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| From Watanga Lake; Mooses; Matt and Brandon Visit, August 2008 |
Bull moose in my "front yard" at Green Mountain
Grand Lake is absolutely killing this journal!
The only time I can really get online is when I'm in Estes, and when I'm in Estes I'm so busy doing so many other things that I never get to my journal anymore! Throw in classes, and work, and being sick, and visitors...
Where should I start?
We started getting snow up on top of Trail Ridge Road in mid August; I actually got snowed on at my cabin August 15th! Which I would be very excited for...if I were east of the Divide and didn't face the prospect of driving the LONG way around from Grand Lake to Fort Collins for grad school every Friday! 3 hrs 15 minutes each way for a 2 hour class if they close Trail Ridge Road. This has only happened once so far, but it's just a matter of time before this becomes a regular thing. I was really stressing out about it, because I didn't know how long we would be working in Grand Lake before we are furloughed, but so many questions were laid to rest about 2 weeks ago:
Management has decided that it is nearly certain they will abandon the idea of having a separate west side crew. WOOOO HOOO! Not that I don't like Grand Lake. I really really do. I'd like it more if my friends were there, I had reliable housing 12 months of the year, and it wasn't a headache being separate from all administrative/management type important people that can make my life easy, or hell. All in all, it hasn't gone as well as I hoped. In part, my cabin was a nasty little craphole that probably made me sick when I cleaned it up and moved out 2 weeks ago. Another part is it is just myself and one other person, so when I have admin/office work, she has nothing to do. On top of that, she hurt her back and hasn't been operating at even 50% most days, so it was ALL ME dropping and cleaning up trees. Add on our impossible management-decided goals of removing 50% of our moderate hazard trees by November...which is approximately 2,000 trees dropped by 2 people. I could go on and on, which I have done to enough of my friends during a venting session that I really hope I never have to speak of it again once I move to Estes.
Since my coworker is leaving for a winter job late October, my last day of work is October 23 in Grand Lake. Now, I am hoping they can change my duty station via some simple paperwork and keep me working with the east side crew until Nov. 21st but we shall see. Part of me just wants to be done with it and recover and focus on School, Snow, and Sleeping. ;) Though the money would be nice... hello student loans come January, when I am full time student until April!
Ok let me back up a bit, so much has happened and I'm sick so chronological writing is not really happening right now. The topic of grad school will have to wait.
August 21st or so, my "random adventure buddy" Matt (of past Yellowstone ninja and Virginia horseshoe crab fame in previous journals over the years) came out to Colorado with his friend Brandon and, well, we had random adventures. We stayed in Steamboat for a night and went to the hot springs up there, then hit up some bars (and felt very very old, forgot it was a college town!); then we were going to hike to a ranger cabin in the park but nasty weather and lack of motivation turned it into a simple driving tour of Rocky Mt National Park, cussing at Long's Peak for hiding in the clouds, a beer and a cigar at the Rock Inn, and wrestling with the dog (with and without bandanas). There were lots of random quotes to go along with that but most aren't appropriate for the General Audience except, "Horses are stupid!" which I totally don't agree with. ;)
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| From Watanga Lake; Mooses; Matt and Brandon Visit, August 2008 |
Anyway as always it was great to see Matt and his friend Brandon was a great travel buddy with a good sense of adventure. They came at a great time when things have been pretty rough and I really hope he can come out and ski this winter!
And since I wasn't already tired and busy enough, my mom and two sisters came out for a visit over Labor Day weekend! I was pooped and totally missed my first day of classes at Colorado State, but I didn't care, it was my favorite girls finally coming out to Colorado! We stayed at this guest ranch, complete with horses randomly wandering around, and my mom wrote up a pretty good journal about the visit - Meggie's Mumblings! And here's the link to her photos from the trip, which are way better and tons more than I took. It was filled with horses, moose, freaking them out driving up "Don't Fall Over Road" (Linda's name for Old Fall River Road), thunderstorms, fishing in a dress and not catching anything, my mom being an insomniac without television, watching a color tv in black and white because, well, we thought it was a black and white tv... oh and the first time my sisters had been to Colorado to visit, and the first time they had all seen Logan since he was a wee pup! Of course they loved him. Everybody loves the Log!
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| From Family Visit, August 2008 |
Linda and I on horses on our private ride
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| From Family Visit, August 2008 |
Momma and baby moose on the trail to Timber Lake
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| From Family Visit, August 2008 |
Linda and I on the saddle above Timber Lake, trying to beat the storm!
Jeez what else. My life is filled with work and driving. Driving to Estes, driving to Fort Collins, driving all over. And chainsaws. I don't know my tally but I at least tripled the number of trees I had felled this year in the past month. Some pretty big ones, about 30" diameter, that's always a nice treat. We completed our clearcut, oh pardon me, our "buffer cut" at a certain picnic area so all that's left is trees under 20' tall (save for a few spruce). I hate doing it but having green trees just fall over is probably a bad thing, so we have to do it in the name of safety. I could go on about THAT too...
