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.

News, winter, etc

Lots of interesting stuff in the news lately. Mostly, not good. Colorado, like my sister Sue always told me, is full of psychos. Such as the dude that killed 4 people - 2 people at two different places - out of "religious revenge" or something of the like. Jeez. Then, there's the dude that died in an avalanche... on a day when there were warnings all over the freaking place about avalanches... and keep in mind this was "at least" his THIRD avalanche he had been caught in. Ok, maybe it sounds harsh but YOU SHOULD HAVE LEARNED THE FIRST 2 TIMES! Seriously. You can learn how to avoid avalanches, and how to HOPEFULLY survive them if you get caught. Most of the articles about this accident leave out the fact that this was his third avalanche he has been caught in. These things happen when you do dangerous stuff! Hey maybe someday something crappy will happen to me but maybe I'll figure out not to do it again if it happens 2 times. It does sounds like he was an extreme sports kindof guy though, and there's the theory that those people who are good at the extreme, die in the extreme... This is why I'm taking an avalanche course this winter!

Then there's global warming. Al Gore gets a share in the Nobel Peace Prize (told ya'll to watch "The Inconvenient Truth"!!!) but it doesn't stop the now blatantly obvious problem of the arctic melting - you know, all the stuff republicans told you wasn't happening. Also note that Colorado academia people are quoted in that.

Another, more local, bit of news - the ELK CULLING PROPOSAL of Rocky Mountain National Park. Jeez, it's about time. Nothing is killing those elk, including the hunters who seemed to have a darned time trying to find those beasts on public land. Of course, they're all over residential areas, and the golf course, and the field across from my house. Which drove Logan nuts of course. Something needs to be done! And I sure hope I get to be one of those "park employees" that gets to help out. And thank goodness they've found a way to donate the meat. Donating meat is a lot more expensive than you would think, given the requirements to test for Chronic Wasting Disease and then some requirement of USDA certified processing... Hey maybe if I'm lucky I can be considered the "needy" when I'm unemployed next year and get some elk meat! I didn't sit in on the meeting and the media screws up most everything they report on, so take that article for what you will.

From Winter '07-'08

I finally finished a very belated anniversary gift to Tim... a painting of two wolves running along the mountains under the aurora borealis. Here it is as best as I could photograph it...

Enough of the wind already! And Tim's 5 seconds of fame

Just hanging out at the coffee shop in Lyons while my truck is in the shop again. This time, it's a little more pricey than an oil change... all that new clean oil has been leaking all over Tim's driveway! A valve cover is leaking, so I'm looking at dropping all the money I made last week helping a tree climber remove 3 cottonwoods from downtown last week. Probably $300... Plus my catalytic converter is on it's way out... At least everything else is looking good, otherwise I'd probably throw the truck off a parking structure or roll a boulder over it like in those Toyota commercials. ;)  Hey, I'm now pushing 187k miles and really, my truck still kicks butt. Even though the cab smells like wet dog and has dog-nose smears all over the back windows!

Tim and I finally made it out for the first time this season to Summit county. He hadn't been skiing in 6 years, though it sounded like he was really freakin' good back when he lived in Maine. He was itchin' to try out his new AT skis and bindings, and of course he did awesome and blew me away on my snowboard. Though I did tear it up better than I thought I would. On our way out there at 7 am, it was raining all the way from Estes until the Eisenhower Tunnel. Once we got to the other side of the tunnel (which is at least a mile or two long), the snow flurries began, though blue sky peeked through. We went to Breckenridge and it was insanely busy, seeing as only 3 ski lifts were open. As the day went on, the flurries gave way to the snowstorm we had been hoping for! Even with a balaclava covering my face, it was bitter on my cheeks and nose as snow piled up on us just within the 5-10 minute rides up the ski lifts. The powder settled on the mountain and we went from having a good day, to having a great day! Ironically, as it snowed harder and visiblity was almost as poor as when my friends were out here last year during that huge storm, people opted to leave instead of staying to savor the fresh snow! Which was great for us, the lift lines went from a long wait, to walking right up and sitting right down. I did pretty well, though Tim was impressed by one particularly flashy spill I took. ;)  We were exhausted by 3:30 (mountain closes at 4:00) and slowly made our way on the icy roads to the brewery in Frisco, where we enjoyed a heaping plate of nachos.

 

"He's Mister White Christmas..." otherwise known as Frostybeard. Even strangers were wowed by his inpenetrable mat of facial hair. That's just from the ride up the ski lift, it was snowing so hard!

