Lead Chainsaw Kitten!

From The New Puppy...

Guess what?!

Not only am I a term, year round with benefits and retirement CHAINSAW KITTEN, I'm the CREWLEADER!!!

Yes, that's right. I just found out yesterday. I get my very own crew of chainsaws, minions, trucks... and a million trees to cut down! Even better, I still get 3 months or so off every winter. SWEETNESS!

What's the catch? Well... I have to move to Grand Lake in a month.

Hmmmm.....

Grand Lake is on the West side of the park, I had lived there for about 2 months in 2006 when I was still cutting trees down. It's a nice quiet little town surrounded by thousands of red dead beetle kill trees, all just waiting for the wildfire of the century to burn them all down. The downside is that there isn't really much of a night life, all my friends are in Estes (even most of them that used to live in Grand Lake), and I have to move. Don't even ask what this could mean between Tim and I; that's a whole nother story within itself!

The good news is that my friend Dan is moving over there too, and I think Travis is going back over there. Since my boss will still be in Estes, supervising both sides, it's pretty much my show over in Grand Lake. I can't wait to start working! I get to help hire and train folks, and bend them to my will! Bwa ha ha ha! Just kidding. But it will feel good to run a saw again.

No, I don't know where I'll live. Housing is hard pressed so we'll see if I bid and win anything in park housing.

I do still start in Estes on April 14th to do prep work and get things ready for our insane season coming up. I'm hoping for tons of overtime and maybe going out on a fire or two. Looks like I'll be skiing Winter Park from now on, eh? I'll have to get a snowmobile becuase that's pretty much all anybody does in the winter - drink, snowmobile, ski, and drink. Oh, and Wednesday night Trivia at the Lariat. :)

In other news, instead of driving back to Michigan like I had planned, I booked a last minute trip to Fort Myers, Florida over Easter weekend. My dad and stepmom were down there on vacation, and I had tried to get my friends to go somewhere cheap and warm but alas, none of them could go when I could. I said screw it, talked my sister Linda into flying out, and was there for 4 days. I was "cold" to all the natives and my dad - mid 70s - but it was plenty hot for me. One day we went to Lover's Key State Park and hiked around, found gopher tortoises and birds and stuff but no alligators or manatees; the next day we drove that 2 lane bridge to Sanibel Island and Captiva. We drove through Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge and saw tons of birds. I was convinced it was too "cold" to see any alligators, but we just so happened to pull off at this little gator viewing area that everybody else except some people on bicycles was passing up; there were two little gators just lounging around. Didn't find momma, but these little 2 foot guys still looked like they'd do some damage. I really had wanted to do some kayaking, but it was very very windy and 73 degrees; it felt much cooler on the ocean too. Regardless, we drove to the cute (insanely priced houses; even the grocery store advertised $50 an HOUR parking because there is NO parking around there) Captiva and talked to a Kayak rental place. I was fine but Linda felt cold; the wind would have made it tough to kayak against it. We decided to grab lunch at some place named something Otter and see if it got any warmer after noon. I happened to stumble upon a lost cell phone and must have aquired some good karma from hunting down the owner... We ate lunch and to my delight and utter surprise, they even had Bell's Oberon beer on TAP!! Karma karma! Then it gets even better. We go back to the kayak place down the street (where we were able to park for $5 for the day!) and here comes that good ol' karma... the wind died down and the temp went up... perfect kayaking weather! And since it had been not so great earlier, we were going to be the only people out on the water in almost ANY kind of boat. We got set up in a 2 person sea kayak, complete with rudder. Linda and I always work well together so we quickly got our paddle strokes syncronized. As soon as we pushed off shore, directly to our left in the little bay was a momma manatee and two babies (of which we only saw their noses of course)... and right next to that, two dolphins playing around! I didn't get photos because I didn't want my camera to fall into the water if they knocked the boat. What a perfect day! We ended up going out for a 4 hour jaunt around Buck Key, an undeveloped island that is a part of the wildlife refuge; we stopped at the bridge between Sanibel and Captiva and layed out on the beach for a half an hour to get some sun. Then we paddled back, a nice peaceful trip around the mangroves.

