Roadtrip = A week of snowstorms?!

I'm not sure what the worst part about these snowstorms is (because I LOVE snow) - the fact that I did not ONCE hit the ski slopes, or the fact that I have to drive from Grand Junction to Estes to Michigan between 4:30 this afternoon and Sunday. Thank goodness for 4x4 trucks, good tires, and an iPod!

I'm hanging out in Fruita, enjoying the expensive new USB wireless-N card I had to buy after my computer took a poop yesterday. The USB port wasn't even registering but with some persistence and aggravating clicking and restarting and system restore and unistalling, the USB port came back to life... but my old wireless card didn't survive the trauma. It wasn't working very well anyway. Amazing what a difference a WORKING wireless connection makes, the internet is so fast I don't know what to do with myself.

Another expensive thing in my life broke. That seems to be the trend of my holidays. My clutch on my truck went out on my way from Estes to Grand Junction. Not a surprise since I'm at 204k miles, and who knows if/when the clutch was replaced. Thankfully I know how to operate a manual without using the clutch (all that time behind the wheel of a 1970 something piece of crap split-shift Brigadeer dump truck) because I could NOT get it into 1st gear! I somehow made it from Colorado National Monument down to a shop in town... barely! Little did I know it would run me over $850! Ouch! I don't know when I'll recover from that one. Student loans can only cover so much... thank goodness I have a little emergency fund for these sorts of things!

Tim gets off work this afternoon after a week of doing trail work in the snow. I spent the time walking the dog, working out (since I was stuck at the Monument without a vehicle), and hiking in the snow.

From Colorado National Monument, Winter 2008

It was overcast and snowed on and off; maybe 5" of snow on the trail so I only went perhaps 5 miles round trip. Of course, I went off-trail side-trip I tried to take and got cliffed out... so I had to backtrack uphill and retrace my route. Oops. ;)

I didn't end up going to Vail or Beaver Creek, although they are "only" 2 1/2 hours (more more with bad roads) away... closer than when I'm in Estes. Between having no truck, plus one morning it was windy and I didn't sleep well and sure as heck wasn't going to get out of bed... then today, I have to drive 6-8 hours with Tim from Grand Junction back to Estes and probably arrive between midnight and 1 am, so I didn't want to drive 5 hours round trip beforehand! Plenty of time when we get back from our road trip though.

So the roadtrip... leaving Estes in the afternoon on Saturday, arriving in Michigan on Sunday. Busy times, too! Tuesday alone, I am supposed to go out to eat with my family and friends, plus the Holiday party with my cityworker friends, a retirement party, and the Red Wings game (WOOOOO!!!)! Then our HUGE family X-mas party on the eve, my mom's house then my dad's house on X-mas day, Jeff's party on the 26th, and then on to Pennyslvania to see Tim's family and meet Logan's "cousins" - two German Shepherds owned by his sister and brother in law. One is their family dog, the other is the new K-9 Cop that Ryan is training. Pretty exciting, big dogs everywhere! I'm sure Tim's family will give them lots of great Christmas presents again. :)

Anyway need to pack and clean before we head out in a few hours. Can't wait to see everybody back at home! LET IT SNOW... just let it wait until we are done driving. ;)

From Winter 2008-2009

GO WINGS!

Wolves!

Quick update while I'm taking a break from studying and reading "Resolving Environmental Conflict" in preparation for the test I need to take for my correspondence grad class on public relations in natural resources. Fun fun, really. Useful, but not my cup of tea. Which is exactly the point that the books in this class make - natural resources folks are in their field because they like working outside with resources and not people, but they need to focus on people in order to better manage resources. Boo. Trees don't talk back!

I finally volunteered with wolves! Yay! It is a structured volunteer program because, although most of them are wolf-dogs, they are high percentage wolf and do NOT act like dogs. Many are socialized well enough that they seek you out to get attention or a belly rub, but many are skittish and avoid people when you enter their enclosure. I only got to help feed and water them, but it was still so great. Even if they only have one "certifiable" pure, arctic wolf (160 lbs and white, his paws are as big as my hands! and he's pretty socialized for a pure wolf and enjoys scent rubbing people) and a few that probably are pure but don't have papers (apparently it is legal for photographers, for example, to breed wild animals?!), even the wolf dogs are so neat to be around. It's easy to see that they would not make good pets (which is how most of them wound up at the sanctuary in the first place - people couldn't handle the wolf behavior that comes with being a wolf!). I was scent-rubbed by one named Tunyan... and the best way to describe it is think of a cat rubbing its chin and body on you to leave its scent on you. Now make that cat a wolf-dog that weighs as much as you do. Now imagine it scent rubbing with its whole body right on top of you! It was pretty funny. She tried to steal my hat and the volunteer coordinator warned us to hide our hats... and ended up with Tunyan stealing her glove. I guess it was a small miracle she got her glove back at all.