Fortunately, we didn't linger too long because the snow was still coming down. I think we left somewhere around 5:00 and it was already dark; the freeway wasn't too jammed at first... until we got closer to the tunnel. It took us 50 minutes or so just to get from Frisco to the tunnel. Trust me, I don't even think it should take 10-15 minutes. Just before we reached the tunnel, it just turned into a circus. The snow was coming down heavy, and it was a long uphill grade to just reach the tunnel. All of us in our Toyotas and Subarus were sitting pretty with our 4x4s. In that kind of weather, where pretty soon they would have probably closed I-70, you shouldn't even go out if you don't have the right vehicle. Especially when it's ALL UPHILL. So there were all these people with little cars that were doing ok, until traffic stopped. Going uphill. Guess what happened to so many people? They couldn't get going again! Their tires just spun on the ice, right in the middle of the lane. Left lane, right lane, middle lane. It was like playing a game of frogger trying to avoid these sitting ducks! Of course there were people stuck all over the place - not just little cars, but those arrogant 4x4 drivers. A lot of folks that were having problems were out of staters - Texas, California, etc. Then there were the jackasses that tailgated us. Ridiculous. And worst of all, which I sympathized with the most, were the truckers. It was mandatory tire chains for commercial vehicles, and these poor guys aren't out there in a snowstorm on I-70 because they were having a fun leisurely day on the slopes... they're just trying to do their job, and what happens? Even with chains on, they're spinning tires, going nowhere uphill. Huge semis, chains making sparks on the road... even saw a couple guys that broke their chains, one guy nearly jackknifing trying to get out of the middle of the freeway. I mean, you can always push a little car, but those guys weren't going anywhere!

Even though it took us over 3 hours to get home (after 9 pm), and it was a pain, it was also kindof exciting to finally get a snowstorm. By the time we were past Idaho springs, there wasn't even any snow on the ground! Amazing what the continental divide can do with those winter storms. We were 20 minutes from home going up the snow-free canyon on 36 when literally, snow just came down like a thick white curtain. Out of nowhere. It was so bizarre! And nearly a total white out. We crawled around the curves at 20-25 miles an hour at most. And then it just stopped after 15 minutes, with the stars bright and clear in the sky. Go figure. ;)

Sunday, just overall a disappointing day in football. Eagles, Lions... hmph. Yesterday, was possibly the worst winds yet this winter. I couldn't even take the dog for a walk, it was just horrible. It wasn't even that cold, it was just incessant, relentless gusts of rocks and dirt pounding into the house, my truck, my motorcycle... it absolutely shredded my motorcycle cover last week. It would be really great if a house opened up in the park with a garage so I could keep it indoors! (Tim's roomie is being a brat about me keeping it in their huge 2 car garage.) In fact, it was so windy that it was scaring the crap out of my dog, who clung to me in the most annoying way all day. He doesn't mind thunderstorms or anything like that, but that darned wind...!! It's actually supposed to get up to 65 degrees today down in Denver, but another windy day. So far it's not as bad as yesterday. Here's what the news has to say about it. If they were 93 mph at Berthoud Pass, it's very likely that it nearly reached that much in Estes. Looks like the entire country is having a hell of a time with weather!

Here's some more local news. Estes Park keeps building and building and expanding, and it's getting a little old. I mean, you can only grow so much when you're nestled in the mountains, but people are finally starting to say, enough is enough. The town wants to develop some land by the Stanley Hotel, where Stephen King wrote "The Shining" and where to movie is based upon (though the actual movie was shot in Oregon).

More importantly, Tim had to go on a Search and Rescue last week... actually, it was a body recovery. The high winds last week, in a very poor twist of fate, made a tree fall on a hiker at Wild Basin and killed him. It also hit his friend, but he lived and hiked out to get help. Here's an article about it. Brian the "biologist" who is quoted in the article, got the job that should have been mine. Not that he's not qualified... It just should have been mine, dammit! ;)  Of course the media tried to blame the dead tree on pine beetles, saying it was the first "indirect death associated with the beetles", but that was just media hype and it wasn't a beetle kill tree. And the "two other foresters" or whatever they said that cut up the tree? That was Tim and another trail worker. ;)  And here's a video that shows Tim carrying the litter out with the other rescuers. He's the guy on the closer side of the litter with the only red hardhat and his headlamp off in that still image of the video on that page with the article... and you can't miss the beard. ;)  They show him a couple times if you watch the whole thing.

And since the snow-bug has bit us, and it's a pain to drive out to Summit County, we are getting a hotel Friday night in Breckenridge so we can hit the slopes for two days this weekend. We got a great deal on a room so really, when you figure that it takes over half a tank of gas to get there and back, it's not really that much more money. At least I'd like to think so. :P

 

Thousands of miles in the past few weeks

That's right, I've been all the way to Michigan, then came back and down to New Mexico... Gosh it feels good to be NOT traveling for well at least a couple weeks. The weekly trips down to summit county to ski will probably start this week or next. I'm a little behind compared to last year; Ryan was in Breckenridge while I was in New Mexico and I haven't even hit the slopes ONCE yet!

