Time for More Adventures

Well as I had mentioned in my last post, I ended up getting super busy.  I had only three days off between Labor Day and the day after Christmas, when I flew down to Florida for my first vacation in a year.  Last semester, I worked and went to school full-time, working 8 hour shifts on Friday and Monday and 12 hour shifts on Saturday and Sunday.  Then I went to classes Tuesday through Thursday.  My few days off were lucky days when class was cancelled and I usually took advantage of the time by going up to Moscow and mountain biking.

I apologize to my probably only one reader now that I haven't been posting like I should, but again, I have had some pretty good reasons.  Since I am only taking 6 credits this semester and not working very much overtime like before, I actually have quite a bit more free time than last semester.  Once the weather starts getting a little nicer, I plan on using that free time to get back to having awesome adventures instead of using it to plow through shows on Netflix.

I think how I will go from here, at least in the short term is do another photo recap of last semester, followed by separate posts recapping my vacation in Florida and then my most recent adventure to Colorado.

Looking back through all of my pictures last semester, I actually somehow managed to fit a lot of mini adventures into my already jam-packed life.  Hopefully I can continue to make the most of my time, enjoying everything this wonderful world around me has to offer.

So here goes the pictures... (These will again be roughly in order from most recent to oldest)

This technically wasn't last semester, only last month.  This was a picture that was from a rare ride south of town.  This picture is exactly opposite from most of the other pictures I take during road rides (seen below).  In the distance, you can't actually see Lewiston, because it is covered in the fog (it would normally be there).

One day I went out shooting with a friend and was pretty sad that it wasn't turkey season, especially since I had all of my guns right there with me.  We saw about 80 turkeys there, including that white one in the middle.

These two pictures are from a scene that I probably take pictures of more than anything, which is from the top of Lewiston Hill on my bike rides.  These pictures were from an uncharacteristically nice day in the midst of many foggy and rainy days this winter.  The cities below are Lewiston on the left and Clarkston on the right side of the river.

On this day, I tried out a new trail, Asotin Creek.  It ended up feeling much more like a hiking trail than a MTB trail, so it wasn't the most fun.

Here are all the presents I got for family and friends before I shipped them out.

This is from near the same spot as the picture of the valley below, only at night on my way back from Pullman one night.

This was a fun night out with my old Pullman roommates.  We were celebrating one of Mike's (on my left) last nights in Pullman, as he is now in Germany.

Here are some more pictures from the top of the hill, these ones showing the fog that I have lived in for most of the winter (note that you can't see the city at all in these pictures).

These pictures are from probably the coldest day we had all winter.  This 7 degree F ride was up the Snake River.  The second picture is looking up the river towards Hell's Canyon, the deepest canyon in North America.

Here are a couple pictures from back when the leaves were turning.  There aren't very many trees in Lewiston, but the few that there are definitely made me miss Michigan this time of year.

These pictures were from a very peaceful ride down the Snake River into Washington.  This road see very little traffic and it was a very relaxing Wednesday morning.

The seven above pictures are a sample from my few trips up to Moscow for some fantastic fall mountain biking.  Those trips were the most relaxed I felt all semester (except for my one foot encounter with a moose and her baby- that was quite stressful).

Here is another fall picture.  This tree is right across the street from the hospital where I work.

This was at work on one of out more stressful days.  The glove was taped to the plastic inside that box and dry ice filled it up...

This is from the first day of October, on another ride south of town.  This is Waha lake, at the base of the Waha "mountains."  It was a gorgeous ride and getting into the trees is a fairly rare treat around here.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the pictures.  With my plans for a lot more biking and camping this year, hopefully I will have a lot of fun stories to write about on here.  Maybe I'll get a new real camera, too, so I can start taking more pictures and my pictures aren't so sporadic.  Here's to more adventures...

Back to normal? I'm not sure normal exists...

A view down into Whitebird, ID on July 3.

As always happens with blogs, I have neglected it.  This time for almost 10 months.  I swear I have some pretty good excuses, though.  Since Christmas, I have barely had time to sleep or think, let alone go on awesome adventures and then write about them.  Life- and a very busy one at that- has had to suffice as my adventure so far this year.  And it doesn't really look like it is going to let up anytime soon, but rather only get busier.  I thought I would get on and share some thoughts and some pictures that I have been meaning to put on here for a while.

