The seasons they are a changin'

Yet another transition time, and even though I’ve done it now dozens of times, it never stops feeling weird. I usually take my sweet time packing up, and leave all my room decorations up to the very end to keep my home intact for as long as I can before I become transient once more. I lingered in Texas for three whole weeks after I stopped working— it was quite good to have an extended time of relaxing and saying my goodbyes and focusing on the community at base for one last hurrah of trail mail and community dinners.

The different thing this time is that I left a place that I’ve been working at for two years (seasonally, but still it counts), and am going to a place that I’ve known for most of my life. And for context in case you think two years is short… that’s the longest I’ve been in a place since my sophomore year of college in 2011. So wow, yeah, the place I’ve spent the most time at in ten years!! Had to type that out to fully realize that! But now I've been gone for 2+ weeks, and I feel Very far away from my desert home. I'm whirling around DC, bouncing from cherry blossom viewings to walks with friends to many reference calls to tackling e-mails to finally meeting up with my team of fellow camp director people in person, not on zoom. I'm trying to take in only a few items from my car, because in a couple days I'll be in WV, moving into a cabin for the Spring, and settling into my busy busy life of prepping the facilities, planting the garden, and ya know, planning for a full spring and summer of school groups and camp.

    

So I'll head to a place that is most familiar to me, doing a job that is semi-familiar to me, working to build community again, and processing what is sure to be a lot of varied emotions. I cried last week on the road as feelings caught up to me. The closer I got to The Cove on my road trip, the more started to feel these waves of emotion that hit every couple of days. Sometimes they’re anxious heart flutters, full of worry about this big new job and all the pressures that come with it. Sometimes I'm just hit by the unfairness and sadness of Vini’s death. And sometimes I think I should feel emotions and feel nothing at all. I’ve been picturing driving by the garden and then by the crop circle and croquet lawn and then to the dorms, feeling the excitement of entering the Cove, and then backing up down the driveway to unload, and looking expectedly towards the lodge, smelling that familiar lodge smell, and… not seeing Vini. I am dreading that. It could be a rough transition from the stat of denial I’ve been in these last few months, to having to face the reality that no, Vini isn’t just working in her garden until dark, she’s just not there. 

And at the same time, she will be there. Every single thing will have her handwriting on it, every google doc has her snarky notes, the garden will certainly have her presence, as will the swim dock and the croquet lawn at golden hour. I’ll hang up my own decorations on the wall of the Phoebe’s Nest, my collection of memorabilia from loved ones that I won’t take down until the moment before I leave the Cove in late Fall. I’ll hear Vini’s voice muttering about how she *still* hasn’t had time to put up her decorations and it’s already May goddammit. I’m hoping after the initial shock of reality hits me, I’ll be hit more often by pleasant recollections, a faint buzzing among my breakfast dishes.

Doubt in the desert

I’m writing to you from the one-week point of my road trip, and the week and a half point of being out of a job. For this post I’ll go back in time to a few days ago, where my mind was in a quite different place than it is now:

After a day hiking in Zion National Park, I spent a layover day in town, lurking in the library switching off between watching Grey’s Anatomy and looking for jobs (well let’s be real, I was mostly watching Grey’s). Searching for jobs sent me into a spiral of doubt about what I was doing, living out of my car in Utah with no job prospects. My only future plans were to fly to the east coast for closing weekend at camp, and then fly back and keep traveling. I had a couple hours of slight panic- could I buy an earlier flight east? What was I doing here, wandering in Utah?? I could be home in DC or helping out at camp, sleeping in a bed in a mentally comfortable place!

It was getting towards evening, so it was time to get back in the car and find the next campsite before darkness at 7 pm. I drove out of Zion through the Carmel Tunnel, and stopped my car at a gorgeous slickrock slope. I got out with bare feet and ran up the slope. The red rock beneath my feel, the wind whipping over the desert, my tiny car below me, the bright blue sky… my doubts melted away.

My thoughts went kind of like this: I am in southern Utah! I love southern Utah! I’ll play on the slickrock barefoot! I’ll watercolor! I’ll hike! I’ll read! I’ll write and reflect! I’ll nap in the sun! I have a whole few days to play here, and I should live it up!