Visiting Michigan was short and sweet. Got to see a lot of friends but mostly hung out with the family; watched all of my football teams lose (Michigan to Wisconsin; Lions to umm the Giants I think?) but did get to hit up a Red Wings vs Columbus hockey game on Friday night with Linda, and spent my last evening in town eating chinese food and watching Saw 3 with the family (and then a quick trip to the bowling alley to cheer for my friends league). I always miss everybody more after seeing them, but the weather was, well, typical midwest winter - one giant continuous cloud the color of cement, with occassional rain. Yuck! Felt so good to get back to the sunshine of the Rockies!

Once I got back, it was time to go hunting! My buddy Tate took me as my guide and let me borrow a gun. We were up at 5 am and out to a friend's privately leased hunting property that is surrounded by forest service land - usually a hot spot for tons of deer. Guess what? Nobody had seen anything - deer, elk, jeez I think one guy said he had even only seen one rabbit! But we went out and stalked around and probably hiked 4-5 miles that morning, up and down the beautiful mountains. To make a long story short, we didn't see anything except a bighorn sheep (which is actually pretty cool, they NEVER are sighted there)... and a jackass in a truck (you're not even supposed to DRIVE on that road, it's private) shooting what would literally have been MY buck! It was right where we were headed, and he just drove up and told us he wasn't going to shoot a buck, and then boom! Boom! Down goes a nice big one. I don't even think the jackass left his truck and just shot it from the road! Needless to say, we were wayyyyy ticked off. Our attempt ended at noon, with the intent to try again on Sunday.

Sunday morning, 5 am. Same drill, different location. Another "hot spot". Only 2 other people there, up near Storm Mountain (I think it's actually called like Jug Gulch or something). We hiked around til 10 am and once again, didn't see a darned thing. Just a squirrel and a few chickadees. Oh well, what's a girl to do? The seasons out here are way short (different from Michigan) so that was my only chance until I think maybe spring. Would love to get a gun... but lots of other stuff I need to worry about right now. In any case, it was nice hiking around. Here's the sunset the first morning:

From Bandelier NM ...

I was done early enough that Sunday that I decided to head down to Bandelier National Monument a day earlier than planned. Loaded up the dog and made the 8 hr drive, arrived on Tim's doorstep just after 8:15 pm. Finally got to see him after 2 weeks! He did have to work every day, including Thanksgiving, so I mostly took Logan for short hikes around the area for as much as his hips could take. One day, we did the Mitchell Trail to the Natural Arch (2.2 miles); another day, hiked around Water Canyon (2 miles perhaps?); then did Deer Trap Mesa (2 miles). That seems to be as much as he could take, given all the rock scrambling we did. He had fun, though he was sore! It was a pretty low key visit, and after work it was already dark by the time Tim got home, so we mostly just ate a good dinner and watched movies. Thanksgiving, we had been excited to get sushi in Santa Fe; of course, nobody bothered to even see if it was open. Of course not. Nothing was open! But Tim, myself, and 2 other people drove down there anyway and drove around until we found a nice place at the Hilton to eat duck chimichangas and jalapeno poppers. ;)  Not quite what we had hoped for, but there's always good sushi in Fort Collins.

From Bandelier NM ...

Just got back into town this past Saturday night. My friend Kim had also just returned from a month's med school rotation in Portland, so she and I went out and ended up singing Johnny Cash songs at karaoke and hit up the wine and cheese place before she moved from Estes back down to Denver for yet another rotation. Poor girl moves ever 1-3 months!

Then last night, oh those Philadephia eagles! They blew it against New England. The boys were screaming and jumping up and down and ready to throw things at the TV. Hey, they lost the game themselves with some very poorly timed interceptions. That was about all the excitement I could take yesterday. ;)

Well, have a little going away party at the Rock to attend. Looks like I have a side job to help a climber take down a huge cottonwood on Wednesday. Yay, cash!

So, looks like I'll hopefully just be hanging out in Estes, snowboarding and learning to telemark, doing side jobs, walking the dog, and working out for at least the next couple weeks. Pretty exciting huh? I think so!

Waiting for an oil change

I'm hanging out in what I believe is the only place with wireless internet in the town of Lyons, besides the pizza place. Yep, the pizza place is wired, but it's a little early for pizza so I'm drinking coffee instead. Every time I've come to the Barking Dog Cafe, there's always a gaggle (at least 7) of retired old people laughing it up over their coffees and breakfast burritos. I'm always the youngest one in here if it's before 8:30 am! They seem to have a good time. :)

Since I'm pretty much just goofing off on the computer, waiting for an oil change/differential fluid check etc on my truck, I'll throw in random interesting stuff.

