New Places, Newly Resurected Blog

Hello blog-land! It has been a while, as per usual. But for real, I am going to try and blog often here. I'm gonna go ahead and say every week and fingers crossed I stick to it. Here's a preliminary post about just getting here, but stay tuned for one about the road trip, and one with more Death Valley deets.

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For basically our entire trip across the country, Amelia and I would get into each new city after dark. The upside of this was that we got to magically wake up in a totally new place each morning, and view the city and landscape after a few hours of sleep. 

I experienced the same pattern here in my new home of Death Valley. I drove in at twilight, after a stressful couple of hours shopping and gassing up and getting an emissions test done on my car in the “nearby” town of Ridgecrest. All I saw after crossing the border into Death Valley were signs about the elevation-- climbing up in the mountains and then dropping to Sea Level just before I got to my dorm.

All I really wanted to say in this post is that waking up here is incredible. Driving around and pinching myself and realizing over and over again that I live here is incredible. It’s the harshest of harsh deserts but I’m loving it. Even when I wake up completely parched every morning, I get to look outside and see this:

Bam.

Stick-with-the-plan Soup: The Backstory

On our big Western road trip, we invested a fair amount of funds in food. Mostly we just wanted better lunches than PB&J every day. The end result of our varied lunch endeavor was that we had to cut back a bit on other meals. This cut was most felt at breakfast, where we ate 'gruel' for weeks on end. We called it gruel because after a week of liking it, it got hard to stomach and we had to mask it with copious amounts of salt, nutritional yeast, and sriracha.

Gruel face.

So but anyway I am supposed to be writing about Stick-with-the-plan soup (which coincidentally also involves large amounts of salt, nutritional yeast, and sriracha). Before I talk ingredients, I have to talk Ed Abbey. Our trip was in the fall, which meant that the sun set earlier and earlier. So immediately after dinner, there was nothing more enticing than our sleeping bags... at 7 pm (8 pm if we really pushed it). Lying under the stars on the slickrock, we took turn reading out loud from Desert Solitaire and assorted stories by Terry Tempest Williams.

After about a week, we had grown to love Ed's cantankerous musings. We got a huge kick out of a line from his essay about The Moon-Eyed Horse in which Ed says to himself:
"But you're not clever, you're stupid, I reminded myself: stick to the plan."

This line especially hit home for us, because it was reflective of our lack of any planning whatsoever. We never found a campsite in advance, we never had a solid plan of future destinations, we never planned out our dinners. This lack of dinner planning combined with the random bits of food we had all brought from our previous trips and our aforementioned stinginess on breakfast and dinner led to some interesting meals. There were a few points on our trip (which for some wild coincidence happened directly before a trip to the grocery store) where we had to really scrounge for dinner in the depths of our food crate. What could we mix together to make an appetizing and filling meal?
The answer came to us in the form of Stick-with-the-plan soup. This soup/stew consisted of anything and everything that could potentially taste good together. Dehydrated peas, hominy, soy sauce, bouillon cubes, month-old cabbage, potatoes, rice, lentils, you name it! Bonus if cooked on a fire and some ingredients fall out into the fire because the pot is so full. We discovered that if you put enough salty ingredients in, it will taste delicious. Hominy not cooked, soup looks like sludge? No matter, it was still hot and filling. And it came about from having no plan.

Can you spot the soup?

Anyway, this is all to say that I named my Tumblr site 'Stick-with-the-plan Soup' because it is a smattering of trips and nature shots from my adventures over the last few years. Most pictures are from random wanderings, where there was no plan and yet it all worked out in the end. Just like soup. Ya know? 

So check it out!  I post pretty regularly with pictures of life at camp and of past adventures. As much as I want to update this blog with stories from camp all the time, it just ain't gonna happen. Until next time!

A public lands legacy

The summer before my freshman year of college, I spent three weeks on a Student Conservation Association national crew. I was placed in Wind Cave National Park and had a life-changing experience, but that's a different story for another day. Long story short, I fell in love with national parks and over the next few years I grew immensely appreciative of the value of public lands in general.

