Taking a Breath: My Gap Year on Wheels and Water

I'm Javier Javi Morales (he/him), 20, an environmental engineering student with a GIS minor who grew up in El Paso, Texas. I'm the kind of person who can fix a squeaky bike brake with a pocket tool, spend way too long sanding a plant stand, and then take a picture of the finished thing on a thrifted film camera. After a busy sophomore fall, I needed air. So I took a gap year.

Why I Pressed Pause

I loved my classes, but I wanted to see how water, maps, and neighborhoods meet outside lecture halls. I kept wondering: What does stormwater feel like at street level? Can low-cost sensors actually guide decisions? And can I be useful without a wall of credentials? I pressed pause to find out, to learn-by-doing, and to come back with muddy shoes and clearer questions.

The Plan (Such As It Was)

I sketched three anchors: stay near arid and semi-arid cities, trade time for skills, and keep costs low by biking, cooking, and sharing housing. I aimed to split the year across the Southwest, a stop in southern Mexico, and a short seasonal stint up north. Nothing fancy, just focused.

  • Tucson, Arizona (early fall): Bike-centered living, dry river cleanups, and neighborhood flood mapping.
  • Santa Fe, New Mexico (late fall to early winter): Hands-on water testing and stormwater site visits.
  • Oaxaca de Juarez, Mexico (spring): Rainwater harvesting basics, rooftop measurements, and street-scale observations.
  • Boise, Idaho (early summer): Short-term stormwater field work and GIS data cleanup.

    • Work I Did, City by City

    Tucson surprised me with how bikeable it felt. I rented a room near Armory Park and pieced together part-time work at a neighborhood bike workshop, truing wheels and organizing used parts. On weekends, I joined dry river cleanups along the Santa Cruz and walked alleys after storms to photograph puddle patterns. A local neighborhood association asked me to mark frequent flooding spots on a shared map. I kept notes on curb cuts, culverts, and where debris gathered after monsoon bursts.

    In Santa Fe, I got a temporary assistant role in a small city water lab. I learned to calibrate handheld meters, take grab samples from stormwater outfalls, and log readings for pH, temperature, conductivity, and turbidity. On site visits near the Railyard area, I traced how sloped streets funneled water into inlets that clogged with leaves within a single storm. I started sketching quick sections of bioswales in my notebook, labeling inlet elevations and overflow weirs like a comic strip for runoff.

    Oaxaca was the heart piece. I rented a small room near the Jalatlaco neighborhood and joined community workshops where builders talked about gutter sizing and first-flush diverters. My Spanish got better at street markets while I took roof area measurements (length times width, accounting for overhangs) and estimated storage needs using rough daily demand. I carried a tiny kit of tape measure, angle finder, and a notebook. Mornings were for walking the city to photograph courtyards and downspouts; afternoons for boiling beans, making tortillas, and editing notes. I met residents who showed me how they maintain simple leaf screens with almost no tools. That clarity—keep it repairable—stuck.

    In Boise, I worked a short seasonal stretch as a stormwater field tech. I biked the Greenbelt to test urban ponds, logging dissolved oxygen at dawn before temperatures spiked. I checked outfalls after rainfall, recorded sediment, and flagged spots where vegetation was hiding inlets. Back at a shared office, I helped clean GIS layers—snapping misaligned lines, standardizing attributes, and adding photos to features so field notes matched the map.

    How I Paid For It

    I mixed savings from campus jobs with part-time work and two short-term assistant roles. I kept costs down by renting rooms, cooking most meals, and using my bike as primary transport. I tracked expenses weekly in a simple spreadsheet and adjusted where needed.

  • Housing: $450–$700 per month (room in shared houses; Oaxaca was the lowest).
  • Food: $180–$260 per month (beans, rice, seasonal produce, tortillas, lots of chiles).
  • Transport: ~$40 per month (bike maintenance, occasional bus).
  • Work income: varied by month, roughly covering living costs plus a little cushion.

    • For Mexico, I checked entry requirements, kept copies of documents, and noted local holidays that might affect travel. I learned to arrive early for intercity buses and to stash a spare derailleur hanger in my bag.

    Field Notes and Small Wins

  • Low-cost sensors: I built a basic rainfall logger with affordable parts and housed it in a plastic enclosure. It wasn't perfect, but it matched nearby totals within a small margin on light storms.
  • Mapping: I made a simple symbology system—blue for flow, orange for obstructions, green for potential infiltration areas. Quick to read, hard to forget.
  • Bike as a tool: With panniers and a small toolkit, I visited more sites than I could have by foot. I also found issues faster by following where puddles pushed me.
  • Photography: Analog photos helped me notice details—sediment lines on curb faces, leaf clumping at grate corners, algae bands showing past water levels.

    • Mistakes I Owned

  • I underestimated how fast mountain weather flips. One sleet storm near the Sangre de Cristo Mountains taught me to always pack a dry layer.
  • I overscheduled the first month. I got better at leaving blank days for repairs, errands, and rest.
  • I once mislabeled a sample bottle. I fixed the workflow with a pre-labeled bag system and a pocket checklist.

    • What I Learned

    Stormwater is a neighborhood story before it's an engineering drawing. The same three blocks can flood for three different reasons: clogged inlets, driveway grading, or a missing overflow path. A good map listens first. Also, simple beats fancy when maintenance is scarce. Screens you can rinse, gutters you can reach, barrels you can fix—these last. And for me, consistent routines mattered: run early, cook big pots on Sundays, back up notes every night.

    Advice If You're Considering a Gap Year

  • Define three learning goals and one non-negotiable habit (mine was biking for errands).
  • Pick cities where you can afford to live car-light and find short-term rooms.
  • Keep a field kit: tape measure, pencil, waterproof notebook, zip bags, and a tiny first aid pouch.
  • Log your time and costs weekly; adjust quickly instead of feeling guilty later.
  • Make a simple portfolio as you go: maps, photos, and one-page write-ups of each project.

    • Where I'm Headed Next

    I'm heading back to campus with clearer eyes. I want to pilot a small rainwater harvesting system for a campus garden and line up a summer role with a city water team or an environmental nonprofit. I'm also giving myself patience to wrestle with differential equations because now I know what those curves and coefficients look like on a rainy street corner. The year didn't solve everything, but it gave me stories, skills, and a better compass. That feels like the right kind of full.