An article about how the feds up in Montana and Wyoming in particular like to kill lots of animals - usually for the sake of ranchers. Ahhh, the never ending battle between wolves and cattle. This is part of the reason (here's a bunch more reasons why) why I still refuse to eat beef. I'd rather see the total elimination of all cows than the death of a wolf. Another reason to switch to bison! Seriously. Bison AND wolves were here LONG before cows and ranchers were. Actually, let me look up some stats to show you just why bison (or beefalo, the bison-cow hybrid) is the better choice. Let's quit this "killing wolves to reduce economic losses to ranchers"! (Yes, all those blue links are different websites)

While I was browsing, I got a kick out of this: "Great Old Broads for Wilderness." Good name. :)  They do take younger folk and men into their "wrinkled ranks," too.

I decided earlier this week that I really like walking the dog at night. Though, walking a black dog through a neighborhood with barely any lights on a black asphalt road could potentially be dangerous... But then again, I wouldn't be able to see the clear starry sky if there were lights! Fortunately, there's not a lot of traffic throug the park housing area, and we get well off the road when somebody comes by. There were quite a few shooting stars last night, and it was crisp and cold. Felt good!

I'm still assembling my telemark ski gear... Next up, bindings. Try to get those for under $120. Then, I need skins so I can go uphill. Those aren't cheap either. And I really should get a helmet for snowboarding. Thank god my unemployment check is FAT! Seriously, I can't find a job up here that pays more than unemployment! I'm much better off this winter than I was last year. I'd have to find a job for more than $11/hr for it to be finacially "worth" working. And with a few sidejobs every month, I'll be sitting pretty good! (Tim and I cut firewood for a buddy last weekend; hopefully will get to do that again... though, in a freak accident, a log bounced off the spare tire in the truck bed and shattered the back window of the work truck... just as Tim said, "Don't worry, it's plastic" when I told him to be careful of said window, ha ha! Fortunately, Wendy didn't care much, "it's a work truck" was her reply.)

Well, truck is ready and I need to go down to Boulder and run some errands. Tomorrow, Logan goes to the kennel, and I leave at 9:30 PM for the airport for a 12:30 am departure... arrive in Detroit (with the time change and 2 hr 45 minute flight) at freakin' 5:40 am!! Thank god my mom is picking me up so I can pass out. Did I already mention that I am going to the Red Wings game with my sister Friday night? Watching the U of M game on a 62" plasma HD tv with all my college friends on Saturday? Gonna be a great freakin' time!!

Quick visit to the 313; then off to New Mexico

Well, that entry just accidentally got deleted. I freaking hate using AOL. Whenever it disconnects, I lose my work!!

Halloween, I dressed up as my boyfriend. Forserious. Kim and I went to the costume shop in Boulder and I found this really sexy camper girl costume, complete with naughty badges and a really short skirt; but I also found this caveman wig and beard that looked so much like Tim! I put it on and we both couldn't stop laughing. As ridiculous as it is, I bought both costumes. Tim had absolutely no idea, even though I gave him hints like when he asked, "Is your costume sexy?" -"Well, I think it's sexy but it's not for everybody!" and "Are you a celebrity?" -"I'm known by a lot of people, and I sure think of myself as a celebrity!"

He saw it, and loved it. We went to the bar together, where with both sat down and I immediately began acting like Tim. Giving the bartender attitude, telling people what to do, generally being a cocky jackass... I told Tim that it was great being a jerk to my friends and getting away with it! He replied, "It's good to be me, isn't it?"

Everybody there was rolling with laughter. I had him down to a T! I dressed up exactly as he does - fire boots, nomex fire pants (green), trails sweatshirt (green), hat, and huge BEARD! I even put on my hockey pads to make it look like I had broad shoulders like he does.

Alas, it was fun but it was very HOT wearing all that hair and those hockey pads, and I wanted to LOOK hot! So I ran home halfway through the party at the Rock and had a sex change. People were quite shocked to see me go from being a hilarious costume as a man, to a way sexy costume as a babe! Halloween is the best!

Logan was, of course, a K-9 cop. He didn't mind the gun or handcuffs, but he hated that hat. That's ok, I think those hats looks stupid too. ;)

I am going back to Michigan this Friday for a few days; Tim leaves for Bandelier National Monument, New Mexico tomorrow. When I get back, I am going hunting with Tate around here, then heading down to meet him. Looks like we are eating sushi in Santa Fe for Thanksgiving! Bummer to miss the shoot-out with our friends and their guns up here like last year, but it should be a good time!

Oh, and let me gloat. GO BLUE! GO LIONS! GO REDWINGS!

Now, I have to go watch football. GO EAGLES!

Yeah, my last entry was much better written. Which is why of course it had to get deleted. !!!

 

From Halloween and...

Log Dog's Limp

So, my dog has hip dysplasia. Talk about a bummer. Not doing surgery yet, but it will probably come down to that sooner or later. Hip replacement..!!! I'm just not even going to think about it. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Here's some photos from us blowing up a boulder.

From Work, 2007

That is all for now.
PS: Vote for Logan!

Done for the season!

Woooo!