It also just so happened to be spring break, and these impossibly dark, scantily clad kids that didn't even look 18 were causing a ruckus on Fort Myers Beach (we didn't stay on the beach, so we had to endure the aweful traffic on the only bridge on and off the island). Lani Kai, a hotel and rooftop restaurant and beach-front bar, was apparently THE place to be. We ate on the roof and watched this pretty ridiculous, how-slutty-can-you-be "bootie shaking" contest and just laughed at how bad these girls "danced" or whatever you'd call it. They also had a water balloon throwing contest (in bikinis of course... "Oh WOOPS it broke ALL OVER ME! TEE HEE!") and a limbo contest (bikinis once again). Then the stupid scuzzy boys around there were just loving the meat market atmosphere... one guy tried to sneak a cell phone picture of well, a certain part of my person, and he was too stupid to turn off the shutter sound and look surprised when I gave him a nasty look. What can you do but roll your eyes I guess?? It was probably 75 degrees outside and the water was 72-74 degrees; NOBODY was swimming because it was "cold". Well, living here in the Rockies and becoming accustomed to ice cold arctic lake dips must have toughened me up, or maybe the general population is just a bunch of WUSSES because 70s is WARM, but I jumped out in the ocean and made Linda go with me. Even she was shivering and could barely make herself get in the water! In the meantime I was frolicking like a dolphin in the waves. When we got out everybody looked at us like we were nuts. Kids these days (rolling my eyes). Spoiled rotten! :)

We ate out at pretty good places every night and I made a point to get local seafood. I tried raw conch sushi and snapper our first day; the shrimp was fantastic but I was shocked at how expensive a fish fillet was, considering they caught the fish RIGHT THERE. So, no fillets for us. Crab cakes, and seared tuna... At Lani Kai, their big thing was clams and oysters. I've always been mortified by anything squishy and especially mussels and would never even think of trying one, but what the heck. The waitress brought me one raw oyster. BIG oyster. She coached me through the whole process too, ha ha! She said first, try half of it on a cracker with lemon and cocktail sauce. Ok. Ate that... Weird. Like chewing a lugee. A lot softer than the conch, which was firmer than I thought it would be. Then she said, now just put lemon on the other half and swallow it. Which was fine, because you don't taste anything except lemon! Some people chew it... I don't know if I could do that. Just like a big snot ball ha ha! Ok, not really that bad... maybe I'll try it again.

It was good to see my Dad, Pam, Linda, and Missy (Pam's dog). Linda got sick and a migrane for one morning which I felt bad for her, but it all turned out ok. One night on Fort Myers Beach, Linda and I went beach combing at night. We ended up trying to "save" all these ocean creatures from this band of 7 year old kids that kept taking things and killing them! Little hoodlems. But one of the kids didn't want to kill them, and he had the shovel, so he'd throw things back in the ocean with us. :) Our best discoveries: two very large (bigger than a dinner plate), 9 legged starfish, still alive. One was growing back two legs (or are they arms? hmmm), they were pretty neat. To touch them felt like touching a dead cold finger. Not that I've ever touched one, but I can imagine! The other one was quite a shocker and pretty cool. I went to pick up a pop can that I thought was just trash on the beach. I swore I saw something crawl inside it when I grabbed it, but it was dark and I couldn't quite tell. I shook the can out and what plopped wetly into the sand?? A TINY LITTLE OCTOPUS! I mean, complete with two little eyes, a bulbous head, and lots of long gangly arms that were twisting and stretched out sooo far. This thing, in a ball, was smaller than the palmof my hand, but those ARMS just splayed out so far into the sand... CREEPY!!! We just barely saved that cute little guy from those kids because their one friend tossed it into the ocean before they could grab it. I thought it was way cool, but I'm still pretty dorky for my age. ;)  Further down the beach, I came across another can... this one had the most bizarre, squiggly trail leading away from it... straight to another tiny octopus! I didn't want to touch them (trust me, I couldn't keep my hands off anything else except these little buggers, too creepy) so this guy I just put the can in front of him in case he wanted to hide in it again. We also found a bunch of cool things one morning at Bunche Beach, which was just down the road from the La Quinta (very nice) that we stayed at. Some of our more favorite findings were a crab that wanted to fight me and my camera lens; a tiny baby horseshoe crab who's body was barely bigger than my toe nail; and a huge freaky looking blob that ended up being a sea slug! We have plenty of pictures of our sea treasures.

I came back to Colorado and was greeted with a little snow storm. So, in the same week, I went from sea kayaking and bikinis to skiing and snowballs. I met my friend Lindsay and her friends Lindsay and Mark at Breckenridge and hit the slopes, still trying to get the hang of this telemark skiing thing. I did bring the dogs, so afterwards we all went back to their condo in Frisco and they made shishkabobs and hung out in the hot tub. A few too many Jameson and Cokes later, I just crashed on their couch. Then I find out that that night (Sunday) they were getting 20 inches of snow! Alas, I just had to get myself and the dogs home. We got hit pretty good in Estes, and the snow caused like a 60 car accident or something on I-70 on Monday. Good thing I hadn't stayed out there, or I may have been one of those cars!

