopes, but I guess this will have to do. I do need to make a clarification, in one of Erin's early blogs she said that I met a U.S. Senator...that wasn't quite accurate, it was a Staff member of a U.S. Senator, and a staff member of the U.S. Representative. It is definitely true that they take there water issues seriously here, when they only get about 7 to 9 inches of precipitation a year. I have been very fortunate, the land owners that I have met have been great stewards of their land and interested in doing what is best for the river and their communities. Well that's about it from me for now, just wanted to thank you all for your prayers, I can say we really have been blessed by our time here so far and hope that we have been a blessing to the people here. I will try to blog a little sooner next time :-)