My last day of work was yesterday. Don't even ask what I'm going to do for a job. I've got a few options, but really I'm more excited for the fact that A-Basin opened 2 days ago!! Time to wax the board! And even more fun, I bought myself some telemark skiis! Something new to learn. I've been looking into skijorning too... that's cross country skiing while being pulled by your dog. It sounds like fun... but Log dog is limping again. This time, gotta check for hip dysplasia. He had been doing so great though! I hope he just pulled a muscle being chased by a Scotty at the dog park. What a headache!

Here's some more photos. This is the trip Tim and I took two weekends ago, to Aspen, Crested Butte, and Mt. Massive.

From Pearl Pass; M...

Never a dull moment!

Another busy month!

It's been over 3 weeks since I last updated; and boy, what a busy month it has been! Let me briefly highlight; hopefully I can get a chance to write more about each of my trips before the weekend, but we'll see.

One weekend, Logan and I went up to Long Draw Reservior/Corral Creek, in the northern part of Rocky Mt NP. It takes I think 3 hours or so to get there from Estes... Tim was building a bridge with his crew, so I wanted to check out his project and do some hiking, where the aspen had changed and the nights were cold... So we did a couple hikes up there.

Last weekend, Tim and I decided to spend the weekend camping together when he's NOT working so we could hike together. We planned on hiking the 9 miles to Conundrum Hot Springs outside of Aspen... but the 25 cars at the trailhead convinced us otherwise (did I mention, it was on a Thursday night, and there are only 18 campsites??). We didn't want to be around people, so we took the 4x4 road up to Pearl Pass, that goes between Aspen and Crested Butte. Ironically, we didn't end up doing any hiking AT ALL. Instead, we saw massive aspen of gold, orange and red; got hit by a snowstorm just as we reached the peak of Pearl Pass; "car camped" and only saw 2 other people near Twin Lakes; drove to Mt. Massive and did more off roading there; explored the old Champion Mill and Mine; had an absolutely amazing weekend. Oh, and we were thunder snowed upon at Mt. Massive. Yep - thunder, lighting... and SNOW. Freakin' LOVE IT.

Tim's back up north working on the bridge; next week, off to Bandelier NP in New Mexico for a week; I'm done working next Thursday. Already bought my expensive 5 mountain pass and ready for SNOW! Working on getting a job for the winter too. Still haven't heard from grad school.

Oh, and Tim and I looked into buying a cabin outside of Estes together. WHAT?! That's right. However, it was sold; we are still looking, but it's a pretty low chance to find another little log cabin in our price range anywhere within 2 counties of Rocky Mt. ;)

Now for the best part: LOTS OF PICTURES!!

From Scottish Iris...

Scottish Irish Highlands Festival

From Poudre River,...

Long Draw Reservior; Corral Creek; Big South Trail; Neota Creek Trail; RMNP

Another fire call-out soon!

Now that I've been back to work for, oh, not even 2 weeks... My boss surprised the crap out of me and caught me at the end of work on Tuesday and said, "They're looking to put another fire crew together, wanna go?"

What?! Heck yeah! I didn't think he'd let me go out more than once; but it's the end of the season, and a lot of people have gone back to school or their seasons have ended, so they are looking to get our Northern Colorado Type 2 #2 crew back together. As of right now, there's no resource order or anything, but they want to be ready when other crews time out and need us to replace them. Most of the crews from the area are in the Grand Canyon right now; don't know if we'd end up out there, or Southern Cali, or where... I'm psyched!!

Christie's Photos

Tim gets back from the Poudre Cabin tonight, if he is back when we get the call-out then him and I just might be on the same fire crew! But, he goes back into the backcountry on Monday for eight days, so it's pretty unlikely. I wouldn't be surprised if we got called out Mon or Tues.

The leaves started changed on the aspen already, as of Monday or so. The wind has been crisp lately, despite the warm sun, and snow is already sitting on top of Long's Peak. So much for finally climbing that peak this season! A bunch of folks did a search and rescue yesterday for a guy that was up on Mt Lady Washington for two days.

Here's a photo of the bathroom I've been working on all summer; it was finished and opened on Aug. 24th. Looks nice, don't it? Thank god I'm done with it!

Work, lately, has been a bunch of different projects. One day, I dug two 5 1/2 foot deep hole to find some old water lines that we will be replacing. Then, we started demolishion on another bathrom (#408), so we took apart everything inside and recycled/reused a bunch of stuff; unfortunately I was busy on another project when they bulldozed the thing down. I think it only took 2 days to gut it, then 2 days to raize it. Instead, I was out at Hidden valley, trying to finish up the trail work I had been doing with volunteersall summer. I finished lining my section of trail with logs, and it looked pretty good; Mike finished the log checks, and Tate and I spent 1 1/2 days digging rocks out of a ditch. My back didn't like that much! Then yesterday I was thrilled that my boss let me go nuts and do some tree work; we are contracting out replacing the water tanks, so I needed to clear limbs for big trucks to get back to it. I spent the morning blissfully by myself. In the afternoon, Steve-O showed me how to split boulders using a gas drill and feathers and plugs. Just drill a few holes into a rock (stupid drill had old gas in it, so it took a while to clean it out...), then put these two pieces of metal on top and bottom of the hole, then start pounding a wedge between the feathers, all in a line... wait... and then crackle and pop! Just split granite in half by hand. The hardest part was keeping the drill going! And my forearms were killing me. But it was a good day. All the term employees are ticked off because they are getting laid off for 2 months; usually it's only for 2-4 weeks. That's just the way it goes sometimes, I suppose.

