24 Aug Week 6: Americas Latino Eco Festival and Sand Dunes

This was a week filled with meetings. After the LHIP workshop, we had a group Interpretation and Education review of what worked and what didn’t in last Thursday’s IMRO workshop. The meeting was productive in looking toward the future of the internship program and helping students get the most out of the final workshop. Aside from meetings about my program, I was also involved in helping plan for the Americas Latino Eco Festival. The festival is planned for October 13-15 here in Denver. NPS and the IMRO are working together with ALEF on a plan to create cultural and environmental passports that would extend the opportunity of visiting NPS sites and other culturally and historically significant Latinx/Hispanic sites. We will also be supporting the eco festival with equipment for the biggest events in October. We have been meeting once a week to update everyone involved with what has been accomplished so far and what we can do to further the diversity goals of both NPS and ALEF.

At the end of the week I was able to travel to Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve for a mini vacation. It had been a while since I was out of Denver and in a national park. The 4 hour drive to Great Sand Dunes was well worth it. There I went sandboarding and got to hike Star Dune, the highest dune in the park at 755 ft. from bottom to top. The cloudy weather was perfect and helped to keep me out of the sun while trudging to the dunes’ peaks.