Been a busy last few weeks of unemployment but definitely can't wait to get back into the swing of things at work. I'm sure I won't start packing for at least 3 more weeks; I start in Grand Lake around May 20th.

Here's some photos of, you know, stuff. :)

Double Trouble

Oh boy, you guys are going to get a kick out of this if you haven't heard already.

I got a puppy.

!!!!!!

I must be out of my mind, right??

Let's start from the beginning. I finally got Logan in to see an orthopedic specialist regarding his hip dysplasia. He looks at the films and gives my dog a full work-up and says, "Your dog doesn't have hip dysplasia."

You can't imagine the relief I felt at that simple statement. I had geared myself up to spend at least $2,000 for surgery on him... And this whole time, I had been freaking out for nothing! However, with my relief came some annoyances. For example, my vet in Boulder had pointed out all these things on his x-rays and said, HE HAS HIP DYSPLASIA. The fact that he was oh so very very wrong is a bit disconcerting and I don't know if I will go back to him (despite him being great at the holistic part). So this whole time, I had been worrying for nothing. The other annoying part is that he (at the time) is still limping, regardless of his "healthy" hips. We took more x-rays to evaluate for that pannostisis (too lazy to check spelling) that he had in his front legs when he was younger. However, the radiologist could not for certain say he even had THAT. The other option was a soft-tissue injury, and to just "wait and see". This 1-hr long eval and 1 x-ray of course still cost about $300, but it was well worth the money... despite not having a definite diagnosis, we now know that it is NOT my worst fear - dysplasia!

This was perhaps a month ago. Now, my original plan before I even got Logan was to eventually get two dogs. Makes it a little easier in the long run, not having to be the sole entertainer of one dog, 24/7. I hoped that having two dogs, they would keep each other company during the day, and Logan wouldn't be such a momma's boy (because he is!). Now that I didn't have an impending expensive surgery to worry about, I started looking online for rescues. If Log Dog DID have hip dysplasia, I would've gotten another shepherd puppy from the breeder at a discount/maybe free price... but now that he's in the clear, it would probably be full price (though I really would love another shepherd). I went to Project REX in Loveland and checked out some pups I saw online. Their intentions are good there, a no-kill rescue... but they are so crammed in there with so many dogs, these puppies were covered in poop and pee and I felt so bad for them. The pups I was interested in weren't available yet, so I went back a week later (Februrary 20th). I played with three female puppies, all around 10-13 weeks old; one fluffy, amber colored shepherd mix with a black nose, that was super energetic and jumped alllllll over me; one German shorthaired pointer mix, shy but friendly; and this little reddish who-knows-what mix that was a little shy but still friendly, and not as rambunctious as the amber one. She had pointy ears, shepherdish color on her face, and green eyes. Of course, I decided I wasn't going home empty-handed... I went with the little green eyed girl. :)

From The New Puppy...

After bringing her home, she wasn't just a little green eyed girl... more like a little green eyed DEVIL! As in, Tazmanian Devil! Stick her in a crate and you'd swear it was a wild animal jumping and yelping around in there. Let her out, and you better look out! She runs around like a little red whirlwind. Logan at first had a love/hate relationship with her; he liked having a dog to play with (and they play great; puppy is real spunky and gives Logan a run for his money!) but sad that he wasn't the spoiled rotten only child anymore. Thanks to Linda, we named her Luna in honor of getting her on the date of the Lunar eclipse. Ironically, after I realized how nuts she is, Luna is now short (in my mind at least) for "Lunatic"! She's about 14 lbs and 13 weeks old, now that I've had her for almost two weeks. The rescue said she was a "Shepherd/Cattle Dog" mix... but since then, my friends and the vet and I all have different opinions. We do see shepherd... perhaps Australian shepherd?? But she has a curly tail and white "stripes" along her shoulder blades, which are typical of the Asian dogs - Akita, Chow, Jindo, etc. Some people even think husky. I have no idea how big she will get (60 lbs?? 50 lbs??) or what she will look like, but she is incredibly smart. I've already taught her to sit, lie down, and even roll over sometimes. Potty training has been a pain, she pees SO MANY TIMES but only a little bit at a time, so it's nearly impossible to always catch her! I even took her on a 3 1/2 hr drive with Logan to Grand Lake for my friend's going away party, and she slept the whole time and was fine. She sleeps through the whole night. She's really quite the sweety though she does drive me nuts. :)

The only problem I might have is that... I think I'm allergic to her. I've been pretty sick the whole time I've had her, but I can't seem to get better and I'm not sure if allergies have anything to do with it. I'm not allergic to Logan at all... So, we'll see what happens.

