Tim's move to Cali; sitting and sweating

Greetings from sunny, ridiculously hot California!

Why am I in California? Here's the long version:

Two weekends ago, Tim and I took a sweet hike through the Mummy Range in Rocky Mountain, his last jaunt in the North Fork before becoming a California boy (again); leaving the Chapin Pass trailhead at 4:00 am, we were already blanketed by clouds overhead. Fortunately, the 3:00 am rainstorm ended just as we began our hike, and didn't reappear as a vicious thunderstorm until after our peak bagging. We skipped Chapin to save on time, and get to the top of our final peak before the afternoon (when daily thunderstorms are to be expected). Got to watch a nice sunrise between Chapin and Chiquita... only to be socked in by a thick cloud, which sat on top of us, bringing with it some COLD weather, winds, and 20' visibility. I know better, but pulled an alpine faux pas (is that the spelling?) and didn't bring a warm hat or gloves. It was cold enough that I couldn't move my hands. At least I was wise enough to bring self-heating hand warmers so that I could at least unzip my backpack with my frozen claw-hands!

We summited Chiquita (13,069 ft) and Ypsilon (13,514 ft) in these conditions. As we decended into the saddle between Ypsilon and Fairchild, the clouds lifted and we could see for miles! As a bonus, the winds died down and the sun warmed my cold hands. Which was fortunate, because the hike up Fairchild was some serious rock scrambling, over both small and huge boulders. Brutal on one of my knees, to the point that it is still bugging me today. In any case, the last 500 feet elevation gain up Fairchild was fairly easy and the rocks were more forgiving and not nearly as steep; Fairchild was at 13,502 ft.

This is when the thunderstorm started rumbling from the west. Our goal to include Mummy and perhaps Hague's Peak in our jaunt was "cut short" - though I'm not sure you can call a 12.5 mile hike up 3 mountains as "cut short" in the first place! (I bought a snazzy fancy-pants watch that gives elevation, distance, heart rate, etc... seems fairly accurate, but can't be positive it was 12 miles.) Besides brief gropple and rain, we were able to decend down from Fairchild, down the broad saddle, past Crystal Lakes, and literally unlocked the Lawn Lake Ranger Cabin just as it began to rain. And rain. And rain. We lit a fire in the wood stove and relaxed at 4 pm. 12 hours of hiking! It's no surprise we were alseep by 6 pm. ;)

The hike out was a comparatively easy 6.6 mile downhill. Mummy Mountain will have to wait for another day when Tim comes out to visit.

Tim packed and we had a little party at the Rock Inn; it was a whirlwind of activity last week before we left. I had to work, since I already don't have enough time saved up yet to take off this entire week to be out in Cali; no rest for the weary!

With Tim's belongings packed neatly away in a 14' Uhaul, towing his truck behind us, we set out last Thursday in the evening. We learned quickly, from our drive up Trail Ridge Road, that a 14' Uhaul does not have much towing power up the mountains. Which kept our progress slow the entire trip; Berthoud Pass, Eisenhower on I-70, all the ups and downs in Nevada (apparently it's not flat along US 50), and Yosemite... Snail pace. Made it as far as Grand Junction on Thursday night and stayed with a former Rocky traildog, Conrad. I didn't even get to see him! We arrived at 2 am and then he went to work in the morning.

We plowed through Utah's heat and arrived at Great Basin National Park in Nevada on Friday evening. Unfortunately, we missed the cave tours for the evening and had a dilemma - camp out and lose time on our travel, without the guarantee to get into a cave tour in the morning (and not have any camping gear easily accessible in the Uhaul... there was talk of pulling out the mattress and sleeping on that...), or skip the awesome-looking caves and keep going. The less-stress option was to keep going. We stopped at 2 gas station in Nevada, neither of which had a Nevada road map; however, they had California, Oregon, and other random places far far away. Which was weird. We ate at the worst, strangest McDonalds ever with super space cadet girl getting our order wrong 4 freaking times... and some 15 year old girl looking like some 50s farm wife with her old fashioned hair and man, I felt like I was living in that HBO series True Blood with the way those people talked and acted in Ely, Nevada... I was convinced there were vampires nearby and we needed to find a place to hole up for the evening. Made it to Tonopah, which was just as bizarre as everywhere else. I am sorry, Nevada, I don't like you.