Today is my day off, after this going to jog with the Log, though it looks like it wants to rain. Notre Dame (Tim's team) and Michigan (how embarassing) play tomorrow, and they are both 0-2..... so Tim and I have a lot of trash talking to do tomorrow! Monday, he is driving out of the backcountry to Ft Collins, and I am meeting him down there, for Monday night football - Eagles. Oh, and did I mention how sweet it is that the Lions won last week?! Sadly, Tim will be in the backcountry for the Eagles-Lions game... I was so looking forward to it!

And, I don't know if we'll be able to make it back to MI and PA like we had wanted. Looks like his furlough won't happen til after the new year. Bummer. We'll see if I get into grad school at Colorado State. My friend Ryan is coming out to ski over Thanksgiving, then all my college buddies are coming out Dec 27-Jan 2, then my friend Matt will be out in January! Looking forward to this winter!

Here are Jason's photos from Brian's wedding.

Now, time to do something productive!

Scottish Irish Highland Festival weekend!

The internet crashed right in the middle of that last journal entry. Will continue when I get a chance. This weekend is the Scottish Irish Highlands Festival here in Estes... it's only taken 3 summers for me to finally make it! Log dog and I forgot about the parade and went into town for a jog and breakfast, only to get diverted. I didn't plan on going to the parade, but we ended up walking downtown with a breakfast english muffin, strawberry smoothie... and my 110 lb big black german shepherd at my side. One dude in a kilt even asked if he could take a photo of my beautiful dog. ;)  We made it into town, but ran into Sov (Tim's friend/coworker/Kim's boyfriend) and ended up talking to him through the entire thing. So... I heard the parade, but didn't see it. Just saw all the Irish Wolfhounds, Scotties, Westies, and tons of men in kilts. :)  I then tried to take Logan for a jog at the lake, which went pretty well... until we passed another dog. Then, I had lots of people giggling at me as I urged him "Keep on running! Keep on running!"  I'm sure I would have laughed at me, too. :)

Tim and I are going to the main festivities in about half an hour - Scotch tasting, lots and LOTS of music, herding dog competition, highlands competitions (jousting, and who knows what else men in kilts are capable of) and GUINNESS! Last year I missed it, was out on a fire, 2003 I think I was back in Michigan or maybe somebody was visiting me??

So here's some more photos. Gotta jet!

 

Tom's Seattle photos

 

From Seattle/Brian...

Some of my wedding/Olympic NP photos... more to come...

 

More fire photos from the safety officer HERE.
And here's Hawk's photos:

Back from Seattle... still haven't had time to sit down

Phew! I didn't think I'd ever stay in Colorado for longer than 2 days, at the rate I've been moving lately!

After I got back from that fire late on a Monday evening, I had Tuesday and Wednesday last week to get my whole LIFE back in order and try to get ready to leave for Seattle at 4:30 am on Thursday. Cheap flights = insanely early drive to the airport sometimes! Of course, the timing belt on my truck decided to finally take a poop in my driveway on Wednesday morning, and Tim was still in the backcountry... so I wound up driving to Fort Collins and running errands/going to chiropracter/going to the SPA/getting cheese and wine with the girls on my motorcycle. Tim got back Wednesday night for our first little reunion in almost a month, and then we were awake at 4 am, packing our tents and sleeping bags in with our wedding outfits. Flew out at 8 am, and was soon at the rental car counter in Seattle by 9:30 am local time. I had reserved a "midsize" car. The receptionist asks, "Is a Chevy HHR ok? It's like a PT cruiser." I say ok. We head to our assigned spot... Q3... what the heck... no way... HA HA HA HA! If you don't know what an HHR is, you have to look at my photos. It was like a modern hip version of a gangster getaway car or something, with black tinted windows... But it was roomy and ok by us!