In the meantime, Logan finally got neutered, but not without slight complications. There was supposed to be a little swelling and fluid, but he ended up devoping a hematoma in his scrotum. Which in turn, became the size of a softball! Poor guy. But with antibiotics and anti-inflammatory, he's finally healing up nicely.

I took the dogs to the annual Dog Weight Pull Competition this weekend and watched dogs pull a weighted sled across a snow track. I think Logan would enjoy it and will hopefully be able to enter him next year! The most weight pulled was about 1,200 lbs. They had every weight class from the little 20 lb dogs, to the 135 lb dogs.

Well, I'm crossing my fingers that THIS year, I will get a hazard tree crew leader job - and now they've turned it into TWO TERM crew leader GS-6 jobs, and FOUR crew member GS-5 jobs. Then maybe I can get back to work before mid-April.

Tim is in Fruita, CO for training this week. Last week, he was shoveling snow off of rooftops in Grand Lake (west side of the park). He will be back next week, and then off to Bandelier National Monument, New Mexico for another month. Sigh. And so it begins, a summer of him being gone. It sucks, but it's his job. At least he has fun doing it. He has a good shot of getting Trails Supervisor job on the west side of the park once the current Sup. sells his house and moves. That would be an incredible opportunity for him and I really hope he gets it!

I can't even remember everything else that has happened in the past month. OH yeah, I had painted a picture of a mountain lion head for the Valentine's Day Art Show at the Rock; I was really happy with how it turned out, titled it, "Universal Look of Feline Bliss", and slapped a $160 price tag on it. Guess what?! Somebody bought it on Sunday! Woo hoo! Talk about an ego boost. What should I paint next? :)

My friend that had the going away part in Grand Lake was getting rid of some of his stuff, and Tim surprised me by buying me... a kayak for my early birthday present! It's funny because I keep teasing him to buy me one, which I have neven been serious about because they are expensive. Well, my friend gave him a really really good deal. So I'm still driving around with a 13 ft. sea kayak on top of my truck, until I decide where to put it!

And last but not least, I put in for my hunting licenses today. Turkey, elk, and deer. This year, I am determined!

Oh and another thing I forgot. Tim's sister and brother-in-law came into town a few weeks ago, so I finally got to meet somebody in Tim's family! They were a blast, and we kept them busy... we were all exhausted by the time they went home. We went snowshoeing in the Park one day; out to eat quite a few times; to the annual Rails in the Rockies model train show; skiing/snowboarding at Keystone; and can't forget the Red Wings/Avalanche game at the Pepsi center! We had reserved Club Level seats through the University of Michigan Alumni Association of Denver, and I'm telling you, once you go club level you will never go back. It was about $100 a seat, but they only play in Denver maybe 2x a year so we have decided to make it a sortof tradtion. Club level is sooo nice, you even get a waiter to your seat... with great prices on good food, and so much less crowded because you're not allowed on that level without a club ticket. Tim and I were surrounded by all Avs fans except for one woman behind us, and the rivalry was good-natured and a lot of fun... until some 60 year old dude, who wasn't even CHEERING, got ticked at Tim (which is funny because I was just as obnoxious as he was) and stood up and tried to pick a fight. This stupid old guy finally sat down but you could see him clenching his hands on his legs, his knuckles turning white. We still have no idea why he got so set off - the other Avs fans all thought that guys was out of line and totally nuts too, because we weren't saying anything inappropriate or different from what they were saying. We even took our picture with that chicky Wings fan, and some Avs fans because we all had such a great time. :)

Here's the only photo I got (from my cell phone) of my painting; forgot to take a good one before it sold!

Ice climbing and telemark skiing - Ouray and Durango

What an eventful past couple weeks!

I'm not in Alta, Utah, and I never went there at all. Tim and I are fighting and he went out there alone. I was sad and pissed but what's a girl to do but go out and have the time of her life?! My friend Kim invited me to head 6-7 hours southwest down to Ouray, CO to go on their annual ice climbing party. They got there last Wednesday, but I was dog sitting for my friend (a 7 month old brindle great dane puppy, he's bigger than Logan and SOOO sweet!) so I didn't know if I'd manage to get my depressed butt in gear and go down there. My friend ended up not needing me to watch Lhotse (the dog) on Friday so I decided last minute to pack up my telemark ski gear, cold weather clothing, and my dog to go meet up with Kim and her friends. The infamous Jim Detterline, known as the hardcore park ranger of Chuck Norris proportions, sets up the trip every year. I thought there were only going to be a handful of people; was I ever wrong! There were probably at least 25 people total, from all over the country that met up down there.

