You can click on the pictures to see them bigger

Why do I love the Columbia Gorge? Oh, you know...

Because it's freaking gorgeous! And every view is different... Unfortunately, I didn't take these pictures, but these are basically what I see when I drive in the Gorge. Whenever I want to. And that's just part of the reason I came back up here. :)

Anyway, my work is picking up. I've already gotten a bunch of lesson plans prepared and a couple of appointments with teachers to lead classes. I'm really glad I tried student teaching at UT, or I would be totally unprepared. Anyway, I hope this goes well.

I really like my coworkers... it's just too bad my supervisor literally has only been in Dufur for a total of about two hours since I've been here. So I've basically been figuring out everything by myself. Most of the other days it has been office work, getting prepared for the year and organizing events. Today, though, I got a little bit of a break - I went on a scavenger hunt put together by my supervisor. I explored Wasco county, where I work. So, a little bit about Wasco county: it used to include most of Oregon, as well as a couple of other states, all the way over to Montana. Now it's just part of north central Oregon.

This weekend I went to a little retreat put on by the Mt. St. Helens Institute. It was about winter survival skills - staying warm and dry, avalanche beacon training, the like. Chris pretty much fits the description of the person most likely to get in an accident (25-32 year old male who does crazy stuff sometimes), so I kept telling him not to die. The next day, he had to lead a snow-shoe hike for the Institute, so I went to the Siouxon Trailhead and hiked here:

Yeah, those are my pictures.

Anyway, I was soaking wet after 6 easy miles, so I came home thinking Chris would be home soon, so we could eat together before I had to drive home. He never came home, and I finally left hoping his thing ran really late and that he wasn't dead in an avalanche somewhere. Turns out he got in a near head-on car crash with a drunk driver an hour and a half before I even got home, and the police didn't send his cell phone with him in the ambulance. Somehow, he got away with about 17 or 20 stitches in his face, a big red/blue swollen eye, and some soreness, but the police expected from the wreckage that he should have at least a few broken bones... or worse. I brought him back to my place to make sure he was around somebody in case of a concussion, but he seems to be doing fine.

So, that was my/Chris's big exciting story for the weekend. Now I'm probably going to be spending a lot of time around St. Helens, because Chris no longer has his awesome car:

The Blue Dragon. Sad face... But I'm just happy Chris is alive.

Alright, well, I've got cleaning to do after my amazing dinner that I just cooked. :)

Ask not what Dufur can do for you, but what you can do for Dufur.

My sponsor, David Gross, has been here in Dufur for about 45 years - since his freshman year in college - and he says that saying's been around for a long time. I guess he's right, since it seems like everyone knows it. I've heard it about thirty times since arriving in the Columbia Gorge last Monday.

I get it, I'm here for service. :)

Anyway, all the interns left the MAC today for our individual terms of service. I met my sponsor for the first time today (everyone else met theirs last Friday). I'm relieved to find that he seems like a great man, with lots of knowledge and experience and a steady personality to boot. He even offered to teach me to drive a stick!

Now I'm taking a break from moving into my bunkhouse. This is NOT what I was expecting. Forest Service bunkhouses, to me, are small, linoleum-floored buildings with the living room and kitchen in the same room, a bathroom with four sinks, two toilets and two nasty showers, and a sleeping area attached to the living/kitchen area with no doors and only portable cubicle walls. In my bunkhouse, I have a master suite, with my own bathroom and a closet the size of my first apartment's bedroom. I have not one, but two dining room tables, a fully equipped kitchen (blender! coffee maker! sharp knives! a pot and pan set! two refrigerators!), three couches and a television. I have an exercise machine. I have an ancient pair of snowshoes. oh, yeah... I have two other bedrooms and another bathroom. What the hell am I supposed to do with all this space?

Not to mention the fact that I have never lived alone in my entire life. I have this huge house all to myself when I'm used to sharing a room with two other girls. Seriously, what do people do when they live alone? I feel like my voice will turn all croaky from lack of use.