It turns out my last vacation was at Christmas.  Up until May, never even had a two-day weekend.  Working two jobs, taking classes including Anatomy, volunteering, and trying to constantly improve myself physically and emotionally made for a very busy life.  And I thought it couldn't get any busier.  May through August was actually pretty nice.  With very few exceptions, I actually had two day weekends.  And on Labor Day, I was able to even enjoy my first three day weekend of the year.  I made up for the lack of not working on the weekends by working a lot of overtime during the week, when I was averaging 60 hours a week in August.  Now, as I am sure anybody actually reading this knows, I am on a permanent no-weekend, no-break schedule until the end of the year.  In order to take the prerequisites I need for PT school, I am working my full-time hours between Friday and Monday each week and attending school full time Tuesday through Thursday.  Now, if it was just classes Tuesday through Thursday, I probably wouldn't be that busy.  But when you tack on taking two online classes, working on my PT school application, shadowing a physical therapist part time each week and still trying to find time to fit some exercise in, I really am reeling.  Despite how busy I am, I am very thankful that my job is flexible enough to enable me to take classes and shadow a physical therapist as much as I am so that I can get all of this done in time to apply for this round of PT school admissions.

Also probably well-known to anybody reading is that I started a new job in May.  I am now working as a Medical Technologist in the lab at the hospital in Lewiston, ID.  It took a while to adjust, but I really love my job now and am very happy that I made this move.  The people I work with are really great, and it is a great place for me to transition from pure bench work back to patient care.

I guess since I am mostly just writing down things that anybody actually reading this already knows, I'll throw up some pictures from the past 10 months or so.  Pictures are roughly in order of most recent to oldest.

I nice sunset the other day in Lewiston as a lot of the smoke was clearing out of the sky.

I view from where I took my pitstop on my big ride over Labor Day weekend down to Oregon and back.  I rode through three states and climbed almost 9000 feet that day.

I helped a friend work on his motorcycle.  It was pretty fun.

At a bar in Lewiston, I found a guy that went to Montana State and frequented one of my favorite bars there around the same time I did.  He said he actually has memories of me and my roommates stair dancing.

I saw some big horn ewes on one of my MTB rides in Lewiston.

Working on my truck has of course been a non-stop struggle.  Here I am replacing the left front wheel bearing/hub assembly.

I got to pick some cherries at a friend's place up in Moscow.  I got over 40 pounds of cherries and now have a lot in my freezer!  Some of the best cherries I have ever had!

I went to a mud bog with some friends.  It was a pretty good time.  We know how to have fun in Idaho!

On the fourth of July, I drove up from Twin Falls (where I was shadowing a PT) to Stanley, ID.  It is a great place that reminded me a lot of Montana.  Here is where I drove right past a wildfire.  The Northwest actually had a really bad year for wild fires because we had such an abnormally low amount of snowpack last winter.

Here is a view of the Salmon River headwaters valley on the way to Stanley.  It was an amazing drive.

Of course I had to check out the Stanley 4th of July parade.

Here is a view of one of the canola fields I got to drive by every day while I was still commuting from Pullman to Lewiston the first month I worked in the hospital lab.

On my way back to Pullman from work one day, I saw this guy hanging out somewhere he probably shouldn't be (the Lewis-Clark Valley is way too hot for moose to be happy).

Here is a view of the Lewiston-Clarkston Valley on my birthday.  The hospital where I work is right near he corner where those two rivers meet and then head right.

My pear tree that I planted in Pullman bloomed very nicely this spring and I even had two pears growing on it.  They both fell off, though in some wind storms before they ripened.

Finally, when I was still driving to and from work between Pullman and Lewiston for a month or so, I got to enjoy an incredible drive every day through wheat fields, canola fields, up 2000 feet of elevation, and a 10 degree temperature difference between places.  One day I tried to take a video of one of my favorite things from this region and that is the wind blowing waves through the wheat fields.  It is kind of hard to see in this video, and hopefully one day you will all get to see this in real life.  The area out here is amazing with fields for as far as you can see.

The Grizzly Bears are Famous

Here is another cool piece about the bears that I get to work with:

http://america.aljazeera.com/watch/shows/live-news/2014/4/scientists-studygrizzlybearshibernationforhumanobesitycure.html

Christmas Vacation in Florida

I just got back last night from my trip to Florida for the last week and I am beat.  The whole week was full of adventures and we never had a dull moment.  It was a great week full of family, friends, and lots of fun.

Unfortunately, my camera broke over Thanksgiving break, so I didn't take very many pictures, and I only have a few from a couple pictures other people took, but I can still tell a good story.

I got there late on Saturday night, so we went to a neighbor's Christmas party and mainly just hung out.  Sunday was a good day that started on the beach and then finished spending time at Erin's parents with them and some family friends.  We had a good dinner and a lot of fun hanging out with everybody.  The picture at the top is of the beach we went to in the morning.  There were a lot of cool rock formations along the beach.

Monday was our big fishing day.  The water was supposed to be relatively calm, but it turned out that for most of the morning, we were riding through about 4 foot waves.  It was a very wet and rough day in the boat, but it was still a great day in the boat.  We ended up being out on the water for about 9 hours, but because of my bad fishing luck, we only caught one fish.  And it was a really tiny fish.  But again, everyone says, "A bad day fishing is better than any day at work."  After my clothes I wore that day dried, they were able to stand up on their own because of all of the salt water that came over the boat while we were driving around the ocean.

