This week has been a busy and diverse one, one that has had me going to some slow moments of orientational overviews, instructions and introductions, but has also had its share of excitement, from canoe tourguiding on Wednesday to sea turtle training on Friday. The whole week has been orientation activity, a lot of diverse training for various jobs we’ll be doing over the summer. Monday was just introductions, paperwork, tours and videos, Tuesday was some more touring and assignment of uniforms, but Wednesday was the day we (helped) lead a canoe tour. A park employee led the expedition and made most of the talking points, just to show us how to go about it. Later on me and Mike will lead it ourselves. I anticipate some interesting topics I might bring up on the tour, but I’m mainly sticking to the “script” they gave us. I’ll be sure and talk about frogs some, though. I know my frogs, and you’ll hear a lot of them on alligator river. It doesn’t matter if it’s a green treefrog, a grey treefrog or a squirrel treefrog, I’ll point it out for you. Other frogs though, you’re on your own. But that’s really about all you hear around here, so we’re covered. I remembered to apply sunblock for my arms, face and neck, but forgot it on the next most important area when you’re in a canoe… the inside of the legs and the top of the feet. End of the tour I looked like I had just won an Indian leg wrestling match with the entire Lakota-Sioux nation. Which was perfect, because Thursday was all-day ATV training. I’ll admit I really don’t care too much for those four-fendered mud-raping crotch rockets, but we will be using them a lot this summer on sea turtle patrols, so we had to get trained and certified. Well, after what felt like twelve hours of cutting muddy circles in a grass field, squashing orange cones willy-nilly and trying not to laugh at the frantic gesticular commands given out by our instructor, who was trying to tell us over the roar of our engines when to stop and turn some way or another, we earned an official ATV safety commission riding certification. Yay! It should arrive in the mail by the time our asses stop vibrating.