When they all start howling, it's a pretty neat sound. I hope to keep volunteering with them and moving up the ranks to perhaps helping handle the animals at events and giving medications or helping with more involved jobs... in the meantime, I'm fine doing housekeeping and just spending time getting scent rubbed!

The sad part is that one of the older, probably 95+% wolf dog named Kenai, had blood in his pee. I mean, it was RED. He was losing a lot of fur and had a slew of health problems in the past year or something like that (I'm still learning!). He was like 12 years old but some of their other ones live to be over 17. I listened in on the call to the vet and saw how he was hurting. They ended up tranquilizing him (they avoid doing this because it is so stressful on wolves that they can die, literally) and taking him in. Bad news: some kind of anemia, apparently the treatment includes transfusions and a lot of very stressful stuff. This was on Saturday. I just got an email that they put him to sleep yesterday. :( These things happen I suppose, but he was not doing well on Saturday and it is for the best.

If you like what they are doing, donate some money! And read through some of their newsletters, like from last fall about their lawsuit and the crap the neighbors pulled, and the WideAwake stories. That's me not speaking on behalf of the organization; I don't know all that happened but what I do know is so frustrating!

Anyway I go again tomorrow to spend the day with wolves. This weekend, Ryan is in town and I get to see him, yay! Then to Grand Junction to hang out at the Colorado National Monument before Tim and I head east. Busy!

Allergic to everything?!

I had big plans for the day, including updating this blog, studying, doing some online shopping... but I'm very agitated by something I got in the mail. Since this is a public blog and I don't need it to come back and bite me in the butt, we'll just say I had issue with somebody important but that also has a history of doing poorly at his job, and dealing with people in general. I brought it up and he decided to retaliate in a nasty unprofessional way, and now I have to decide what to do about it. Either way, I can't even read the whole reply I was given because it's outrageous. I'm just glad I never have to deal with this person again! All in all it is very upsetting as I did the best I could given a crappy situation to start with, with no guidance, and I was screwed over because it's easy to pawn the blame on somebody else. I hope karma does its job!

I recently learned about this delayed food allergy test that I have yet to find out how much of it my insurance is covering ($2700 but I know at least most of it is covered), and decided to take the plunge and find out what I'm allergic to. I have seasonal and year-round allergies to a ridiculous amount of things, from cats to down (too bad I won't give up my down comforter!) to mold and mites, I think pretty much everything but rabbits and cockroaches if I remember correctly. I took allergy shots for years in college, which unfortunately when you move to a different area of the country, I am surrounded by pollen to which I was not desensitized. Given the amount of external allergens, and the fact that if I don't take Zyrtec EVERY DAY OF MY LIFE, I break out in hives and itch all over. I've also had a slew of stomach pains that couldn't be explained by an upper GI and isn't made much better by taking medication. My friend, who was recently diagnosed with Celiac Disease, told me her symptoms and they sounded like some of my symptoms but 20x worse, so the pieces came together and I got tested. Results?

I am allergic to:
Peanut Soybean Wheat Barley cranberry pear
avocado gluten lime spinach egg oat rye
sunflower white potato cashew ginger pinto bean wax bean
grouper peppermint broccoli lemon orange
safflower tomato apricot cherry peach artichoke
blueberry hazelnut raspberry corn mustard

So now I'm supposed to eliminate all of these foods for 6 weeks. Yes it is almost impossible. ;) Actually the hardest things to avoid are corn (corn syrup in any of it forms is in almost everything) and soy (because if it doesn't have corn, for some reason it probably has soy). I am most saddened by the avocado, berries, artichoke, and egg. ;) At least I can have milk! Ice cream! Chocolate! Theoretically I have different levels of sensitivities to these things, and not all of them produce symptoms... but I have to eliminate all of them, then try each one ONE BY ONE to see if they cause any problems.