Remember, I do not speak on behalf of my employer, I speak on behalf of myself! There's my disclaimer so they can't yell at me. I have a lot of opinions that just don't seem to line up with what we are doing, and a lot of theories on why that is. This is why I am getting a masters. With a masters you can tell other people what to do and actually have the credentials to do it in the government. ;)
School. Yep, grad school. Colorado State University. Just taking 5 credits this semester so I can keep working - a 2 credit required seminar on Fridays, and a 3 credit correspondence course on Public Relations and Communications in natural resource management. Yeah, I'm not known for my PR skills, tact, or butt-kissing so maybe I can learn a thing or two on how to deal with telling my superiors that their plans are stupid. Last I checked, telling people in charge anything that contradicts what they say isn't tactful or a good way to get them to listen. And I checked recently. :P I just keep stepping on toes lately. The worst part is I don't even care anymore! It's almost liberating, but probably overall a bad idea.
Anyway so next semester I'll go full time. I planned on doing the same thing - taking only a few credits next fall, then full time next winter - but who knows. That's a year away and a LOT has changed just in the past month yet alone in the next 12 months.
I had to move out of that horrible cabin by Sept 15th so I now live in a nice big 3 bedroom, 1.5 bath house with a woodstove and a real kitchen and a garage... with my coworker (which I'm not keen on working 40 hrs then living with my coworkers) and some older lady that works for the park. It's fine, we all mostly stay in our rooms, but that lady snores like a chainsaw...which I can hear through the wall...which made me have a dream that a bear was looking in my window and grunting at me, ha ha! That and the bull elk are going NUTS in the rut right now, bugling right outside my room... had a weird dream about that too. But after this weekend they both move out and I have it to myself for my remaining month in Grand Lake (I hope!).
Why I am updating my journal on a Monday? I've been so freaking sick. I think I may have had the flu last week, but I've had 5 migraines in 8 days. And I mean MIGRAINES. Bad. Nasty. I finally went to the doc and I have a sinus infection and an ear infection so just maybe it's making my head hurt. I mean, even my teeth were hurting! And my stomach problem from last year (that I never got a camera stuck down my throat for; guess that's what I get for blowing it off) is back, so my stomach hurts 24/7. Hiatal hernia? Ulcer? Who knows til I get it scoped. Stress tends to make it flare up, and there's been an overabundance of stress lately! (If you aren't sure what I'm stressed about, reread the entire freaking journal!) Hopefully with a hefty round of antibiotics, stomach meds, and migraine medicine I'll be back to work by Wednesday. Boss isn't psyched but there's no way I'm running a chainsaw with a migraine!!
By the time Tim gets back from Alaska (which I obviously am not going up there to meet him as we had planned months ago), I will have literally only seen him once in TWO MONTHS. There's a lot of reasons for that but he gets back this Friday so hopefully we'll get to hang out at some point. Lots to talk about for sure, can't wait to see his photos. We've been able to talk over the phone a bit so he's finally in McCarthy, AK where his property is. He hasn't been up there in 3 or 4 years! I'm sure he's very excited to be there and I wish things would've worked out different and I could've made itup there.
The fall colors are starting to explode out here, last weekend the aspen in Grand Lake just turned in the blink of an eye. My favorite time of year, and it will be gone so soon. That's ok, gotta whip out the telemark skis and hope for a better season - no knee injuries and more progress in getting better!
Now, my priorities are doing this correspondence course, finding a place to live in Estes (can you believe I've moved 3 times in 6 months?! UGH!), finishing the season safely at work (with a good attitude!), trying to update this more often, and getting in better shape for telemark skiing = damn squats and lunges!
A few more exciting things I did, I ran my first race since I was in 2nd grade! We had the Running of the Bulls on Saturday and, despite being sick, I dragged myself out of bed and ran... good enough. ;) I felt horrible and my head was throbbing but I finished in pretty average time for me. If I had felt better could've shaved maybe a couple minutes off my time. My friend Steph got 1st place for our age group (because the "real" 1st place woman won for overall women's, so she couldn't win both) which was cool; I got #6 but it was only out of maybe 17 in our age group so not like I was that great. ;) Still though, I did it! It was fun and I am a little bit inspired to run more, though it did slightly aggrivate my chronically-finnicky achilles.
I also finally bought a rifle! I have a bull elk hunting tag for mid October so it was time to suck it up and dish out the dough. I got a Savage .30-06 which might not mean anything to most of you that read this. Now I have to get some knives and a bone saw and some game bags in case I actually get anything, and my book on how to field dress it aka cut it into pieces small enough so I can move the darned thing. Mmmmm elk! And if that doesn't work, got a buck tag too...
Well, time to pop another migraine pill. FYI Frova doesn't work worth crap. :P Enjoy the photos and hope to update sooner than 6 weeks from now! At any rate, I'll be done working in probably 4 weeks so at LEAST by then!
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| From Watanga Lake; Mooses; Matt and Brandon Visit, August 2008 |
Watanga Lake
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| From Family Visit, August 2008 |