Since this was a last minute trip, I wasn't exactly sure what to do with Logan. The kennel up here in Estes raised their prices and an informal search online showed that it would be much cheaper to board him in Montrose, about 30 minutes north of Ouray. I dropped him off on Friday afternoon at the Montrose Veterinary Hospital and intended to drive back up to get him Monday, then drive down to Durango to visit my friend Maria. I arrived in Ouray 30-40 minutes later and was soon sitting around in the San Juan Chalet's Cabin with Kim, her friend Hobbs, and Hobbs' girlfriend Amy. It was a small 1 bedroom "cabin" with, thankfully, a very comfortable futon that Kim and I shared. It did have direct TV and a hot tub, but mental note: Don't stay here again. We had to ask for more towels and the girl that dropped them off gave me a dirty look and didn't say a word to me. The price was the same as a much nicer place, The Box Canyon Inn, which is where Detterline has always stayed for all the years they have been doing this trip. They even have a bunch of small, hot springs tubs out back, which our group (the only people at a different hotel) cheerfully walked the short distance between our Chalet and the Inn and clambered up the snowy steps to indulge. It was a full moon evening, without a cloud in the sky - always the best way to enjoy hot springs inthe cold winter! Another thing to keep in mind is that if you join the Ice Climbing club or something, you get 20% off a lot of the local hotels and sometimes a discount on food - always a nice perk!

From Ouray ice cli...

My second ice climb ever, at South Park

Kim, Hobbs, Amy and I woke up early on Saturday morning and met up with some of Kim's friends from another room - Chris, the pharmacist from Dallas; Jeff, the ER doc at the Estes Park Medical Center; Scott, who apparently works at the booth at Rocky Mt NP, though I've never seen him; and Norm, whom also works seasonally at the park. We walked from the Inn up the road to this narrow gash in the earth. I didn't realize that this was a man-made ice park, where water is sprayed like a continuous chain of waterfalls every night, turning the side of canyon into a long, extensive ice climbing heaven! It was pretty awesome, to say the least. We got to the "crampons and helmet required" point and everybody geared up. Of course, I'm poor and didn't want to rent anything... So everybody else had the standard plastic boots and climbing helmet, while I donned my plastic telemark boots (not nearly as rigid or as good, but it worked!), borrowed one-front-point (and dull) crampons from Detterline, and Kim's brand new insulated ski helmet. Everybody else had non-bulky soft-shell jackets, which I totally need to get when I can afford one; I had my huge snowboarding jacket and ski pants. In other words, I was the goofy looking newbie. :)

We hiked back to one of the farther sections of the canyon, called South Park. The guys set up all the top-ropes from the top of the canyon, while the rest of us hiked to the bottom of the canyon to climb. It was pretty busy, and looked almost like being at an indoor climbing gym. But we managed to set up 3 or 4 routes and everybody took turns climbing, belaying, and sitting around. It was pretty cold but not too bad (it had been windy, snowing and even colder the day previous). My very first experience ice climbing was at a short but very vertical route on the closer end of South Park, and two people set me up with a crash-course in ice climbing technique. I did have my own harness but I also had to borrow Kim's ice tools. It's quite a different experience with sharp pointy objects in both hand and both feet, and the possibility of falling ice is very real (which happened this year to Chris, but he didn't get messed up too bad). The told me how to swing and kick and away I went! And I did pretty darned good for never doing it before; at least, I surprised them with how quickly I did it. Yay! So I ended up being better at ice climbing then telemark skiing, that's for sure! I think I did 3 or 4 climbs all day, compared to the veterans, who did at least 7-8 climbs each. It was so much fun! Kim and I got tired and cold by 1 or 2 pm and left everybody early, opting instead to buy Bailey's and Jameson and drink Irish coffee while relaxing in our room and watching 3 hours of Medical Mysteries on Discovery Health. :)

We're tough!

That night we all met up at the Outlaw for dinner downtown, but this place is expensive!! And with a party of 20+, they tack on 18% gratuity... So I ordered my food at the bar while the majority of the party was later than expected. The baked garlic spread and the spinach dip were both really good, but I couldn't see myself spending $17 for pasta so I opted for chicken tenders from the Kiddie menu... and for $7, I probably had more food on my plate than those that spent more than triple the amount I did! I met some more of Detterline's friends, including an older guy named Steve that is at this moment in Argentina to climb some insanely high mountain. They're all hard-core climbers and some of them seem just about as nuts as Detterline himself - and I say that with much admiration. :)  Did I mention that Kim and her friend Philip - both of whom are currently completing med school - did a 3 hour tumor-removal surgery on one of his 20-something year old Copperhead, while it spit venom into a tube over it's head and was "anesthetized" by making a snow burrito around it and taping it down to acoffee table?? And the snake is still alive?? Yeah, they're all crazy. :)

