Oh, I'm sorry. You mean you don't go camping for your class?

This semester I took an Ecological and Wildlife Techniques course. I have to say, it was easily my favorite. The entire semester I think we were actually in the classroom a total of maybe 5-7 times? The rest of the time, we were out and about, birding or practicing radio telemetry, and well, camping.

About a month into the semester, we went to the Curlew Grasslands and camped there overnight, then woke up ridiculously early in the morning to do a bird survey. This was a pretty great trip. We brought tin foil dinners, but got our fire started late enough and then the coals didn't seem to be cooperating, so we didn't actually eat until around midnight. I think we retired to our tents around 1 or so, and had to get up by 5. But seriously, I had a great time.

While the other girls and I were getting situated in our sleeping bags (there's 8 people in our class, so all 4 girls shared a tent), we were joking around and somewhere in there was a remark about James Franco, followed by a quick voicing of opinions about him, then we moved on to something else which resulted in a laughing fit for all (honestly, I don't remember what on earth we said) and we finally went to sleep.

In the morning we split up into groups (guys, girls, professor) to do our transects. Somehow we wound up with 17 points (the most out of anyone). We actually trekked all the way to the sign for the grasslands. By which point it was long past the time that our Professor had said we should finish, but we hadn't heard anything on the radio (each group had one), so we figured we'd keep going. As we walked back to camp (a good...3 miles? or so), we lucked out by the appearance of the Game and Fish officer, who gave us a ride back. Upon our arrival we discovered that the guys had finished and been back for at least half an hour, but there was no sign of our professor, so the G&F officer went off to find him.

But I digress.

We had thought nothing of our little laugh fest from the night before, but apparently the guys thought it was a hoot. They had really been entertained. Also, we learned that we had all been out of range of the radios. Such a shame, as the guys had been making smart remarks in reference to our tent talk for a good portion of the morning. Also, they'd clearly been hard at work making sure our radio communication was aided by appropriate names. In attempting yet again to contact our absent professor, this was the radioed message, I kid you not:

"Breaker, breaker. BroCo, this is Man Clan and the James Franco Fan Club."

I just about fell off the stump I was sitting on when I heard that.

Anywho, our professor was finally found, alive and well, about two hours later and we finally piled in the vans and headed back to school (around 1pm. Btw, we were supposed to get back around 11 or so. It's a three hour trip.).

Oh! I didn't tell you my favorite part: the post-apocalyptic bathroom. Shortly after we had arrived, one of the  other girls and I ventured to the shed that was the bathroom. It was just getting dark at this point. As we approached, we saw that the door looked as though it had been boarded over, then attacked by a bear. This turned out to be the Men's side, so we went around to see if the Women's was any better. If by "better" we were looking for something that looked like it could be part of a crime scene, then yes, it was. The Women's door was not only broken in various parts, panels peeling, but was also ripped off the hinges entirely. We opted for the Men's. Truly though, it was something I could easily picture in a zombocalypse. I thought it was great.

Men's

Women's

The pictures really don't do it justice.

That was actually our only legitimate camping trip, legitimate being defined here as use of tents and questionable bathrooms. But we did stay at the school lodge in Island Park on two different occasions, once for snag survey, and once doing grids of the trees on the property.

Nice property, huh?

And the school lodge? Awesome! First of all, it was huge. So many rooms to explore (which I'm always down for).

But it gets so much better. Our professor takes us down this staircase to the basement, and under the stairs is a hole suitable for Harry Potter, so we're already off to a good start.

See?

The basement walls are lined with shelves and our professor walks over to one, pulls it, and there's a secret room! How cool is that?! But wait- we go to the back of the secret room, and THERE'S ANOTHER SECRET ROOM!!!

I don't think I can adequately express just how ridiculously cool this was for me.

Also, both of these rooms were very, well, disaster crisis-post-apocalyptic-y. I know I'm using that a lot, but it just seems fitting.