On Tuesday we finally got to hike to the top of Cascade Head. This is a 300 mile long basalt floww that was put here 15 million years ago when a volcano erupted near Idaho. Which is pretty cool. The trail was muddy, of course, but it wasn’t too bad. I’ve been on worse. The weather cooperated as well, which was nice. I like the stormy weather but hiking in rain and hail is not fun, so I was glad it did neither on us.
A bad angle of what we hiked up to
The trail was wooded for the most part, like much of the hiking in western Oregon. It eventually broke free of the trees when we got up higher. There is a lot of wind on the side that faces the ocean, so tall trees can’t grow there. There were a few short shrubs and one or two hardy evergreens in some protected areas, but it wasn’t forested. Which was fine because it gave awesome views of the ocean and the river valley. It really was quite a pretty sight.
Yes, that was a very fun day. I even climbed most of the way to the very top, which was a heck of a lot steeper than the path up to where we stopped had been. Apparently I need to work on my endurance. 
After we took the customary group picture we headed back down to the vans and back to the science center, for showers and food.
Wednesday was our last day of classes, and the day of our presentations. We all had to, singly or ingroups, present on our favorite invertebrates. I have too many so my roome and I did Sea Pens, Ptilosarcus gurneyi. We made little sea pens out of pens and my mom helped me make some of my sea star predators. We had nudibranch predators as well. It was very cute. 
There was one sea pen and one predator per person.
Other people had other ideas too. Lots of people had desserts in the shape of their critter. One group raced their three crab species, one guy did a puppet show, one group did a little skit, etc. It was a lot of fun, even if it did take almost four hours.
Today was just a free day, a day to study and review. We have our final tomorrow and monday we start the fish section. Wish me luck on my tests!
Danielle this is very interesting! You are learning so much!
You enjoy what you are doing! and you getting a degree!