After dinner, we went back to room 120 at the Inn (apparently where they stay every trip) and watched a Detterline Slide Show, showing ice climbs in all parts of the country. This too is apparently tradition. Afterwards we all just went to bed for another early morning of climbing; not too much partying or drinking going on with this crowd! The next morning (Sunday), Kim got up early but I was congested and didn't feel all that great, so I opted to sleep in. Hobbs and Amy decided to leave that afternoon instead of on Monday, so they just packed up and left. I finally made it out to the Schoolroom part of the ice park, where Kim, Norm, Jeff, Scott and Chris were already climbing. The ice here was different from South Park, and one route had a hanging ice "fang" that Scott and Chris were doing some crazy stuff on. My first climb here was longer than anything I had done at South Park, and it kicked my butt! I guess it's rated WI (water ice) 4, which is kindof hard for a beginner... but I made it to the top eventually, forearms burning! Norm led a route up another section and that was my 2nd and only other climb I did that day, and I did much much better on that one. i think it would make a huge difference having crampons with two, sharp front points like almost everybody else had. All the guys were very encouraging and supportive and took about a gazillion photos of me. :) We were done by around 4 pm and everybody was exhausted!

For dinner, our little group made burritos and watched Green Bay lose (boo! So, go New England I guess!!), then Kim and I were the only ones motivated enough to walk up the steps to the hot springs. Somehow the boys eventually got off their butts and 6 of us sat in a small, brand-new cedar hot spring tub and just let our muscles melt. The best thing for me is that even though my knee is still messed up, I could climb on it with no problems! But everything from my lats to my butt to my forearms and abs were so sore!

The tub started feeling a little too hot (I'd swear it was getting hotter!) so we all got out and were lazy until Detterline showed up to show an ice climbing video. After 20 minutes of all the boys trying to figure out how to make the VCR work, I decided to take care of it... and just grabbed the little "How to make the VCR work" instructions that were on the table and handed it to them. ;)  We watched some European dude do some crazy stuff on ice all over the world, and then it was bedtime.

Monday morning was when I was going to leave, Kim was leaving by noon, and everybody else was staying another day or two. I decided NOT to pick up Logan, because to drive back up to Montrose and then down the 2 hours to Durango would be silly. I said goodbye and headed down 550, over Red Mountain Pass - an awesome drive! Old mining structures and avalanche warnings everywhere. I met Maria at her cute Victorian home in Durango and we got dressed to immediately leave for Purgatory (now called "Durango Mountain Resort" but the locals still call it Purg), where Maria teaches snowboarding and was able to use a free pass for me. It would have been boring for her to hang out on the green runs while I try to learn how to tele, so to my pleasant surprise she decided to rent some tele equipment and learn with me! The runs at Purg are strange compared to Breck and those other resorts; the greens would be nice and mellow, but because of the stepped formation of the mountain, every once in a while we'd come across a steep part we had to zoom down. Which would be easy on a snowboard but when you're learning something new, it seems like you're going so fast!! But by the end of our 4 hour stint, we were both doing almost-real telemark turns and it was so much fun! Our quads, butts and knees were, once again sore (not to mention that my knees were black and blue from ice climbing!) and after a nice lettuce-wrap snack/dinner that Maria cooked up (pork, water chestnuts, ginger, bamboo and very messy!) we went over to the Trimble Hot Springs and paid our $13 to soak in their hot pool. We had it to ourselves for a little bit when we got there (around 7 or so) and we were sharing it with maybe 10 people by the time we left. Gosh it was sooooo needed by my aching body! I'm still sore today!

We went home around 9 and spent the next couple hours swapping music; hence, I am currently addicted to Brandi Carlile. :) In the morning, we completed my whirlwind visit by getting coffee, breakfast and using the bathroom - the pipes at Maria's froze AGAIN, poor thing! - downtown. It was a short visit but full of so much fun! Durango is definitely an awesome place full of activities for every season. Some day, I'll hopefully get down there to do some mountain biking!

Then I began the 8-9 hour drive back to Estes, going up 550 back past Ouray into Montrose to get the Log Dog. I didn't think about it at the time, but if we had gotten any snow, there were probably 2 mountain passes that would probably have closed and I wouldn't have been able to get to Montrose! In fact, as I went over Red Mountain Pass they had a rotary clearing about 200-300 ft of road that had been avalanched over. But I made it to Montrose, got my knucklehead dog, and drove back to Estes. What a great trip!

