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.
1 comment:
ahh! i'm so excited for you and i miss you at the same time. please make the blog a priority. you've got so many people who want to keep up with what you're doing ;)
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