Saturday, made it through Nevada without any other freakishness and finally saw the lovely snow capped mountains in Mono Lake, California. By the way, the road between Mono Lake and Yosemite National Park is a HOOT! Like being on a rollercoaster. They made an otherwise straight and boring road, that much more exciting with its abruptly undulating dips and hills. Just goes to show, Nevada has no sense of humor with their even-terrained flat roads!

We breezed through Yosemite, although a day ahead of schedule, Tim wanted to get to Pinnacles and relax. The valley between Yosemite and Pinnacles - the valley where a lot of the big Cali cities are - was flat and boring, as I had been through there before on the way to and from wildfires. Agriculture. Yuck. Was happy to see another mountain range - although without any snow on its ~2-3,000 ft "peaks" - and drive into the oak savannah.

We may be out of the city, but are certainly not out of the heat. It's killin' me, folks. Seriously. I'm melting.

So my first and lasting impression is, Pinnacles is a nice place to visit...but sure as hell wouldn't want to live here. At least, not in July and August. I'm pretty sure today it was already 90 degrees by 10 am; supposed to be 105 degrees or so. I'm taking refuge in a coffee shop in Hollister, about 30 minutes away.

Pinnacles is a neat little park. Strangely, they have a pool at their campground. I enjoy the little lizards running around but have yet to be unpleasantly surprised by a rattlesnake. Intead, the reservior in the park was the waterpark for snakes of all different sizes. I told Tim, all I have to do is show my mom photos of these snakes (which I am going to do) and she'll tell me not to live there. ;) I did a 5.3 mile hike yesterday morning; hoped to get an earlier start, but didn't make it on the trail til 9:45. HOT. But I'm stubborn. It was a nice hike, steep climbs up steps carved into the rock were interesting... but I needed to make it quick. Managed the hike in 2 hrs 15 minutes by running nearly the entire length of the Condor Gulch Trail downhill. Good thing too, I am not used to this heat. Came out pretty well, barely a sunburn. ;)

We did take a quick trip to Trader Joe's in Monterey, my how I have missed Trader Joe's! It's amazing that it is actually almost COLD, with that ocean wind blowing. I'd much prefer that climate, but there's so many freaking people. Is there no happy median in this state!?

Lots of stereotypes have come true - such as the hotshot jackass crotch rocket riders that pop wheelies for no reason, almost get in accidents around curvy roads, and shooting up between lanes wrecklessly. I told Tim if he acts like that, he's yesterdays news. ;) Also, the ads in the local arts/music paper including things such as SmartLipo, face lifts, and EAR RESTRUCTURING! Seriously, they are EARS people! Ears! Ears do not need improvement. Sigh. But, the tee-hee bimbo blondes with fake boobs and bikinis are nowhere to be found, even on the ocean... it was probably 65 degrees, guess they keep to southern latitudes, and far from the interior heat. I wonder if fake boobs have an optimal temperature range??

Well, time to be hit by that oppressive heat and head back to the ranch. Literally. Tim is living/house sitting for his former boss, whom owns a nice chunk of sizeable property adjacent to the park. She owns a horse. Since she isn't around, I don't know the horse's name, so I just call him Horse. The house stays pretty cool, but I still found myself tossing, turning and sweating. Although the nights are much more comfortable, I still miss my 60 degrees or below Rocky Mountain evenings.

Tim's settling back in very easily, since he used to work here. I don't see myself willingly moving here, but the soonest would be January, if I can find a way to finish my degree at Colorado State either online, or something. Only have a couple classes left after Fall semester. Well, anything can happen between now and then. I hate long distance enough as it is, but did I mention Tim doesn't get cell phone service or internet at his new place? Guess it's back to courier pigeons and the pony express.

PHOTOS galore:

From Mummy Range Peak Baggin'

Mummy Range Peak Baggin'

From Tim's Going Away Protest

Tim's Going Away Party

From Cali or bust!

From Cali or bust!

The Move

Has spring reached the Estes Valley??

It's warm, it's windy, it's sunny, and we haven't had snow (and not just any snow, 3 FEET of snow) in 2 weeks. And there's a dandelion outside the coffee shop window.

Plus, I start work in 2 weeks. MUST be spring!

