Utah-ing. The beginning of an internship.

WOW - It's been a while since my last blog post. You might have noticed that I've been pretty absent on social media and the internet in general for the past couple of weeks (until my recent massive uploading of photos). That was at first due to the fact that I was up in Colorado without any internet. It was glorious. And it was beautiful. And then I hit the road just a few days after getting back from out west to head west yet again.

Let me just give you a brief update. From taking a day trip up to Wyoming to having a snowball fight in the Rockies, the Colorado trip was all around fun. Immediately after, Lauren had orientation, so we left for Athens on Sunday and finished up Tuesday afternoon. I had just two days to pack up, load the car, and leave for Utah. The trip out was long...especially after getting stuck for 2 hours in wreck traffic the first day.

So, why am I in Utah, you might be asking. Well, good question. I'm doing a five week internship at Best Friends - an animal sanctuary located in Kanab. Kanab is a little town on the Utah-Arizona border that is absolutely beautiful. Best Friends is located in Kanab Canyon - renamed Angel Canyon by the founders. 

I had driven through the town of Kanab four years ago with my family on a cross-country road trip, so I knew what to expect of the town. However, the day of orientation was my first day setting foot on the sanctuary. It was a lot bigger / more spread out than I was expecting. Throughout this first week, however, I have found my way around and have begun to love the canyon, the sanctuary, and even the little town of Kanab. 

In my internship, I rotate weekly from one area to another. This past week (as you can tell if you've been keeping up with my pics on Facebook), I was with pigs. I'd never had the chance to work with potbellied pigs before, so that was a new one for me. I was in charge of tasks like food prep, some medical assistance, volunteers, walking the pigs, pen cleaning, watering the pigs, and feeding. I really enjoyed getting to know the personality of the pigs and working with a new set of volunteers each day. The volunteers we all unique (and from all over) and many of them had never had any experience with pigs. Susan and Adria, the caregivers, were amazing too. I honestly enjoyed working in this area very much. If I had one complaint, it would be the heat. But other than that, it was such a great first week experience! The other areas are going to have to work hard if they want to beat the pigs :) Oh, by the way, these pigs are up for adoption - just thought I'd mention that.

Me & Tobias (aka: Tob)

This week I'm in horses - yay! It's not a really big change in location, but the tasks are much different. I'll probably write more about horses/goats/sheep/etc next week.

I'm in this internship program with six other really awesome people. I'm not going to lie; I was a little nervous coming into this regarding who the other interns would be. Honestly, I couldn't ask for a better group of girls to spend my five weeks with. This past weekend, we went up to Panguitch for the Balloon Rally. First we went to the lake for lunch and intended swimming - until we discovered there were leeches in the water. No thanks. So we headed for Bryce Canyon, and the day took a drastic upturn. If you've never seen Bryce in person, it's spectacular. I'd seen it before but that doesn't belittle it at all or take away any of its splendor. 

We went back to Panguitch for dinner and found a hidden gem of a restaurant. It was cheap and the food was great. They had shut down Main Street by the time we left dinner, so we found somewhere to park and walked around a bit. We ended up getting cotton candy and ice cream and took a seat on the curbside, meanwhile watching the balloons beginning to rise off the street all around us. The sight was quite like nothing I had ever seen before. We spent the night walking amongst the balloons, taking pictures, and breaking it down to Cotton Eyed Joe. I don't think I'll be forgetting that night in Panguitch for the rest of my life. We got back to Kanab just before midnight, and I slept in and took it easy on Sunday.

I'll keep you posted with more adventures - hopefully more exciting things this weekend! If you're looking for pictures, check out my Facebook page. I'm not going to be putting many (if any) on these blog posts. Happy Tuesday :)


Megan