I have gone 27 years and I'm still alive, so I cheat a little bit. Maybe in the new year I will actually try to go 6 weeks. I get a consultation with a chef through the company and he just wrote me today, which may help. In the meantime I'm trying to get Tim used to millet and rice everything. It drives me nuts because I've never been the kind of person to be obsessed with nutrition labels - I've never dieted and generally eat things that say organic or natural on the front and that's about as much as I cared - but now I read all the little last details and then sigh in despair about fructose and soy lecithin and whatnot! The things I am avoiding most are wheat, gluten, and soy, and the easy things like peach and pear (yuck). Though I have had a lot of pizza lately...!

Logan's stitches healed up nicely so he no longer has to wear a t-shirt. Hope he doesn't get any more cysts ever!

From Winter 2008-2009

I am happy but not exceptionally hopefully that I got an email stating that I am "qualified and...being referred to for consideration" for a GS-7/9 permanent Forester position with the forest service with Tongass National Forest. I get that email a lot and barely ever get even an interest phone call. The only way I could take it is if they were willing to make it a SCEP position (student position that gets converted to permanent when you graduate and generally they accommodate school work in the fall and winter) because I probably won't graduate until April 2010.

From Winter 2008-2009

Tim and I are having fun over these holidays. First, we made sushi for thanksgiving. ;) No we didn't use turkey, cooked or raw. I had given him a sushi kit for last X-mas and we finally sucked it up and bought sushi-grade fish from Whole Foods. I am happy to say that neither of us got sick. Actually, it was a lot of fun and tasted really good! We waited until after turkey day to snatch up some really cheap frozen turkeys from the grocery store. Then, we went to the "Catch the Glow" holiday parade downtown. In the years I have been here, I have always avoided town like the plague for these parades, but Tim helped with some of the floats and it was fun. Logan got a lot of love. ;)

From Winter 2008-2009

We are gearing up for the next couple months of travel - this weekend Tim goes to the Colorado National Monument for a detail opportunity, I am finishing the last 2 weeks of my one class and will also be going out to the Monument to hike and ski, then we head to Michigan and then Pennsylvania for X-mas and New Years. He's not very excited about the long drive but I'm in the mood for a long road trip. ;) Plus Logan gets to meet his "cousin Thor", which is his sister's german shepherd. I can't wait to subject Tim to 50+ of my relatives under one roof for our annual X-mas eve party! And we already have tickets to the Red Wings game on Dec. 23rd.

My friend Alex, whom I have known since 6th grade but haven't seen in like 5 years, came out for a visit. It was great catching up! I took him to Arapahoe Basin and taught him how to snowboard, which was my first time out on the slopes this year. We hadn't received nearly the amount of snow we have in years past at that point. However, the past week and next few days, Summit County looks like it's getting hammered! Tim and I were supposed to go out on Sunday but alas, he either never set his clock or we slept through it at 5 am and didn't wake up until 10:30 so we didn't go. I was determined though and got up early yesterday. It took 3 hours to make a 2 hour drive to A-Basin, mostly because it was still snowing and Loveland Pass was closed, but I finally made it there and there weren't too many people on the hill, and the snow was still powder/packed powder. It made my day. :) I did much better with the telemark skis than last year, though I still have some work to do. I am determined to not suck this year. Having a healed knee helps too!

I am also looking forward to Saturday. What happens on Saturday? I start volunteering with wolves! To get more wildlife experience, I am helping out at WOLF, a place outside of Fort Collins that rescues wolves and wolf-dogs. Some are people-friendly but not enough that they make good pets; some are real skittish pure wolves; I'm not sure what kinds of opportunities I can get my hands on but everything from behavior to vet stuff to handling them will get me experience I can use. Plus, how cool is it to be around 160 lb wolves face to face?

Finally moved AGAIN, school, no snow, and Frankendog

From Winter 2008-2009

I'm procrastinating on unpacking the boxes currently sitting in my new apartment. I found a nice little studio in Drake, which is currently a pre-business bed and breakfast. They anticipate opening in Late 2009/Early 2010 and the plus for me is that it is clean, cute, sunny, inviting... I haven't lived in such a nice, happy place in a while! Of course it's more expensive than I'd like to pay for a studio, but such is the way of life in an expensive touristy mountain area. It's 20 minutes down the mountain from Estes, which means it's nicely halfway between school in Fort Collins and work and boyfriend in Estes. But I am so sick of boxes! Packing them, unpacking them, moving them... Boxes are ridiculously prominent in my life in the past couple years. Thank goodness for a pick up truck.

