Staying Busy

Holy smokes have I been busy! I think the lack of sleep lately has been starting to catch up with me as well - believe it or not.

Last week I thought I was going to have a pretty slow week. As it turned out, that wasn't the case. Work had initially started the week planning on drilling a couple observation wells during the week, but due to a my boss having a death in the family we had to reschedule for this week. So instead of sitting at work all week with nothing to do, I went on a tour of the Nebraska Panhandle to explore the North Platte River and the irrigation districts which are diverted from the river.

If you thought that was a simple process - like I did - then let me tell you right now... YOU'RE WRONG! For the past week in the Kearney Hub the reporter that went with us on the tour has been running several articles featuring issues from the tour and they are not quick reads either. Water is big news! I could probably write a short book from everything I learned in three days, but I won't get into the details of the tour - how about the highlights!

The first day of the tour we drove from Holdrege to Scottsfluff - we found ourselves atop Scottsbluff National Monument by mid afternoon and enjoyed the views from above, even though the wind was a smidgen too cool. In the mean time we were viewing diversion dams on the North Platte River before hitting up a steak house for the evening in Scottsbluff.

Day two was nearly an information overload - but in a good way. We spent the entire morning viewing irrigation canals and learning the geography of the area. We drove from Scottsbluff to Bridgeport and then had a presentation at the community hall about supplying water from Wyoming reservoirs to Nebraska irrigation canals and understanding the complexity of the situation - especially in the current drought conditions. On our way back to Scottsbluff we did some more touring of the irrigation canal systems and made a stop at Chimney Rock - probably one of my favorite places to visit when it comes to Nebraska landmarks - mostly because of its history. We dined at another steakhouse in Gering and then retired for the night, all-the-while still dazed from everything we had heard from the day.

Our third and final day was capped off with a stop at Kingsley Dam overlook on our way back to Holdrege.Although the water level is looking dam low (pun intended) it is looking slightly better than last year, but only slightly. After three days cramped on the tour bus I think everyone was happy to be back home, but very happy to have taken a tour of the panhandle and understand the issues with the river water these days.

This week at work was a busy one as well. We drilled wells on Tuesday and Thursday - not stopping for lunch and every five feet we take core samples of the underlying geology. When you drill down 300+ feet that can become a real long day!

On top of work being busy this week, I made it to some basketball games on the evenings. The NCAA Division II Womens Basketball Championships are in town this week and those have been great to watch. Wednesday night the final game went to double overtime and finally ended around 11:00 p.m.. The Thursday night games were even better, those were the semi-finals, and I made it home around 11:45 last night. Needless to say, after I finally made it to bed around 1:00 a.m. I was a little unhappy when my alarm went off this morning at 6:45.

Yet, I have made it through the week and I am ready for the weekend! OH! I forgot to mention in my 'spare time' I have been doing a lot of apartment browsing and I think we might finally have something narrowed down. So hopefully we will have somewhere to move into when I move Laura back. I will be leaving for Montana next week for our final move... A little sad, but we can always take vacations and go back. We will just be happy to be closer to family and friends again more than anything.

That will do it for now. Until again

-=Nolan=-

Rylan's Rare Goose

Well, in case you missed it. Rylan got himself a rare snow goose last week. Actually, it's a Blue Phase Ross' Goose. Most snow geese have a blue phase where they are more of a gray color than white, but a Ross' goose does not, and they are often much smaller than a snow goose. If you didn't know what to look for then you might overlook the Blue Phase Ross' Goose all together. We went out hunting a little this weekend, but mostly just watched the geese fly around and never managed to get a shot off on Sunday. Rylan did bag about 45 geese on Saturday while I slept in and caught up on sleep.

Work has been going well. I have been out in the fields doing some work and learning the details of my job. Mostly I have found that 4 wheel drive is about the best thing for driving across cornrows in muddy fields! What a bumpy ride that is! As you can imagine, my work truck has become quite dirty in the past several weeks, and I will be out in it again this Thursday and Friday for another great ride around the district to check on irrigation wells.

Laura has been keeping me up to date on her situation in Missoula. She will be defending her Masters thesis on April 4 and then we will be moving to Kearney the next weekend, April 12. It's hard to believe I have already been with my new job for two months now! Time has really gone fast, but thankfully, under the circumstances, that is the best way to get through this time.

Believe it or not, that's about all the news I have from my little world. I have been keeping as busy as possible with work and occasionally I try to go for a run in the evening - although I have been doing a pathetic job the past week. On Sundays I have started throwing the frisbee around to try to spark some interest in getting a better Ultimate Frisbee crowd around the Kearney area, but it will be a long time before we see must ground made. Oh well, I enjoy throwing the frisbee around and getting out to enjoy the outdoors regardless.

To wrap things up, I should mention that Rylan's goose was featured on the local news on Sunday evenings "The Outdoors Files. Kent does a nice job of explaining why the goose is so rare.



Until again

-=Nolan=-