Just drove to Seattle without any real map/destination/idea of what we were doing, found a place for lunch and internet, and figured out where to take the ferry across Puget Sound, where we would then drive to Port Angeles and then... come up with another plan as to where we would camp in Olympic National Park. It was midday on Thursday before labor day, but there wasn't really a wait for the ferry and it was a beautiful sunny day for the 30 minute ride. Once on Bainbridge Island, we drove to Port Angeles (passing through the "lavender capital of the country") and found the ranger station. We appeased the ranger by admitting we, too, were Parkies and we wanted to camp on the ocean, far from tourists. He was quite nice and we decided to spend our first night on Third Beach, a 1.4 mile hike to the Pacific Ocean. Our second night, we would continue south along the beach another 5 miles and stay at Toleak - which we would have to time our hike according to the high and low tides. Some headland areas are impassable during high tide, where you would get trapped at the bottom of the cliff. We also rented our huge bear-proof food cylinder that we had to hike around with - it wasn't so much for bears, as for mischievous raccoons. With everything all set, we made haste to find...SUSHI! It was the only sushi place in Port Angeles, and from the outside it didn't look all that great. But on the inside, it was a nice place with good prices and good fish. We had been looking forward to eating sushi in Washington almost as much as we were excited for the wedding and camping on the ocean. ;)

Our campsite at Third Beach

After our big dinner, we made the long drive to the trailhead for Third Beach; by the time we reached it, the sun had set. We pulled out our headlamps and got our backpacks squared away and hiked in the humid, oppressive darkness through the temperate rainforest, completely oblivious to what it looked like during the day... but we were certain that it was thick, with HUGE trees, and so incredibly dark, considering we were just past the full moon. It was a quick hike and mostly flat, but we didn't even hear the ocean until we were just upon it. The trail pops out at a small stream that feeds into the ocean, and soon we were looking at sea stack rocks under the moonlit sky, the ocean rumbling loudly as it washed in and out. We did a quick exploration and only found one tent along our whole section of beach, despite it was Labor Day weekend; we found a nice little area next to a boulder and surrounded by big driftwood logs to set up the tent. We stayed up late and sat on the rock, drinking a bottle of wine and just enjoying the sound of the ocean. It was exactly what I had hoped for. :)

I slept pretty well, except the sound of the ocean was so loud that in the middle of the night, when high tide came in and was merely 20 feet or so from the tent, I had a half-awake dream that the tide was going to wash up into the tent because it was so close! But of course things were fine. Maybe should've taken it easy on the wine that night. ;)

The next morning, we both woke up early; Tim took photos of pelicans and sea birds, I sat on the rock and watched the sun rise (though I couldn't see the sun, the clouds were still beatiful and the ocean was misty and cool). Soon however, we retreated to the tent where the incessant pitter patter of raindrops made us reconsiderour plans. It didn't seem like it would let up any time soon, and we really didn't feel like packing up our wet tent, hiking in the rain (timed to the tides, don't forget!) and setting back up in the rain, and then doing our day hiking all wet... So we decided to stay at Third Beach another night and hit the road to do some sight seeing. We hiked out and went to the Hoh Rainforest Visitor Center and hiked around the denser areas of temperate rainforest - the Hall of Moss and Spruce Trails were excellent short hikes, showing off the biggest Douglas-fir and Sitka Spruce, and maples draped in vines and moss... BIG trees indeed! Everything had something else growing on it, just so many shades of green in one place! We also walked along the Hoh River, which was a cold, glacial-fed, eerie blue-green river that came down from the mountains. I think I remember reading that the Park has over 70 active glaciers, which is more than Rocky has. I would love to go back and hike more interior next time, to see all these glaciers, tarns, and mountains!

Hall of Mosses

Big freaking tree!
The photo-stitched big tree

We also wanted to see the furthest Northwest Point in the lower 48, so we drove up to the indian reservation and boarded the shuttle van. It was a quick hike along some boardwalks to a spectacular ocean view, with cliffs, caves and islands; bright orange starfish and even a big group of seals on an island! Tim went nuts with his camera, as did I. It had rained all day until we got up there, so we had blue sky but unfortunately couldn't stay for the sunset because the shuttle was leaving. It was a great day!

Lighthouse at the NW point

Seals!

We decided to finally eat some of the food we brought for backpacking, so we set up Tim's little single burner stove in a parking lot... and the stupid sig bottle lit on fire! Guess it was leaking white gas. We did put it out, but Tim was upset his stove was broken. We ended up eating mexican in Two Forks, which was a bummer we ended up wasting some food we bought but oh well, these things happen! Once again, we found ourselves hiking to Third Beach in the dark. We never did get to see the sunset! The moon was bright and we could see a couple tents further down the beach, but considering it was Friday of Labor Day weekend, we still had plenty of seclusion. Another nice night falling asleep to the sound of the ocean.

The next morning, we both were feeling lazy and reluctantly decided we didn't feel like hiking further down the beach like we had planned. Packed up camp and headed out of Olympic, feeling fulfilled with what we had seen and done. Of course, I forgot to drop off the bear canister so I had to UPS it back to them, an hour outside of town. Grrrr. We went back aboard the ferry at Bainbridge and 30 minutes later, we were looking for sushi in Seattle. We ended up eating at a place at University and Western, the food was great but the service... Never eat at a place that says "Now Hiring Servers" and only has 2 people working - one making sushi, the other doing everything else! We walked by the Pike Market but that's really not Tim's or my kind of thing, so we didn't stop and gaggle at stuff we didn't need to buy.