Fast forward to this year, when I spent the winter living at home in D.C. Now if you live in New York or L.A., being starstruck probably means you saw a famous movie star. In D.C. however, starstruck takes on a political form. 'I-just-saw-someone-famous freak outs' are justified for:
-the V.P. or Presidential motorcade
-any motorcade
-D.C. mayoral candidates
-D.C. mayors
-city council members
-recognizable hill folks
-basically anyone in a position of power in the federal government
-probably a lot more people

This blog post is about my adventures in almost debilitating sightings of D.C.,'s most important peeps. Each time I meet an important person, I revert to being a middle schooler and agonize over if I should go up and say a thing to them, or ask them a question, or just introduce myself and hope that they'll take pity on me and engage me in conversation about something other than the weather. No sighting has been more agonizing than seeing current Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell, and then seeing former S.O.I. Bruce Babbitt only a couple of months later (the shock of the first sighting still hadn't worn off).

Here's my friend Caroline actually talking with Jewell. What the what!

I got up the courage to talk with Babbitt after the screening of a film about dams, in which he was an opening speaker. I snuck up to him as he was about to leave, and asked him about his relationship with Floyd Dominy (of the Bureau of Reclamation). I coasted on this conversation for days, let me tell you. Chatting about dams with the former Secretary of the Interior, could things get any better??

Turns out, hearing Babbitt speak at the Ansel Adams Gallery of the Wilderness Society about Obama's public lands legacy was even better. He wrote a op-ed for High Country News after his talk, but in it he didn't include my favorite anecdote from his remarks. Ready for it? Here's the gist of what Babbitt said:

Basically, Obama is in the same place as Clinton was at this point of his second term in office. That is, Obama still has not carved out an environmental legacy for himself whatsoever. Babbitt spoke about the tactic that he used to convince Clinton to create a legacy for himself. Babbitt sat down one day and pulled out two index cards. On one he wrote: 'FDR' and then a list of all the public land reserves he had created in office, and other environmentally conscious acts. He wrote 'Clinton' on the other card, and then wrote a much shorter list of Clinton's environmental accomplishments. Then all Babbitt did was give Clinton those two cards, and that was all the push that was necessary. He spoke of the following months, where Clinton apparently called up Babbitt regularly to ask if he had any other big tracts of land that he could make into a national monument. Because of this small push at the end of Clinton's time in office, we now have protected areas such as Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument-- an almost 2 million acre tract of land in southern Utah-- larger than the land area of any other U.S. national monument. Here is hoping that Obama will get the same idea.

My promise to you, dear readers: Next time I write about public lands I will try to be more coherent, and next time I write in general it will be about life at CAMP!

Old dog, new camera

My dog has never looked at me the many hundreds of times I have tried to take her picture. The only reason I've gotten a picture of her looking into the camera is because my dad was standing behind me holding a treat (which actually works rather well sometimes, see below).

But joys of joys... I got a new camera! It's fancy and I don't know how to use it even a little bit (though this aperture thing is pretty fun), but for some reason Honey the dog does not seem to notice that it is also a picture-taking device. Huzzah! For your/my viewing pleasure:

Mushrooms and amphibians and cabins, oh my!

I moved to camp on Thursday, and by now I think it is safe to say that I'm settled in. At least, I have enough damp clothing and rodent-chewed fabric to show that I've been here a while.

I'm feeling lucky about quite a few things regarding my current living situation.

1. Free room and board-- always fun to have, and we eat quite well. Roasted turkey and mashed potatoes one night, baked chicken and fresh-picked morels another night... mmmm mmm. We took a couple of hours off from work to hunt for morels on the hills, and we found a good number of them.

2. Close access to salamanders. I can just turn over pretty much any log around and find them-- it's been super rainy and perfect for sals! Stay tuned for way too many pictures of salamanders.

3. Sharing a cabin with my friend Bridget. We live in Heights, aptly named for how it's the the farthest cabin up from the lodge. It's my favorite place to live at camp, because it has a big porch with a swing, and because I feel like I'm sleeping outside. We get lots of deer, spider, flying squirrel, and moth visitors.

My pet cactus isn't as happy about the living situation-- it had been super cold and wet-- not a good time to be a cactus. But tomorrow is May, so all hope is not lost.

The Ups and Downs of D.C. Biking

Biking in this city is like riding a roller coaster, both emotionally and physically. I've had my share of highs and lows of biking around D.C. on my work commute over the past few months. Highs include cruising down Pennsylvania Avenue at sunset with the capitol building in front of me, and taking the long way home through Rock Creek Park on a sunny winter afternoon. And getting to the top of the long hill on the bike ride home, I suppose.