So I did! The next morning I drove to Bryce and got myself a bear canister and a $5 permit to camp in the backcountry. I was going to bite the bullet and embark on my first solo backpacking trip. I spent the day stopping at view points and reading and going to a rad ranger talk about plants in order to earn my Jr Ranger badge. Then I packed up and hiked in to my site, set up camp, and made dinner. And honestly, I was pretty scared the whole time. As I type this I’m currently solo camping in my car, but it feels quite different in a tent a mile into the woods.

But you know, despite a night of kinda bad sleep (because I was too scared to get out of my tent to pee), I had a really good experience. I had days to myself in Utah, to challenge myself and also just do whatever I want. As I keep telling every retired couple I chat with (there have been a LOT of them, my gosh, so chatty), I don’t know what’s next. But as of right now I’m a lot less stressed out about it. I am seeing some beautiful country, taking some time for myself that I haven’t had in a while, seeing friends, and getting my car camping skills down pat.

I’m hoping tonight will be clear enough for another stellar show of the meteor shower that I glimpsed last night. I don’t know where I’ll be, but it’s sure to be swell. And now that I have only one day left here in this slickrock land, it's not enough! I could play here for at least another week! But alas, I gotta travel on. To be continued

Spring Breeeeeak in short

Spring break just ended, and I’ve had an awesome day back on the job—hauling enormous rocks with people power and rock bars on a trail in Bear Brook. We are building a staircase! But anyway, I’m about to go off to bed before 9 pm because I am so very tired from many nights of sleeping in different places. As I’ve leaned from my years working at camp, your brain does not adjust to a new place on the first night of sleeping there, so it’s often hard to get a full nights sleep. Luckily I was exhausted every day of break and had little problem passing out in my sleeping bag each night, but I didn’t quite have a restful break (I never slept in!) So, here is a list of all of the places I slept over my break of travels. Adventure!

Friday: my car parked in Portland

Saturday morning: the airplane to Atlanta

Saturday: my friend Aly’s tent at Wildrose Campground in Death Valley

Sunday: the ground in the desert at Alabama Hills

Monday: the front seats of our rental truck at the Buckeye Campground

Tuesday: the boy’s tent at Lake Lamarck in the John Muir Wilderness

Wednesday: my hammock at Grandview Campground in the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest

Thursday: my friend Nicole’s futon in Portland

Friday and Saturday: Yuka’s guest bedroom (TWO NIGHTS!!!)

Sunday: my car at the rest area in Kennebunk, Maine.

Now you have a good sense of what I did over break, right?

Driving On

Yesterday I was in my car for almost 12 hours, driving from Austin to New Orleans. It should have been an eight hour drive but I don't think people in Louisiana know how to drive because there were at least three accidents on the road once I go into the state. I had to pull out all the stops to get through the drive. This post is about how I keep myself entertained and awake for anywhere upwards of three hours of solo driving.

First off I download a few podcasts of This American Life or The Moth. These are for when the times get tough. Mostly I like just listening to music while I drive because then my mind can drift and I don't have to worry about missing part of a story. I typically start with a CD or two and skip half the songs, then switch to the country radio station when I can find it. And then when I get to a spot where there are no stations, I bring out the ol' ipod from high school that has some quality stuff on it. Usually when I'm trying to stay awake I put it on shuffle and then skip through pretty much everything. This is the most entertaining because I never know what I'm gonna get. It jumps from Red Hot Chili Peppers to Peterson's bird calls to Dixie Chicks to Sufjan Stevens to Bill Staines to random segments from the 7th Harry Potter book. When the situation gets dire aka I've already listened to a podcast and skipped through the ipod and the radio and the CD and tried to call a bunch of people, I turn to Harry Potter and actually commit to listening to an entire segment. Last time I ended up listening to the Battle of Hogwarts segment where (spoiler) Fred dies and I guess I hadn't read or listened to that part in a while so it made me cry (but in an alert way).

Anyways, the highlight of my trip last night was when I walked into  a gas station to buy a coffee drink and got into a conversation with the lady there about my long drive and how I needed coffee. She ended up giving me a 5 hour energy drink for free! Thinking back on it, perhaps that was a low point for me. I looked so rough and haggard that I got a free energy shot. But hey I didn't even have to use it because my Harry Potter/ music/ radio/ phone method worked just fine!