Afterwards, we drove up to Lynnwood and found a hotel, took a nap (since we had been on the go non-stop) and got ready for Tim to meet my friends for the first time. Yay! We went to Egg Cetera's Blue Cafe (a bar) in Wellington, and I was soooo happy to see everybody! The regular crowd - Kevin, Beth, Jeff, Brian and Melissa of course, and all those other folks. Since the bride and groom were getting married the next day, we didn't stay out very late, but it was still good to see them. Then back to the hotel, where we could sleep until the 4 pm wedding, about 30 minutes away in Snohomish.

Wedding day sunday! Tim looked really handsome and I love the fact that he doesn't own a suit. ;)  We drove out to Craven Farm and it was beautiful, corn fields and beautiful gardens, with a view of the Cascades in the background. I think there were only 120 people or so at the wedding, but I got to see Hot Donna, Brian's parents and jeeez so many people I haven't seen in forever! The ceremony was short and nice - not preachy - and even a little bit humorous. :)  After the ceremony, there was a cocktail hour (of course, Jeff, myself, and Tim headed straight for it!) and got to introduce Tim to so many people. We sat at a table with Donna, Jason, Chris, Ted, Steve T and his wife Anne, and we had so much fun being goofy. The food was "family style", gourmet Asian food - breaded "claw", some fish head soup or something??, I wish I would have saved the menu it was so delicious. Tim impressed everybody with his ability to eat EVERYTHING. ;)

And what else can I say? Danced a little, talked a lot, Tim and my friends all got along great, Tim and I had a blast! Alas, everything was over by 11:30; early by my standards, but we had to leave for the airport by 4:30 am again so it was better off that way. So sad to leave everybody, but they are coming out to CO to ski after X-mas so it won't be too long!

So we flew home on a 6 am flight, and were back in bed taking an all-day nap by noon on Labor Day. Finally, some rest!

First day off in 22 days!

Phew!

Let me just say, it was an incredible roll with Northern Colorado. I'm exhausted and psyched to have 2 paid days off, but super busy trying to do a bunch of stuff before we leave for Seattle. I ended up working on both the Tin Cup fire (considered out now) and the Rombo fire (I don't even think it is considered contained at all) right outside Darby and Sula, Montana. The Rombo fire started at 3,500 when we found out we were moving; 4,700 acres when we started; and almost 22,000 when we left and it blew up, heading straight for the town of Connor.

My digital camera is officially dead, so the only photos I have until everybody posts theirs is from my cell phone.

Lots to do! Will update more when I get a chance.

From Tin Cup and R...

From Spring 2007 -...

FIRE FIRE FIRE!

WOOO!!

I'm on deck to  head out with the Northern Colorado Type 2 (#2) handcrew any day/hour/minute!! Hopefully MONTANA but shit is burning in Idaho, Oregon, MICHIGAN even (15,000 acres, 61 miles west of Sault Ste. Marie..... YEAHHH FIRE FIRE FIRE!

Ok gotta jet, just thought I'd share. Oh, here's a link to see if/where I end up going:

http://coftc.chicodev.com/location-report.php

From there, the first category is Fort Collins Dispatch Center Resources; I'll be with Northern Colorado #2. Daily it will be updated if we are sent out, and where we are.

More miles, higher elevations

I added up my hiking miles (dog walks and other little ones don't count) and I was ashamed, not even 100 miles this year. WEAK! So I did Chapin, Chiquita and Ypsilon peaks last Friday. Too late to do an official trail log, but I know I did more than the 7.6 miles that newspaper article says, since I took a drastically different way back to the trailhead. Though, it does have an excellent map! Oh, this hike was wear the park ranger Jeff Christensen died in 2005, fell off of Chiquita and was found at the bottom. There's a very interesting report of the incident here. Very sobering to look over the steep sides of one of the coolest mountains in the park (Ypsilon), in thick fog with blowing wind, and realize that yeah, those things do happen.

From Chapin, Chiqu...

Here's photos of the parkie softball team, the Cougars. Good photos of Tim and his huge beard.

Tim is camping out with his crew on Longs Peak for the week, back for the weekends, for the next month. Maybe I'll try to do Longs some Friday and surprise him. We've been having so much fun lately, even did a pub crawl with a bunch of people on Saturday from 2 pm - midnight (10 bars!)... yeah, I'm still sick so I didn't get too crazy, but it was still a blast! Things are good. :)

Definitely bedtime. Have a lot of good books to read right now! Oh,I took Logan for his first real jog ever, since his shoulder is holding strong. He did pretty well... probably better than I did, haha! Hopefully get some new photos of him soon! Oh, and lots and lots of rain and thunderstorms - monsoon season! But it still won't scare the tourists away. Damn.