Speaking of truck, my Little Truck That Could, is now up to 202,000 miles. I don't see Trucky Truck letting me down any time soon! 250k... dare I say 275k or even 300k? Maybe overly optimistic but the best auto purchase I've ever made, a 1992 Toyota 4x4 XtraCab Pickup. Wonder why the Big 3 is screwed? Ask anybody that's owned a Toyota (or a Honda). However, there are inevitable repairs that come up on an old truck. Gaskets in particular are the bane of my truck's existence in the past 6 month. Boxes and gaskets drive me nuts. First it was some piston thingy-bobbers, then it was some intake manifold doo-dad, then some differential plug and pinyon thing. Good news is that those are done and no more leaks in Tim and Dave's driveway. Also had to replace a couple tires due to misaligned front end... So I'm all set for the winter. Come spring, here's my truck to-do list: rear shocks, the other 2 tires, windshield (though I'm going on 2 years with the same cracked one, so why bother? ha ha) and whatever pops up. I did finally get some plastic cut and somehow, with Dave's help, I managed to replace the back window on mytopper. Price: $55 as opposed to probably $200 with glass.

What other lovely things require my hard earned moolah? Log Dog. He had 4 small, pimple sized cysts when he was a puppy all along his right side. 2 remained tiny; one became medium; one got kindof big - big enough his hair stood up from it. It was biopsyed and non-cancerous but kept growing. I scheduled for him to get all four removed. Of course the big one decided to POP (yuck) a few days before the surgery. So they drugged him up, cut 4 patches of fur and took out the cysts. Now my Frankendog has four sets of big white stitches along his side. I really need to take some photos. The funniest part is that A. they gave him a bandana, which alone isn't that funny but B. He has to wear a shirt so he doesn't chomp on his stitches. When he has to go to the bathroom, I have to tie it up in the back so he doesn't pee on it. As a result, he looks like a little werewolf boy dressed in human clothes. ;) I always tell him he looks so handsom but in the back of my mind, I can't help but think "Animal Farm"...

School is school. I'm excited to be full time come January. I'm signed up for classes that probably sound really boring to everybody but sound great to me. Population and Community Ecology (wildlife), Park and Natural Area Management, and Natural Resource Policy something something. Might pick up one more class but don't want to overdue my course load, it's been a while since my brain has had to function that hard. ;)

Blast from the past: a friend from MIDDLE SCHOOL, that I haven't seen in over 5 years, is in town. I think even then I only saw him maybe a couple times since high school?? Alex and I met up for lunch yesterday; it's crazy to see the paths we both took, since we've, you know, turned into real ADULTS instead of silly 8th graders. :) We are going to try to go snowboarding tomorrow, but it's been so dang warm... Yeah, apparently while it's snowing in Michigan here I am at almost 8,000 ft elevation in the mountains of Colorado, riding my motorcycle. It sounds nice, but I LOVE four seasons and snow. I even bought a video on telemark skiing and I'm inspired to get that much better this year.

Hunting has been fruitless. At this point, I've hunted 4 seasons (deer 2 seasons, elk and turkey 1 season each) and come up with nothing. It's fun hiking around and when you hear some "weird noise" or think you see something, it's thrilling... The closest I came to even just finding anything was last weekend during 4th rifle season for buck, I heard a noise and stalked around, finding very fresh tracks from a deer I had startled. I keep looking around to see where these tracks went (in patchy snow) but couldn't figure it out. Started getting dark and I hiked out on a trail... and the damn deer had jumped down the trail, stopped, probably watched me until I startled it again, and jumped away and was probably watching me from another vantage point while I wandered around hoping for a glimpse of him. Never saw him, just heard some noises and saw those tracks... Guess I'll have to wait for another shot next year!