Sorry for a boring post but this has been on my mind recently-- 3 long solo drive days in two weeks! And I still have to drive all the way to DC in a few days-- luckily with Amelia.

The Count

As we reach the last few legs of our road trip, it’s time to tally up some important numbers from the trip thus far.

States visited: 8

Number of nights sleeping in the car: 1.5

Number of nights camping: 1.5

Number of nights in a hotel because of crazy weather: 1

Postcards bought: 132 (Annie’s only)

Friends visited: 14

Weird dinners eaten: …All of them? Except two in a real restaurant

Ice creams eaten: 5*

Number of cows seen: like a million at least

Most times offered to smoke in one day: 2

Number of bison physically on the road: 2

Number of dogs on the highway: 2

These numbers will shift slightly upwards in the next couple of days, but for now it’s a fairly accurate representation of our life for the past two weeks.

*Annie has eaten 4 out of 5, just for the record

One of the weirder dinners. This ice cream was 20 cents!! Thank you Lynn's Dakotamart.

a day in the road trip life

Phew, yesterday was A Day. You know, like when you get to the end of it and can’t believe that all

those things that happened could have possibly occurred on one April 24^th, 2015.

Started off with a walk down nostalgia lane—we slept in Wind Cave National Park, SD. I spent three weeks there on a SCA summer crew right after high school. I strolled through our old campground in the early morning, reminiscing with myself about the spigots we used for a waterfight that one time, and the firepit we gathered around on the first night to play butt darts. Then I got to the visitor center right when it opened so that I could finally get my Jr. Ranger badge, six year later.

Prairie sunrise

We went on a scenic drive, stopping to gaze at some adorable prairie dogs and grazing bison. Then it was nearing lunchtime, and I really needed to go to the Purple Pie Place in Custer for old times sake. So we drove the windy road back out of the park, keeping our eye out for rogue road bison.

A few minutes into our drive, we spy a NPS person walking on the side of the road. My first thought/hope was that it was Ranger Dwayne-- the man, the myth, the legend. My SCA crew had been mildly obsessed with him because we got to spend a day wandering around the hills with him as he tracked elk populations with radio telemetry. So he approaches us, and we shake hands, and I say: “Uhhhhh are you Ranger Dwayne by any chance?” Lo and behold, he is! He was checking on an eagle nest. Casual day at the office.

We chat about what he does, and the fire that just occurred in Wind Cave, and then we talk about where Emily and I are headed (to camp). And that’s how I ended up giving my camp brochure to Ranger Dwayne. Self fiiiiive.

We keep driving, and encounter a herd of bison on the road! Up close and personal.

Then the day continues. We start driving to Custer, as it begins to POUR. Got myself some warm blackberry pie and huckleberry ice cream, and then we kept driving. I had to stop in Hill City, because six years ago it had the best corny postcards I have ever encountered. I bought 49, but like, who’s counting.

Then the sun comes out for our drive to Wall Drug. The build up is worth it—so many life-size replicas and stuffed things to take pictures with, the free ice water and the 5 cent coffee is REAL, and the corny postcards are there in fair numbers (but I’ve seen better).

Then it was time to drive to Badlands while blasting Badlands-- the song. We drive in and immediately see a group of bighorn sheep grazing on the hillside. Bighorn sheep sightings in Death Valley are quite rare, and maybe they’re not quite as rare in South Dakota, but still worth a freak out. So after that excitement we keep driving, with the plan of finding a campsite and a sunset viewing point. 

Bighorns and impending storm of doom.

But then the storm caught up with us. Two hours of torrential downpours interspersed with blue bolts of lightning over the prairie and the badlands. Pretty glad I’ve already been to the park, because I really didn’t get to see anything—it was terrifying out. Needless to say, we scrapped the camping plan and I slowly drove us out and eastward. Right when we got to the eastern edge of the park, we got to witness a break in the storm and a double rainbow. I drove for about another hour, into the storm, and then we saw a magical hotel sign for a Best Western in Murdo (tried to ignore how it sounded a lot like murder), and here we are. Hot breakfast and lots of coffee, and it’s time to drive to Minnesota. Onward and upward, through this foggy gray day.

Badlands or really anywhere where it's raining.