My term job, which I have been on furlough since October, expires in a couple weeks also. Is it weird that I kindof want to celebrate? I'll be making MUCH better money as a seasonal maintenance worker, with a lot less controversy and headaches. Look for me driving the military hi-low and replacing wood picnic tables with 1300 lb concrete tables! Ahhh, living the dream, ha ha!

I had one final exam this week, a big presentation to the Open Space advisory board for Fort Collins tonight, and my last final next Wednesday. I still have a big public relations plan to develop for my correspondence course (BLEH! worst distance learning course I have EVER taken) as well as my paper on paleohydrology to be published for Park Break. So, I don't quite see the home stretch yet!

I'm excited for classes next semester; Wildlife Disease Ecology, Evolutionary Ecology, and Wildlife Field Studies. Sadly, my internship playing with baby squirrels and raccoons ends next week also. The picture is of my fellow intern, Ali, feeding a squirrel with a syringe. That's when they were sweet and cute! Now they're little terrors, their razor sharp nails drawing blood. My hands look like I got into a fight with Edward Scizzorhands! The baby raccons are the cutest things EVER. Even when they were tiny, they are strong and stick to your clothes/skin like velcro. They are too young to pee or poop on their own (like baby kittens) and we have to rub their privates to get them to go... and once they start peeing, they totally relax and start making little cooing noises, while they just saturate tissue after tissue! It sounds gross but seriously, they depend on mom (in their case, on us pretending to be mom) to help them relieve themselves, so I'm sure it's the best thing ever when they finally get to go!

The biggest news, which is really BIG news, is that Tim is moving up in the world... up, and West! He snagged a rare permanent trails supervisor job at the park where he used to live, Pinnacles National Monument. It's great for him, but I have no desire to move there; I also don't believe in long distance relationships in most cases, unless you are married and there's no other comprimise. I'm very happy for him, but well you can see the dilemma this poses. He leaves in July. I have a good job and school for the next year here in Colorado, and I don't like the hot weather, no snow, too many people, too much pollution, and living on an earthquake fault line. I'm trying to get back to Montana, or Alaska. Hell, even Canada! It's a very small park and opportunities are limited for me. So, what does this mean?? No easy answers here! Will I end up in Cali?! Or is this the end of a 3 year relationship?! Dun dun DUHHHHh (dramatic music)!

Well, needless to say, I'm a little cranky. :P

Irrelevant, random distractions from homework

I'm pregnant!




Wait for it...

Wait for it...

APRIL FOOLS!
I do this to Tim every April Fools Day, and he has never once fallen for it. I figure my mom might poop a cat, so I thought I'd give it a try. Then again, she knows me pretty well so she probably won't fall for it either. Now, if I were to say I just adopted 3 puppies, she'd probably believe that (because I probably WILL do that sooner than later!).

Speaking of puppies, I'm supposed to be busy doing homework but I feel like I accomplished a lot today so far, so I was inspired by Tara's facebook selection of her favorite dogs... So I started looking at Wikipedia dog breeds. Apparently, besides German Shepherds (the best dog in the world), I have a thing for rare northern breeds. So this is my puppy "wish list"; if nothing else, learn a little bit about some neat dogs that I had never heard of before. When I make it to Alaska some day and raise my own sled dogs, this might be much more relevant!

The Canadian Inuit Dog (Wikipedia): Like a malamute on 'roids
Here's a Canadian Breeder's website for them

Tamaskan Dog: Another sled dog, this one is from Finlad... looks wolfy but isn't a wolf

Czechoslovakian Wolfdog: shepherd with eurasian wolf generations ago

Utonagan: a mix of husky, german shepherd and malamute, what bliss! plus it looks like a wolf, but isn't a wolf. ;) sled-dog potential perhaps?



And the Northern Inuit Dog (different from the Canadian one): another husky, malamute, gsd mix... though in my quick search there is a debate about Inuit sled dogs vs hybrids just using the term inuit... oh well I like the pictures anyway. To be researched another day...

And of course, since the internet is full of random stuff... Tell me, have you ever heard of a breed of cat called a CHEETOH?! Pretty groovy looking. Too bad I don't have a good working relationship with felines (ACHOO)... I think cats know I'm allergic and they go out of their way to be friendly just to make me sneeze!

