Chicago Botanical Gardens

After my super FUN experience trying to leave Alaska I made it to Chicago. I actually have a theory about that see if you agree. So people are constantly telling me about people they know who have went to Alaska for a trip and just have stayed because they liked it so much. It is because they like it so much it is because Alaska wouldn't let them leave! Haha ok maybe not, back to my trip to the gardens.

The entire reason I went to Chicago in the first place is because there was a training for my internship. Since the internship is through the Chicago Botanical Gardens that is where they host the training. The people from the Botanical Gardens came and picked up a group of us interns at the airport a little bit after my flight got in and brought us to the hotel.

When the training started up on Monday they went through a little bit about the stats of who got the internships and what government agencies people were working for. So I was the only National Parks service intern, there were about 3 non-profits, and the rest were Bureau of Land Management (BLM) people, so most of the training sessions were sort of geared towards them. Oh well now I know more about the BLM plus I got a free trip to the Chicago area for awhile. We did some sessions on

seed collection, plant taxonomy, how to conduct plant surveys, etc. Most of the people there were plant biology majors. When we did some work on identification I felt pretty knowledgeable because I already knew most of the plant (including their latin spelling) while the other people were trying to key out the plant, thank you Michigan State Horticulture
 : )

The botanical gardens are about an hour or so north of downtown Chicago, so I didn't go downtown because the lagistics of getting there and around were not really worth the effort. Plus my internal clock was still on Alaska time (3 hours behind) so I wasn't the most alert of people all of the time, especially after spending most of the training days sitting inside with PowerPoint training sessions. But I did get to explore the Chicago Botanical Gardens a lot, I would definitly recommend people stop there for a visit if you are in the area. For one it is free to the public, also there are a lot of really cool landscapes and sites throughout the gardens.

 My trip back to Alaska was far less eventful than my trip from Alaska. There were no major problems I just sort of had a long day of flying and waiting. Although, there was this really annoying drinking fountain in the Seattle airport that someone had installed with a speaker that made amplified running water sounds along with a 'kurplunk' sound whenever someone used it. It was fine for the first half hour but 3 hours later I was about to pull the stupid thing out of the wall and go on the hunt for its inventor. There was a name on a plague by it, this David fellow is on my list.

After getting into Anchorage it was getting late so I slept at a hotel. The next day a few of my friends from boxtown were heading through Anchorage and they were able to drop me off at my car with its newly installed alternator and battery. Thank you so much Jarrod from Victory Bible Camp you are awesome!