Kat Stats

Today is the last day of this crazy term and I'm doing a little reflecting on the past three months.
Since I had to spend two days a week in Corvallis (three hours away from home) for class, and some time in Newport (two hours away from home) for lab work, and work the remaining days (Friday-Monday) in Coos Bay (home) for work, my plan for the week was to camp in Newport and drive to Corvallis for class (one hour), then complete lab and library research with the remainder of Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. Good plan, right?

Camping mostly took place in the bed of my canopy covered pickup. This was not a perfect solution as it seems to drip pretty badly when the rain hits it just right. A couple times all my stuff ended up soaked, but eventually the rain turned to spring drizzle and the leak wasn't problematic.

This is my home away from home during the week. I had Anna  (seen hogging the bed) with me a couple weeks , but mostly she was babysat by my mom and my sister.

This is the bones of the back of the truck before it got all filled with stuff.  Note the house plants, they added the nice homey touch. 

I camped at The Newport Marine RV park which has dry camping for $17 a night. Bonus, you get to camp in the parking lot of the brewery! Also, they have night security (an important consideration, since I haven't installed locks on my canopy and usually was without Anna).

Another bonus! This was my view most nights! 

I was able to cut down on the total number of nights I camped by getting up at 4:15 am and driving to Corvallis for class. All total, I camped in Newport 16 nights ($270). I managed to squeeze a couple free nights of camping in at Quartzville Recreation areas during a couple of days I took off work to hang with Eric. Also, Hope was a trouper of a friend and let me stay on her recliner for a few nights, and even provided me with a dryer on one of the rainy days with a bad leak.

One of the nights camping around Quartzville, it was raining pretty hard this time, and we had to devise a way to keep the fire from flooding out, since cooking food and eating food was about the only thing we did. 

The total amount of drive time I dedicated to this venture was a solid 10 hours a week. This is 10 hours that I never counted as work time, but if I would have got paid, I would have made a total of $1,395 over the course of the term.

My truck gets a decent 26 mpg, but I spent a total of $365.45 on gas (this excludes gas used for personal transportation or miles incurred during field work; I get reimbursed for field work miles).

You might get the impression that I am a little obsessed with time and money and you would be right. The main reason I keep track of this stuff is so I can console myself when I don't get as much done as I plan to do (I never get as much done as I plan to) or have any money in the bank before I get my next paycheck (I never have any money in the bank before I  get paid). And so I know I'm working hard,  but also remember that I had a lot of fun while doing it!

Seriously, how fun is Anna to hang out with!? She loves to climb on stuff.

One of my favorite pictures of Anna during one of our adventures. 

 And this view never ever got old.

How can you not love that bridge!?

Since I'm so obsessed with money in this post, I should point out that I got a $1,000 scholarship this term too! Ultimately I accomplished a lot, and finished the last class I had to take toward my degree. Just a thesis and a defense and I am done... ETA of graduation... loosely sometime this fall.