What else have I been up to? I did the "quinzhee or die" snow cave trip with my wilderness class about a month ago; I went to Mt. Rainier and Olympic National Parks a week later to study volcanoes, natural disasters and such; it was so much fun, pretty much non-stop learning and talking and traveling every day. Took me a while to make up for lost sleep from traveling and school work and being sick. Finally feeling pretty good though!

Also was psyched that my lovely doctor friend Kim, who sadly moved to Portland for her residency a year ago, was in town for a couple weeks! I got to meet her boyfriend, drink margaritas and watch basketball, and then hit up some delightful March powder at Breckenridge. She's my original telemark ski inspiration and her advice was soooo helpful, I'm mad at her for going home. ;) Just kidding (sortof)! The good news is she can come out to Colorado for a month for her residency next February! Yay! She wants me to come out to Portland for her 30th birthday to run a 1/2 marathon, but the furthest I've ever run is 7 miles... and overtraining recently gave me a mild case of plantar fascitis! We shall see, I have until June...

I started my unpaid wildlife rehabilitation internship a couple weeks ago. The baby squirrels are starting to arrive, but so far I've tended to the needs of some rather cranky waterfowl. The house finch is cute and scared to death, but I love giving him his little bowl of fresh fruit. He loves grapes! The pigeon got a new roommate, a dove... Pretty easy to deal with them. We have 2 Canada geese, and we have an uneasy cooperative relationship right now. As long as I feed them first, then leave them alone for a while before I come back to do any cleaning, they seem to almost tolerate my intrusion. Otherwise it's a lot of hissing. The real bastard is the swan! It's apparently a domestic swan and it's HUGE. I swear its head is up to my chest or higher! And he is NOT happy to see us. I took on the task of getting way back into his cage and washing it out with the hose; somehow, I made it out alive and he didn't even freak out on me. Stress kills wildlife pretty easily so it's very important to cause as little stress as possible... but what about me?! Having a bird that big hissing and coming after me stresses ME out! ;)

Tim and I went skiing in the Park last weekend after that awesome dump of snow refreshed the crusty, melting leftovers. We went up from Bear Lake Road towards Flattop Mountain, then took a right and followed the trail towards Odessa. Somebody put in an aweful trail that made NO sense, so we went a bit out of our way... eventually went past the Banana Bowl to the Drift and guess what, the wind was HORRIBLE. It LITERALLY knocked both myself AND Tim (big strong burly Tim!) over! I could barely breathe, asthma does NOT like cold air being violently forced into my lungs. I can't even guess how windy it was, probably some of those gusts at least 60+ mph. On top of that I'm not that great on skis; by the time I got to the Drift, between the wind and fatigue, there was no way I was gonna get any tele turns in. I was pretty cranky at that point. We turned around and our trip took about 4 hours total... literally 3 hours 40 minutes to get there, 20 minutes to get back!! I was pretty damned scared of how steep and through the trees it was on the trail we blazed ourselves, but I made it out ok and had fun. Gotta keep hitting the gym so I can go out a few more times for spring skiing in the backcountry!

Oh yeah, and Tim is becoming a conspiracy theorist. :P I despise some of these "reporters" that he has shown me, just so happens they are conservatives but even any liberal that is as derogatory or disrespectful just plain pisses me off. The loudmouth type, YELL first ask questions later type... think radio talk show. I wish I could remember this one arsch's name, but then again I don't want to promote him. The one thing I will admit is that the whole Sept 11th attack is mighty suspicious.... We watched this Architects and Engineers for 9-11 DVD and I'm sold, it sure as hell looks like those buildings were demolished via explosives INSIDE the buildings. Don't jump down my throat if you disagree.... watch the DVD. What really got me is that 3rd building that fell... the one that the planes did NOT hit... It sure as hell looks just like those videos of imploding old casinos in Las Vegas! What's up with that?!

