Saloon Wenching in the Southwest
I moved!
Dear Friends of the Universe,
After almost a year spent in Vienna, Austria, I moved back to the U.S. to one of my favorite places, Southern Colorado, in the four corners region. I decided I really needed to prioritize my need for the mountains and the desert, and all the fun funky people living there. After a crazy summer working for Nat Geo student expeditions, where I took students on a archaeology focused trip through Greece and Italy, getting a really bad ear infection, and spending some time in the hospital in Italy, Austria, Germany, and Romania, all I wanted to do was to ground myself somewhere.
I landed in Silverton, Colorado, a town of about 600 people, with secret prostitute tunnels running underneath, a very funny graveyard, and a lot of gold mining history, where I currently occasionally work as a saloon wench, (and there’s more drama I’ve seen since middle school.)
At the end of September I had the privilege of attending the Jackson Wild Summit as a Jackson Wild Media Fellow. 15 Filmmakers, Journalists, and Science Communicators from all over the world came together to learn from the folks at DaysEdge Production Company on how to shoot a film in five days and how to be better science communicators. We were assigned a ‘client’ and had to make a film about frogs in Jackson, WY in 5 days and present to a whole crowd. We didn’t sleep much but we learned a LOT. You can see our films we made here!
After I returned I had a little time I could spend with the aspens, I worked a little at the saloon and immediately went on three amazing assignments for The New York Times.
I met up with reporter Henry Fountain, who is based in Albuquerque to cover the production and construction of a new Hydrogen facility going in next to a coal power plant in Delta, UT. The coal plant is situated on the edge of the Great Basin, and sends most of it’s energy to California. According to the state's Energy Commission, California is expected to end all coal-powered energy imports by 2026, which is why they’re building this facility. What makes Delta, UT unique for the hydrogen facility is the geology. There is a massive salt dome 1400 feet underground that we were told is the size of the empire state building, and can house energy seasonally.
After returning home to Silverton, working at the saloon, enjoying the aspens again, and building out my Subaru, I went off on another two assignments for The New York Times in New Mexico and Arizona.
I drove to Chaco Canyon in New Mexico the day before the annular eclipse to plan out where the sun might be in relation to the Ancestral Puebloan ruins. I did so much research into the architecture of the site and how it was built with the sun, moon, solstices, and eclipses in mind. This was the coolest structure I found in my Chaco Canyon cosmos research. I set off to find a petroglyph of what scientists believe to be a depiction of the eclipse. I arrived midday and pulled off on the side of the road, to start searching for the petroglyph and I immediately got a ticket for parking on the side of the road. Dave Phillips, a New York Times reporter based in Colorado Springs, was a great co-conspirator and dirt bag after my own heart. We went to a meeting with the park service the day before, where they explained they had limited parking and were only going to let in the first 200 cars. We couldn’t risk not getting in, and didn’t know how many RV-ers were going to try for the 1AM breakthrough, so we woke up at 3:30 AM and just chatted in the car until sunrise around 7AM when they started letting cars in. The ring of fire happened around 10:38 and we were all wrapped up and filed by 12. You can read Dave’s story here!
Right after my Chaco Canyon desert excursion where we slept near some very aggressive cows, I headed straight to Arizona to work on another story for The New York Times about renewable energy and how its affecting animal migration with biodiversity reporter Catrin Einhorn. We met with Jeff Gagnon, a Research Biologist with Arizona Game and Fish Department, who took me to watch what they call “Muggers” or ex-rodeo folks who shoot a net gun at antelope and deer from a helicopter in order to capture them, wrangle them to the ground, and put a tracking collar on them. What a WILD job that must be.
The hydrogen and migration stories are not out yet but if you follow me on Instagram I’ll be sure to update you’ll when the stories come out! Thanks for tuning in and I’ll try and send one update per month. Big thanks to all the subscribers willingly becoming paid subscribers! I really appreciate it <3
Books I’m reading
Greta Thunberg: THE CLIMATE BOOK
Ocean Vuong: ON EARTH WE’RE BRIEFLY GORGEOUS
Frantz Fanon: THE WRETCHED OF THE EARTH
Eyal Weizman: HOLLOW LAND, Israel’s architecture of Occupation
Lisa See: ISLAND OF SEA WOMEN
Movies/Videos:
Hey Nina, good to hear from you here. Glad you're back on this side of the pond for a while. Was that you in the sasquatch suit near the railroad?