Okay that's not true. I work with about ten other people in a building about thirty feet away from where I am now. I'll be working with volunteers. So all day, I'll be talkingtalkingtalking.

But when I come home, then what? There were 588 people living in Dufur in the 2000 census, and the median age is 60. Are there people in this town that I can even invite over, or who will invite me over? Will I have friends whose permanent address is in Dufur, OR? Or will I have to go to The Dalles? Will this just be an exercise in independence? Or loneliness?

So many things I've never had to do before or haven't done in a long time... Figure out what to do for recycling. Remember to leave the taps on when it might freeze. Play my music loud and not worry about it annoying my roommates. Shop and cook for one. Leave my house when I want to see another person.

Alright, now I'm just putting off unpacking.

New Year, Same MAC

It appears my involvement with last year's blog followed basically the same graph as my involvement with my blog in Turkey... first I was excited about telling everyone all the amazing things that happened, and then life happened, and I didn't have time to sit around talking to nobody on the internet.

The rest of the season was great. It got cold in September, and we ended up being snowed on during our last eight-day. By the end of the season, I was climbing all the time and doing big hikes every weekend, and was feeling great. Then, winter started, the program ended, and I spent three months sitting either in a car, on a couch, in a hammock, or on the beach. Now I am ready to get started exploring again!

After the season ended, my boyfriend Chris and I went on what basically turned into a three-month-long road trip that started in Trout Lake, Washington and ended in Trout Lake, Washington. Chris did the same thing I did last summer, but in 2008. Then he got hired on in the same area by the Forest Service, and lived on the other side of the tree swing in my front yard in Ardenvoir last year. We started dating in August and by then had already decided to go to Mexico. So, when the program was over, we packed up my little Chevy Cobalt, made a stop to climb Mt. St. Helens, and then headed south. Our itinerary included Bend, OR, Crater Lake, the Redwoods, my teammate Lindsay's house in Davis, California (where we learned to pick and make oil out of olives), Yosemite, then Palo Alto to see Lindsay Mac right before her job interview with Google, then Danville to see my aunt and uncle and leave my car at their house to fly to Mexico for 2 and a half weeks. My leader Wayne and teammate Lindsay, as well as a couple of Chris's friends from his home in Michigan, came and stayed for different periods of time, and that was great.

After that, we flew back to CA and drove to TX, where I basically sat around and whined about some parasite I'd picked up, and Chris flew back to Michigan for Christmas. I visited some friends in Austin, met my seventeen-year-old half-sister for the first time (long story), and eventually headed to Michigan to pick Chris up. From Michigan, we drove to St. Louis to visit a good friend of Chris's, and then to Denver and Breckenridge to ski and visit more friends, made a short stop in Arches National Park in Utah, and then came up here to start a new year with the Northwest Service Academy.

I breeze through all that because if I tried to describe it all, it would take hours.

Anyway, now I'm starting an 11-month-long Americorps NWSA internship with the Forest Service in a town south of The Dalles, OR. It's just on the dry side of the razor's edge that divides the dry, high-desert of the east side of the Cascades from the wet rainforesty west side. One day, I'd love to live in the rain. For now, I'll spend the year falling in love with Dufur, hopefully. How could you not love a town called Dufur?

Oh, and I'll let you know what I'm actually doing when I find out.

Anyway, now Chris (who also has an internship based out of the NWSA, but with the Mt. St. Helens Institute) and I, as well as my team leader Wayne, are back at the MAC for training. I miss my people with a passion. With this program, the dynamic is way different, since we're all placed individually and really have little incentive to bond as a team. It's also a little more professional, and the people a little older. Wayne, Chris and I also have a little bit more responsibility than the rest of the bunch since we know the MAC, so we have to do things like drive the rigs and lead clean-up crews before and after meals.

I kind of like having people I know here, but at the same time I miss being a completely unknown entity to everyone at first. I kind of wish I had that fresh start. But it's okay, this will work out too.

Anyway, it's late and I'm tired.