He's also getting into this "New World Order" thing about Obama wanting to take over the world or something. I don't know much about it but I'm not sold on that. We also went and saw that Nicholas Cage movie, "Knowing"... I actually really enjoyed it. ;) You know they say the world is going to end in 2012 right? I figure, why freak out about it. If the Apocalypse comes, or if a big solar storm destroys Earth, there's not much I can do about it. So I have a lot of shit to do in the next 3 years. Then again, didn't some other prophecy say the world would end in 2018? Besides the naysayers saying the world would end in 1999, 2000, 2003, 2009... Ha ha. Maybe I'll just pretend it will end in 2015, a nice comprimise. Guess I got a lot of traveling to do between then and now, "just in case". Of course, my plan is to move up to Alaska and homestead. You know, grow my own food and gotta have chickens of course. This part I'm not kidding about. To live a self sufficient life, solar power and off the grid... Yeah, that's my dream.

Everybody is freaking out about the government taking over the car companies.... really, is socialism that bad? Canadians seem to enjoy it. ;)

That's what's floating around in my head for now.

From one adventure to the next... Hello Washington!

Busy!

Last weekend was my "quinzhee or die" field trip for my wilderness class. We went up to the Michigan Ditch road near Cameron Pass and, with Nokhu Crags in the background, mounded up our piles of snow. For hours. I mean, probably like 5 hours with 3 people. It was ridiculous. Our quinzhee started at a good size (10 foot radius) but somehow in all the shovelling it became a beast of snow. Other groups called it the "spirit turtle" because well, it looked like a turtle.

Next time I build a snow hut, there will NOT be a long tunnel entrance. Waste of time and a pain to dig!

I don't have time to write more about it but I ended up mostly not freezing my butt off all weekend. Sleeping with my wet clothes/frozen water bottle (to thaw it) didn't feel all that great but only my feet were cold. The quinzhee was significantly warmer than outside (maybe 0-5 degrees F outside, 20-30 degrees F inside??) but I didn't sleep very well - my sleeping bag was on a slope and I kept rolling, and I just couldn't get my neck comfortable!

We spent Sunday learning avalanche rescue and snow pit stuff. There's a pretty funny video of my 3 person group practicing with a transceiver...

I had a bunch of tests/papers due this week, and leave for Washington tomorrow for my Park Break thing. Woo hoo! In the midst of being busy I decided to waste more time and buy a new laptop. My old one has been on the fritz for a while (screen doesn't feel like working all the time) so what the heck, went to Best Buy and bought a new one last night. It takes SO much time to get rid of all the pre-loaded crap and customize it properly, when I really should be getting my apartment straightened and packing for my 5 am drive to the airport tomorrow morning.

Speaking of the apartment, I did finally move! I now live DOWNTOWN Estes. Yeah, crazy huh, I'm in the middle of all the tourist drama now! It's small but it's cute and coming together pretty nicely. And the best part is I was able to pull my delightful mattress out of storage for the first time since last May... no more sleeping on government beds or my futon! Wooo!

Been on a bit of a fitness craze lately, it will be nice when I'm in a little better shape and can run from my new place, around the lake, and back.... perhaps a 5 mile run?? Not quite there yet... plus the damn wind is just unrelenting lately. Ahhh, spring in Estes.

So tomorrow I fly to Seattle and then will be picked up by the Park Break folks and whisked away to Mt Rainier National Park to study dam removal and volcano stuff. I believe on Monday I will then go to Olympic National Park and study glaciers and the fact that the park is pretty screwed; many of the rivers now sit higher than their roads/infrastructure. Flooding left the park pretty nasty in 2006 and it will probably just keep happening. I'm so excited! I think there's about 6-7 people so it's a small, intensive field study and looks like it goes all day until the evening (some programs at 7:30 pm). I have so many friends between Portland and Seattle that I really wanted to see, but looks like I'm on a short lease and a full schedule. Oh well, they can come out here. ;)

Actually Kim flies in on Wednesday from Portland, the same day I get back! I'm not sure what her schedule is; Tim was planning a backcountry cabin ski trip to the North Fork NEXT weekend (no rest!) but I'm not sure if I'm going or not. Kim may be going to Telluride, and maybe we'll do some skiing and goofing off. Karaoke too, and make total asses of ourselves. ;)

Oh and we went to the Red Wings - Avs game on Wednesday and of course they didn't let me down. GO WINGS! I was worried considering the Wings had not won against Colorado yet this year (hey, the Wings killed them EVERY GAME last year so don't rub it in) but we wallowed in victory in the posh club level again. We had some rowdy good natured Avs fans behind us, and Univ. of Michigan Alumni all to my right (we got our tickets through the Alumni Association), it was a good mix. I still can't get over how many Wings fans live in Colorado though! It's enough that we get a good stadium-wide cheer going. When the Avs would say, "Red Wings Suck!" we'd start up with, "Who's Got the CUP?!" ha ha ha!!!