Tuesday was Christmas eve, and the majority of that day was spent on the bike for the second annual Christmas Eve century ride.  It started out fine enough, as a nice and casual ride.  It ended more as a hammer fest, but it was still a good day and quite an adventure.  The picture below is of the group right around where we turned around at mile 50 right near some nuclear reactors for a power plant.  After the ride (and after we ate at Five Guys), we went to church for a Christmas Eve sermon and then had a very nice dinner with Erin's family.  

For Christmas on Wednesday, we did the usual Christmas morning thing and then went over to Erin's parents where we did more Christmas morning stuff and then ate a lot of food.  Christmas dinner was great and the deserts were even better.  It was a great Christmas.

On Thursday, Ryan, Erin, and I went out for a kayaking trip up the Loxahatchee River, which is right at the end of the canal in Ryan's back yard.  We kayaked a little over 10 miles.  It was good for Ryan and Erin, who were in a two-person kayak and were able to take turns paddling, but I was on my own and got pretty tired paddling the whole time by myself.  We saw a lot of animals- birds, turtles, fish, and gators!  I didn't think I would be scared of gators, but when the ones that we got a little close to decided to go under the water and we couldn't see them anymore, it was a little unnerving.  Our turn around point for the trip was a place called Trapper Joe's.  It is basically an untouched homestead of a man that moved down from Vermont and lived off of the land almost exclusively and eventually turned his property into a zoo and a campground.  He died mysteriously in the 60's and his place is almost exactly as he left it, including stacks of wood that he didn't get around to cutting (he cut wood three times a day, apparently).  It was again a very nice day, and rained on us as we were finishing up the trip.  We had fishing poles, too, but the only fish that were caught were by Ryan whenever my pole wasn't in the water.

After the kayaking trip, I went up to visit with Mike and Caroline and the Doves.  We had a good time hanging out and catching up and then Mike drove me back down to Ryan's on Friday when we had a good lunch and Mike and I spent some time at the beach and had some fun trying to body surf in the waves which were actually pretty good sized.

On Saturday, we spent the whole day out on the boat with some of my friends from Montana, Shourjo and Neelambari.  We went out to the sand bar in the middle of the intercoastal with my nieces.  We got to see a really big hermit crab and a dog that was loving life digging into the sand.  Then we went spearfishing, except the water was too cloudy so we didn't really get to see much.

On my last day on Sunday, Ryan took my surfing for my first time ever.  That was a crazy workout and I am very sore from that still today.  It took me forever even to get out to the waves because I was paddling as hard as a could, but the waves kept crashing down on me and pushing me back to shore.  I almost stood up twice and then actually stood up for about 3 seconds once.  Not too bad for my first time ever trying to surf.

Overall, it was an absolutely amazing week full of adventures.  I was sore most of the week in places I hadn't ever been sore before.  Surfing probably did the most to make me sore in weird places.  I got to see some awesome wildlife and spent a lot of time out in the water.  I got to wear shorts and flip-flops almost the whole week.  And I got to spend some good quality time with family and friends.

Wall Street Journal Article on Where I Work

Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal ran an article about the Bear Center where I work.  It is a pretty good article.  It is pretty cool that it is kind of nationally popular, at least for a couple days.

Here is the link:

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303330204579246003604081632?mod=e2fb

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

I usually don't get too into the Christmas spirit, and if I do, it usually isn't sooner than about 36 hours before the actual day.  But last year I got excited about it and went and cut down my own Christmas tree.  This year, I've done even more.  I have even been listening to Christmas music the past week or so.  Weird.

Sunday, my roommates and I got our house all set up to look a lot like Christmas.  We braved the cold in the morning to string lights up on the house.  When I say cold, I mean it was -2 F while we were working and we had to hang lights for a few minutes and then take a break inside.  It is quite unfortunate that to be able to hold a nail with a glove on, you have to sacrifice a lot of insulation and warmth.  But it worked out and we got the lights up in time to take a drive up to the Coeur d'Alene National Forest to look for a Christmas tree.

Not too bad for my first ever attempt at hanging Christmas lights.  Unfortunately, our ladder wasn't tall enough to get the left corner of the higher roof, so it looks a little goofy.

The place we went this year was so much better than the Forest I went to last year.  It had much healthier trees and more choices.  In the end, though, we ended up with a tree that looks fairly similar to the one I got last year.  At least this year, it was a lot easier carrying it out, since I had two other people with me.

Here is our Christmas tree in its natural setting.  It was much taller than would fit in our house, so we are going to use the rest as firewood.

While we were driving back off of the mountain, we got to see an amazing sunset (pictured at the top).  Then, after a stop at Cabela's we headed home to decorate the tree.

It is a little fuller than my Christmas tree last year.  It looks pretty good, and it has a nice story behind it.