My all-time low occurred last week, when I got stopped by a police cruiser on Connecticut Avenue for running a red light. Here's most of the exchange:

Cop: What were you thinking, running through that light after waiting so long? It was about to turn!
Me: Well... the cars stopped turning so I just went.
Cop: You know it's a $25 fine for running a red light. Bikes have to obey the same rules as cars.
Me. Oh... I uhhh didn't know that.
Cop: (waves and gives me a look to imply that I don't have to pay... this time)
Me: I'm sorry officer, I won't do it again.
Cop: (gives me a very disbelieving look)
Me: Ok I will Try to not do it again...

But aside from the occasional brush with the law and the frequent stink-eyes I give to motorists and dumb pedestrians, city biking gives me great joy. I notice a lot more on my bike, and I gain new skills all the time. Recently I discovered that I can eat a sandwich while biking! It was a proud moment (don't worry, I wear a helmet). D.C. is also an exceptionally great biking city because you never know what you might come across on an innocent pedal through the streets. One Sunday I biked to the farmers' market and stumbled upon a flash mob of musicians dressed as chefs, then biked to the Keystone XL protest at the White House, then went to the capitol where there just happened to be a dance troupe preforming on the lawn. I probably would have seen only ONE exciting thing if I had ridden the metro, plus on my bike I could feasibly eat if I wanted to.

When I'm biking, I pass places that are significant both in my personal life and the life of this country. I mostly bike alone, and thus never can share the significance of whatever landmark I pass. Which is why... I totally want to start a bike touring company. Who is with me?? We would definitely wear neon safety vests, and practice turning signals before going out on a tour. It would be gloriously dorky. Stay tuned, Paris and I both are seriously considering if when we need a change of pace in life.

This would be part of our route, in case participants get hungry and need them some Jumbo Slice.

Need Some Butter with that Corn?

Things I am obsessed with, not necessarily in this order:

• Jr. Ranger badges
• National Parks
• Snail Mail
• Postcards
• Public transportation

This post is about postcards.

My postcard collection was probably a side effect of my packrat tendencies to collect everything-- bottle caps, rocks, quarters, flat pennies, boxes, Coke bottles, you name it. But postcards hold a special place in my heart, because there is no better feeling than getting something in the mail. As much fun as it is to write postcards, it's much more fun to have a pen-pal situation. Especially pen-pals who appreciate a good ol' corny postcard. In fact, due to different pen pals traveling and living in the midwest, I'm discovering just how many postcards involving corn exist out there!

My first pen-pal was a girl named Dawn. She was from Kansas, and my third grade class exchanged letters with her third grade class. I didn't like her, because she wrote about how much she loved pink. Our exchange didn't last long.

I currently correspond via postcard with a few regular pen-pals, spread across the country. I find that it is the best way to keep in touch-- more thoughtful than sending a text, less time-consuming than writing a four-page letter. Most of these pals are camp friends who always seem to appreciate snail mail the most, having lived in a place with limited internet for weeks at a time.

Pen-pal Story Time:
This one time, D-Rod, Maia, and I were headed out of the backcountry of Denali on the bus. We trooped to the back to sit with the other dirty backpackers, and met two guys who had also just come out of the wilderness. We shared stories and met up for celebratory we-didn't-get-eaten-by-bears pizza, then traded addresses. I didn't know then, but one of these guys turned out to be a stellar pen-pal!* You never know where you'll meet a new pen-pal!

Here are some corny postcard winners, if you are wondering what constitutes a good amount of corny:

Over the years of collecting and receiving corny postcards from all over the country, I have compiled some take-aways.

1. The best states for corny postcards are: Alaska, Iowa, Idaho, Minnesota, and South Dakota.

2. Common themes for corny postcards are: cute animals, large vegetables, bears, jackalopes, factoids, cowboys, and hillbillies. 

3. Always check out the postcard section in thrift stores.

4. One dollar is way too expensive for a corny postcard, but is legit for an arty postcard.

5. Old Western postcards can be found in most gas stations out west, and they crack me up the most (ahem*send them to me*ahem).

*Note: To reach the level of Stellar Pen-Pal, you must sent postcards often, and they must be corny.