More from South Dakota!

Hey all,
Sorry for the long interval between updates! South Dakota has been going well. We had our first four day break last weekend. Becca's birthday was on our last day of work, so we hung out in the pool, had some cake, took groups tequila shots, and were able to go to bed at the ever-so-late hour of 11PM :) . People sort of split up for the break - some went home, a few people went camping, but I was looking forward to sleeping in a real bed, so I drove over the Pierre, SD and Bismarck, ND. It was probably the most boring drive of my life. For 200 mile stretches, you pass through maybe 5 or 6 towns, each of which have between 12 and 500 people apiece. Pierre was smaller than I expected - 14,000 people. I met this really sweet little old Chinese lady in a gift shop there who got into a half hour conversation with me about east coast colleges (I guess her son lives in NJ and works in a lab for Cornell Medical School). I told her about what I was doing for the summer, and she kept telling me how proud she was of me and asked about stuff for her family to do in the Badlands. She gave me a big hug before I left, giving me her business card and telling me to come back if I am ever in town again (which I probably won't be, but if I ever am, her shop will be the first place I will visit). Bismarck was actually quite nice, and much larger (around 55,000). I thought North Dakota was very pretty, and the city was cute. It has a really nice park system with walking trails, and there are actually trees there :) , so I went jogging through and explored the town. This mostly involved looking at trees, houses, and the small Dakota Zoo - Bismarck felt large, but this was a relative assessment, lol.

After returning from break, we split up some of the trucks so that now we visit different plots. I have been going to Plot 3, which is a nice change because the dogs there have fewer fleas and there have been fewer visible dead ones. I still can't get over how cute these guys are! Even when they bite you and pee on you (the latter of which happens quite frequently, unfortunately), it's hard to resist their chubby little faces. We caught an adorable little new juvenile today. A lot of the ones we are catching are recaptures, though, so we don't process them. There is a mangy one with no tail who keeps getting in on my side of the plot - I may have to move more traps soon. There is also Stump, who is missing a toe, who gets caught almost every time too. Some of them are getting sneaky with digging through the bottom to get to the bait, so we may start weighing some of the traps down.

While I am really enjoying work, I am starting to get bored of Interior. We went to the movies in Philip the other day, which was about an hour and fifteen minute drive - it should have only been about 40 minutes, but there was a complete upheaval of the road for 14 miles of construction. We had to follow a little pilot car for most of the way. At one point while we were waiting, this creepy guy with dogs in the back of his truck got out and went over to our car and asked us where we were from. Apparently he is the guy who owns the bar in Interior, and he kept asking us why we don't go there, because "us five ladies" should be visiting his bar. Our crew leader says that this guy has been known to put crap in people's drinks. Creepy! Yeah, so that would be why we never go to the bar....

Anyway, I hope everyone's summer is going well! Talk to you soon.

Erin