Tim and I are planning on heading back east for the holidays! We hope to leave here around Dec. 19th, hang out with my family until the 26th, then head out to Pennsylvania to see his family until after the New Year. Like always, this plan is hanging in limbo. He just found out he may be going to the Colorado National Monument for 2 months for work; he has a 5 week lay-off at this point because trails has less money this year, and the only way he can keep working is if he goes somewhere else. He may try to hook me up with some work out there, but I'd have to drive back for school on fridays. Not sure if it would be worth it or not, but I only have class until Dec. 12th so we shall see!

ONE MORE IMPORTANT THING: So I signed up for this website where all your shopping, if you use the link, can give a percentage of what you spend towards my student loans. Pretty groovy if you ask me! I sent some folks an invitiation to sign up; if you do it without the link just remember to add me as the beneficiary. You can even do more than one person and allocate percentages.

SHOP HERE!

http://www.upromise.com/guest/2656704786

Thank you. ;)

Ok enough slacking off, time to unpack.

Done and done!

Finally made it back to Estes! Woo hoo!

I went hunting early last week for 4 days and didn't see any elk. Alas, I did not bag a big bull this first time around. Sounds like nobody saw much of anything over there near Bowen Baker and Holzwarth. I have another chance to put some meat on the table in 2 weeks with the buck tag I have for the Estes area. Got a really good hike in on Saturday and a great view from Mineral Point though... 7 miles never felt so exhausting by the time I was done though!

My last day of work in Grand Lake was Thursday. Uneventful, besides driving the long way around from Grand Lake to Estes and back for work, then BACK to Estes after I was checked out of my house = at least 10.5 hours on the road Thursday. I still haven't unpacked everything from the back of my truck!

Logan had his birthday on Sunday... and I totally forgot. I remembered on Saturday, and I remembered that I forgot on Monday. ;) He's 2 years old! So I bought some yummy treats and new toys for his birthday. He's going to be ticked at me though because he has his first ever grooming appointment in about 2 hours because frankly, he STINKS. Now that I'm unemployed I'm also going to get him in for a dental appointment and to get these 3 lumps removed. They had done a biopsy a few months ago and said they were fine, but one has gotten much bigger and it's so weird to pet him and feel this giant lump under his beautiful fur. He's happy to be in Estes so he can go to the dog park again!

I just tried to set up my schedule for grad school next semester and I'm not totally happy with all the classes I wanted to take, being at the exact same time! But right now I'm in Forest Policy, Park and Natural Area Manangement, and Population and Community Ecology classes. Probably sounds like a real hoot to all ya'll out there, really. Ha ha. I'm torn between continuing with my undergrad education and stay in Ecology/Wildlife, or get a degree in forestry, which is what all of my employment has been in the past few years. So I'll probably take a little of both, student loans are an amazing thing.

Sounds like Tim and I are trying again to head out east for Christmas, maybe it will actually happen this year?? It would be fun to subject him to our family christmas party with 50+ of my closest relatives to interrogate and harass him. They do it in good fun, but I remember Linda's boyfriend meeting them for the first time and that was priceless. "HEEEEEEY, TONAAAAYYYYYY!" Maybe you'd have to be there to understand, but I think Tim will have fun with my huge extended family. If nothing else he can run away and watch sports with my stepdad and uncles. ;)

Halloween, my favorite holiday... and I haven't even carved pumpkins in years. I'm determined this year though. Not sure if I will recycle an old costume from last year - I still have my "Tim" costume with the big beard! or even my girlscout costume - but Tim wants us to go as vikings if I can find cheap costumes. Logan too has to dress up, though the old photo shows how much he hated his K9 Cop costume. The things we pet owners subject our four legged friends to...!

Anyway got a lot to do but thought I'd quickly update. One other recent and very sad thing is that a former coworker here are Rocky Mt was killed by a tree blowing over this past weekend. He was a great sawyer and had the most vibrant personality and I think everybody is just as shocked and sad as I am... he had quit as trails supervisor a couple years ago to pursue his private forestry company cutting down beetle kill in Grand Lake. He does the same job I do/did, every day dealing with dead trees... really makes me stop and think about how dangerous our job really is, and Kevin was a hell of a lot more talented sawyer than I am!

Oh yeah and I'm going to try to volunteer with this wolf rescue in Fort Collins, might as well get some wildlife experience if I decide to switch away from trees for good. Tara told me she just started volunteering with horses so hey, tis the season to work with the animals!