Ok back to being semi-productive. Will take a lot more photos in Washington than on my snow cave trip... should be rainy but hopefully a bit warmer (though it's looking like 40 degrees the whole time).

Ever seen what happens when the fan in your car explodes?

Since my last entry, I had a streak of good things happen. Which was too good to be true, because promptly a bunch of bizarre and unpleasant things decided to happen. I guess the universe has to balance itself... that, or the gods think it's really funny to mess with me and see how much I can take before I freak out. :P

A neat opportunity for grad students was emailed out to us CSU kiddos and I thought, what the heck, wrote an essay and gave some references and threw it out there. It's called Park Break, and it's a collaborative week long graduate study with the National Park Service the US Geologic Service and the George Wright Society. I applied for the natural disasters study in Mt. Rainier National Park. I didn't hear anything by the time they said they'd notify us, so I figured I didn't get it.

But I did! Woo hoo! It's 5 days all expense paid to study floods and mud slides and volcanos and other natural disasters in Mt. Rainier and now they've included a couple days at Olympic National Park! Very awesome. I do believe I get credit for it also. I ended up having to drop my hardest class (Population Ecology, yuck) to attend but very much worth it. I'll be out the the second week of March. Unfortunately it doesn't really fit with CSU's spring break but my teachers are very excited for me and are allowing me to make up work.

I also had an unresolved dispute between myself and somebody important, and it was official, and I was pretty ticked off about it. The long of the short is that I made my case and guess what, the more important people saw my side and that I was screwed over and well, I got an apology from high up and certain inappropriate claims were thrown out because the other person was out of line and they were disciplined for their mess up and trying to pawn their problems off on me. Ha ha I know that's cryptic but if you know what I'm talking about it makes sense. Justice was served finally!

So while I was smiling and happy and thinking things were super duper, my truck had a freak catastrophic breakdown. It was driving fine and then next thing I know I pull in to get my dog from the kennel and it starts steaming. I turn it off ASAP and wait a while as the coolant comes pouring out of my poor truck. Eventually I open the hood and it took me a minute to realize what was wrong. I mean, something wasn't right... Oh my god there's a big VOID in the middle of the compartment. My plastic fan apparently tore apart with ferocious force, taking out everything in it's path!! Seriously! The fan was gone, the shrouds were gone, some air cleaner box and hoses were shredded and my radiator was jacked! The fan was so forceful that it tore through the insulation that is on the bottom of the hood and put big dents from the inside! It looks like my engine was trying to escape out of my truck! And the paint immediately chipped from the dents, so my hood looks like hell. I was just in shock. I got it towed and at the time they worried that it took out all my belts as well as hoses... looking at over $2,000+ in repairs on a 1992 toyota with 207k miles on it?! What the heck was I gonna do?! I just dropped $900 to get a new clutch but all that money into an old truck?!

There was moments of panic when I wasn't sure if I'd fix it or try to finance a new truck or buy something else used. Somehow my belts got away scott-free and the estimate was "only" around $900. That still sucked but screw it, just fix the darned thing. This happened two Sundays ago and got it back last Wednesday and it's been running like a champ. There I go again jinxing myself I'm sure!

I actually am pretty "lucky" it broke down at the kennel... I was at the kennel because I had been driving back and forth and staying in Breckenridge with Tim's sister and brother in law, who had rented a condo to snowboard for a week. Would've sucked pretty bad if it broke down in the tunnel, or on the big hill on I-70... Pretty scary also to think about what would have happened if I didn't wait to open the hood when it did break, the fan clutch busted and pieces were flying all over the place in there! Could've decapitated me like in some bad movie! Ahh!