Then yesterday (Thursday), Kim took me for my first ski tour trip into the park. We just went to Nymph Lake, which I believe would be 3 miles round trip, and I needed to borrow her skins to get up to it from the Glacier Gorge parking lot. However, the skins wouldn't fit the tips of my skiis and had lost their adhesive! So we found some medical tape and tape both ends of them; then we ran out of that and taped it up with duct tape and crossed our fingers. Climbing steadily uphill, it was tiring and those skins added a lot of weight (not to mention the drag of the tape in the snow) to my skis, but we did make it there. Just in time too, as almost all of the tape had come apart on my skins - though the medical tape did amazing hold up better than the duct tape. We took the skins off and skied down the narrow trail - and snowplowing the whole way down was so tired, yet again, on my butt! There were a couple of times where I was going faster than I was comfortable and thought I was going to crash into a tree or rock, so I fell over. :)  Then, we had to herringbone up this short steep little bit, and I was just falling all over my own skis. It was pretty hilarious. For the most part though, it went really well! Though my knees are still sore from all that tele-ing down in Durango.

That's my latest adventure. I don't have any more exciting trips planned for the next couple months besides maybe skiing in Summit County and Eldora. My sink decided to welcome me home by once again freezing up; when I tried to run hot water to melt it, my pipes started leaking and then exploded all over the floor. I just threw down towels and went to the bar; I'm so NOT in the mood to deal with that kind of crap right now! The landlord is still trying to work something out, short of digging up the entire pipe. What a pain!

Tonight is the "Brrrr-grass Ball" at the Rock Inn and there should be a good band playing. I'm working on finishing a couple paintings for the Valentine's Day art fair at the Rock; the first one is the profile of a mountain lion. I'm not very far into it so we'll see if it turns out as well as the wolf painting. Anyway if anything else exciting happens I'll update; but I think it's about time I hibernate in a little ball in my thick down comforter and not wake up until April! ;)  I have put in for a few jobs here at the park, but I've also put in for some seasonal and term positions in Alaska... So once again, who knows where I will end up in this big beautiful world!

Mom's Orders

My mom is apparently sick of seeing that ear-mouse every time she checks my journal and requested that I update. I was waiting to see if my friends posted any photos yet from our Breckenridge trip, but alas they are slackers. ;)

So really, I have to get to the gym and am not feeling particularly conversational on here right now. Tim's home sick from work, he's so darned cute when he's sick. ;)  I just submitted an application to be on the fire crew here at Rocky this year; I'll only do it if I get a GS-05 position, but I am afraid I might only be qualified as a 4. We'll see. Otherwise, still gonna hope that maybe hazard tree will fly some more terms; or I'll go back to special projects and work on my construction skills at 13,000 ft. Who knows. Tim and I are still waiting for a few houses to open up in the park so we can move in together. His birthday was just on Monday so I surprised him with an ice cream cake at the Rock. We are supposed to be going to Alta, Utah in 2 weeks to go skiing but we'll see if I go. He's way way better than me obviously, since I'm just learning how to telemark and it's NOT easy, and I would hate to just sit around on the bunny hill by myself the whole time.

That's kindof how Breckenridge went. 18 people came out from Michigan and we rented that huge house. We'll just say with 18 people comes 18x the drama in some instances. :P  I tried to go out snowboarding and alas, my knee was still screwed up. I had to ride the chairlift back down to the bottom and just cried because I couldn't hang out with my friends! Tim spent more time with them than I did. I did realize I could miraculously telemark, except I don't know HOW to telemark and nobody else there does it. So I went out by myself at the nordic center and got used to having skiis on my feet (which was probably hilarious to most bystanders) and then one day Tim took me on the bunny hill to teach me basic skiing skills. He was so sweet and understanding, and stayed home with me one day so I wouldn't be sitting around all by myself, but I felt terrible that I was holding him back! Him and Amadeo hit it off pretty good, sounds like they were both sick skiers and hit the trees and bowls together. Then sad little me, with my new skiis and no idea how to telemark... Don't worry, I finally took a lesson last weekend. Not that I'm doing proper tele turns, that could take a year or so... but the basics are coming together! Apparently I'm doing pretty good considering I have NO skiing background whatsoever. Hey, they just seem like big ice skates when it comes down to it...?!?