And then, in another freaky evil plot from the karma gods against me, my landlord comes up to my place and says, "the new tenant is here can he check out the place"? (I put in my notice despite not having a new place to live; I have about 2 weeks to figure something out, I was sick of getting screwed out of money and paying a LOT of electric when I was gone for 3 weeks out of a month, my place is like 400 sq ft and I pay 1/4 of the electric connected to a big house and a family of 4. NOT fair). The new tenant found the place on craigslist.com and was coming from the Northwest. Oh, he tells me he is working for the park. Neat. I was on my way out the door so I was trying to get my school stuff together and not totally paying attention. Wait, who are you working for? He tells me, fire management. Wait a minute... This dude is the new hazard tree guy. Remember, they axed the west side crew after I went over to Grand Lake and and a horrible summer? Yeah, him and the original crew leader are now pretty much the entire crew. Apparently nobody else is coming back! What does that tell you. 100% turnover for the fire crew 2 years ago; 100% turnover except for the crewleader who pretty much did more than his share of work and finally got promoted on the haz crew this year.

So this dude who got the promotion that, well, there's no way I'd work for that boss again... but my "replacement" essentially found my apartment across the internet and came from Washington to stand in my doorway. I'm so cranky lately that I just think it's a sick mean joke and am not sure what I've done to deserve the mockery. :P I told him, Good luck with that. I didn't tell him to be ready to dish out more money than this place is worth. Karma will probably smack me for that too. Seems like a nice guy though. Think he's buddies with all those fire mgmt guys but who knows.

My good news is that my old boss from the park when I did construction wants me back so I will probably be working on picnic areas and replacing those old wood picnic tables with those 1300 lb concrete monsters, making them look nice. I did want to try to get on the wilderness crew but the job still hasn't flow yet... I also got a few notices I was found to be qualified and am being referred for consideration for jobs in Alaska but no job offers yet. Tim has a pretty good shot at getting a trails job in Denali or Klondike Gold Rush so I put in for jobs there, but who knows. I don't usually post things about us on here but we are at a crossroads and not sure where that's going. Sick of stressing so that's all I'm going to say about that.

I also got an unpaid internship as a wildlife rehabiliation assistant at Greenwood Wildlife Rehab Center, should be fun. I get to feed lots of baby squirrels. ;) If I am lucky I will get to help with some intensive care or real rehab but it all depends on what comes in the door. That starts in mid-March.

My classes are great, getting A's on my tests. Ornithology (birds) is fun, dissecting a pigeon right now. The hard part comes up soon, internal organs and stuff. One class is a wilderness instructor class and in 2 weekends we are going up to Cameron pass, building snow huts and sleeping in them, then practicing avalanche skills. Sounds fun, cold, tiring and useful all at the same time. ;) We watched a pretty crazy, real video of a girl recording her boyfriend skiing, then you hear and see the snow crack and start sliding toward him and then goes right under her feet, you hear her getting tumbled and then you hear nothing. She died. Not sure if they found her boyfriend, there were multiple people in it and some people were found, some were not. Very sobering. Avalanches are scary! Glad I'm not that hardcore, so my mom doesn't have to worry. :)

I did finally start snowboarding again, my left knee still hurts but work through the pain. I might take a telemark lesson at A-Basin this weekend, and I'm supposed to ski in the park with Lindsay. I have a free ticket to the Banff Mountain Film Festival but looks like Tim isn't going anymore so I'm not sure if I'm going. We'll see. I need to find a place to live!

Very excited, my friend Kim will be in town from Portland in March! Yay! Karaoke and jager shots hopefully! I guess her dad is in Telluride for some reason and we might go down there and ski and who knows what else. My friend Matt is in Steamboat but alas this time I won't be able to see him. Bummer. I have SPRING BREAK OFF March 16-20 or something, really wish I could go somewhere warm and tropical with my sisters like last year (sortof) but doubtful.

I have photos on my camera of valentine's day home-made sushi but haven't uploaded them yet. Been "on the plan", as in, I'm working out and trying to get rid of my hibernation winter fat. ;) It's going pretty good! Though I have no idea why I thought it would be a good idea to run around the lake in the horrible Estes wind. It blew my iPod ear buds out of my ears! But I feel like such a cow at the CSU gym with all those 90 lb. 18 year olds! And why are they always TAN! To be young and have a tanning salon membership, those were the days ha ha.

Well Log Dog is snoring next to me on my bed/futon/couch and I should get some sleep. Hopefully won't have any more truck disasters to post the next time I write!