I guess I should back up a bit. Christmas was delightfully lazy and uneventful. I think Tim and I sat around and did nothing but watch DVDs (Seinfeld, Netflix) for 4 days. I made a nice meal for X-mas eve and opened presents from each others' families. X-mas day, we opened our presents (I had tons because of my huge family, I felt like a little spoiled brat! ha ha) and Tim helped Logan open his gifts which was way too cute. Tim surprised me 100% and got me a nice snowboard/ski bag, a waterproof Pelican case for my camera, down North Face booties which are the only thing that has ever truly warmed my feet up!!, and other random stuff. I got him a nice Philadelphia Eagles Brian Westbrook throwback jersey that he had been drooling over (though I (and most people) think they yellow and pastel blue are kindof... weird), a sushi making kit including rice, wasabi powder, etc, a ski wax iron and tuning kit, and Seinfeld. It was excellent. :)  There are some rich people in town that sponsor a free turkey meal on X-mas day so Tim and I went to the restaurant, and it was pretty good!! And one of our friends (who is coincidentally from Michigan also) walked in as we sat down so us three ate together. Low key and good!

My friends came out on the 27th and we stayed until the 1st. New Years Eve, we didn't feel like dealing with the drama of 20 people going to the Breckenridge Brewery so I set up a  small sushi dinner plan and 6 of us broke away for a way too expensive meal at Mountain Flying Fish. The fish was excellent, but $17 for one roll... !!! And the service was not good, and not a lot of different rolls. I guess we got lucky though, because a lot of other restaurants were low/out of food since I-70 closed and their deliveries couldn't get through. Afterwards, everybody just met back up at the house and played drinking games and stayed up until 3 am. Much cheaper that way!

Here's our X-mas photos (yes Mom you've already seen them). Hopefully I'll have some Breck photos to post soon!

From X-mas 2008

More interesting and random news stories

I think it was Donna whom had told me that scientists could grow human ears on the backs of mice. Well, on this snowy Friday morning, I decided to look it up. Of course, she was right. Get a load of this:

Click on photo to read the article. And that was 5 years ago! So I got curious as to what else they were doing with mice nowadays.

Mice Growing Human Ovaries - yeah, just look at that photo. I'll blame my ovaries when I get fat. ;)

Mice with Human Brain Cells - don't worry, they didn't turn into Pinkey and the Brain.

Mice and hope for Muscular Dystrophy - very recent news

Genetically Engineered "Fearless" Mice snuggle with cats

 

And besides mice, here's some other interesting reading material:

Glow In the Dark Cloned Kitties! The pictures are pretty rad.

Grizzley-Polar Bear Hybrid - I think it's pretty cute!

Why Pregnant Women Don't Fall Over - but I'm clumsy so I'm sure I'd find a way

Trophy Hunting Male Polar Bears can be very bad - This is why I am anti-hunting for predator species in general... definitely anti-polar bear hunting

A Whale Takes an 800 Mile Trip up the Amazon River... and finally died. Bummer. But kudos to its pioneering spirit. ;)

Major Earthquake May Hit San Fran Next Year

Coffee May Protect Female Memory - at this rate you'd think I'd remember more? ;)

The Most Expensive Home Sale in America was, of course, here in Estes Park. Yuck.

A List of Happiest and Saddest States in this article. I don't know how much I believe it, because it says Michigan is happier than Colorado. But at least Michigan and Alaska are right next to eachother, so I know what I'm in for when I finally get there. ;)

And an Eel Powered X-mas Tree in Japan

And then here's something interesting - I doubt anybody remembers last year when Tim and I hiked those two fourteener mountains (Sneffles and Shavano) for Backpacker Magazine but they finally posted our routes that we mapped via GPS. Of course, Tim didn't give me any credit even though he had no idea how to use the damned thing! But really, it was all me. ;)  Here's Sneffles Route, and here's Shavano.

Finally got an X-mas tree... another living, 8 inch tall beauty from the grocery store... since I accidentally killed the one from last year. A little more snow today on the ground, but since I twisted me knee snowboarding last weekend, looks like I'm still grounded for another week or so. I did finally get my skis mounted and when I'm recovered, hopefully I'll be able to do some telemark skiing! Tim has a friend that works at the Alta Ski Resort in Utah, and it's skis only - no snowboards allowed! We might go out there in the end of January.

So I finally looked up what a certain IBM commercial has been touting - DNA ancestry tests. If I had an extra $100, I'd totally do it. You send in DNA via a cheek swab sample and the compare your DNA to see where your ancestors migrated from. It doesn't tell you who you ancestors were, so you won't see Grandpa Bob on there, but I think it's fascinating. Especially after how I head read an article that did the same test on some girl that may have been decended from "Amazon Women"... which were actually from Mongolian women or something. Complicated, so don't ask because I don't remember (guess I better step up the coffee intake). There's quite a few companies out there that do these DNA tests too. This one is themost expensive I've seen - $1000!! - and apparently scans for your probability of getting certain diseases. Just search for DNA ancestry test on yahoo and you'll find them. Most are $100-250.

Ok enough of this nonsense. It's time to hang stockings or something holiday-ish.