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.

A Great Smoky Mountain Thanksgiving

Last week, I headed back out east for Thanksgiving break.  I flew into Detroit and spent my first night there hanging out with Steve, Melissa, Sean, and Kirsten.  We had some great time eating dinner then at Ashley's.  It was great to see friends again, even though it was such a short visit.

Then on Monday, Arika and Sheldon picked me up in Ann Arbor and we headed down to Tennessee where my parents rented a cottage in the Great Smoky Mountains.  On our way down, we stopped at the William Howard Taft National Historic Site in Cincinnati, which wasn't quite as cool as the Garfield site Arika and I had stopped at back in August, but it was still good.

Before he was president, he spent some time out of the country.  Here is his key to Manila.

We drove by the new "touchdown Jesus" statue.  They completely redesigned the new one after the old one burnt down after getting struck by lightning.  The new one isn't anywhere near as comical as the old one.

We got to the cottage late, so we just hung out the first night.  When we woke up the first day, it was so foggy and rainy that we couldn't see the mountains!  We took most of the day to head into town to get some rain gear for Arika.  We got back in time to go for a very short rainy hike.  We just followed a creek as far up a mountain before we figured we would run out of daylight.

Here is my bed in the cabin.  It was king sized and very comfortable.

Here is our view from the cabin on Thanksgiving after the fog, rain, and snow finally lifted.

On Wednesday, it was still very foggy, but today it was snowing, so we headed out to the National Park to go for a hike and see some wildlife.  We headed up Abrams Creek Trail, which, as the name implies, follows Abrams Creek.  The goal of the hike was the Abrams Falls (pictured at the top).  It was a very fun hike, especially since we took a detour off of the trail and got to the peak of a local maximum in order to find some better views.  Luckily, while we were up higher, the fog lifted enough that we could see farther than we had been able to so far on the trip.  

Arika spotted a sow and her 3 cubs climbing a tree while we were driving through the park.

This is part of Cade's Cove.  It is supposed to be a great place to see wildlife.  All we saw were a bunch of whitetails (which a bunch of other tourists couldn't help but get out of their car and take pictures of).

Arika and me along Abrams creek on part of our Wednesday hike.

Here is the nice view we found once we went of trail and gained some elevation (the trail followed the creek the whole way, so it stayed in the valley).

Another great view afforded by our higher vantage point.

Arika and Sheldon up in the mountains.

Then of course we had a fantastic Thanksgiving dinner, with participation from multiple families to add great variety.  Thursday night, everybody went up into the park with the goal of climbing to the high point of Tennessee, but the road to the trail was closed, so we just hung out for a little bit at an overlook along the Appalachian Trail.

Friday, Arika, Sheldon, and I headed back up to Michigan and we had dinner in Ann Arbor before they dropped me off at a friend's house.  And then I flew back to Washington Saturday morning.  It was a great trip and I had a great time seeing friends and family again.

The Rest of the Truck Fix

Putting my truck back together ended up taking a little longer than I had previously expected, and I was working on it until about 1 pm on Sunday.  The job overall took just about 21 hours to complete.  On Saturday I knocked out about 10 of those hours and I was pretty tired by the end of that.  I tried to take a few more pictures this time and here they are:

Here is the lower part of the engine after I cleaned off the gasket surface and before putting the new gasket on.

The mating surface of the lower intake manifold cleaned up nicely too.

The lower intake manifold is back on with a new gasket and seal!

The gasket kit also came with a new gasket for the upper intake manifold.  I liked that the new gaskets were blue.

Here is everything put back together except for the air cleaning duct.  Figuring out where all the sensor plugs went actually was pretty easy, since they are all uniquely shaped.  Also notice the brand new serpentine belt.

The whole project, including coolant (but not including oil change stuff), cost about $90.  This includes a few extra things that I replaced while I had everything apart, like the serpentine belt and the PCV valve.  The price also includes a couple tools I needed and some new heater hose.  I haven't called for an estimate for what the repair would have cost me had I taken it into a shop, but after reading some forums, it sounds like it would cost around $800 to take it in.  And that is of course for just the gasket, which was only a $30 part.  So I think I saved myself a nice chunk of change for a lot of hard work.

I did have a little bit of a scare when I turned it back on.  First, the fuel line fitting wasn't put back together quite right, so I was leaking fuel.  But worse than that, one of my pistons wasn't firing.  After a lot of stressing out, talking to Sean, looking at a couple things, assuming it was a clogged fuel injector, feeling like I just wanted to tow it to a shop, and a lot of praying, it somehow worked itself out.  It shouldn't have, but it did, so I think I am going to attribute that fix to answered prayers.

Since I was so busy working on my truck any minute that I wasn't working, I unfortunately had to pass up a lot of hunting opportunities during the final week of the deer general season around here.  I did go out for a few hours when I was done working on my truck, but under quite non-ideal circumstances.  It was actually a very hot day.  I decided I wanted to try the same canyon I hunted last time from the bottom, but I couldn't find it, so I ended up going up a different canyon- John Nisqually Canyon.  It was a pretty decent spot, but the farther up I got I started to realize most of the deer sign was pretty old.  The only animal I saw on this outing (besides a bunch of birds) was a rattle snake.  He really freaked me out partly because I shouldn't have to worry about rattle snakes during hunting season, but more so because he started rattling about 3 feet from where I had just put my hand as I was climbing up the ridge.  Anyway, it was a still a nice little hike and I got some really great pictures.

Across the canyon you can see really well the entangled web of deer trails, which I thought was a good sign.

Here is a nice view from about halfway up the canyon.

I rested for a little bit and tried to watch for deer.  I had a view of the entire canyon, but there wasn't any wildlife to be seen.

Here is a nice shot of the sun setting over the Snake River Canyon and setting on the last thirty minutes of deer season.

This weekend I take off for the Selkirk Mountains up in the Northeast corner of the state for some elk hunting.  I am pretty excited for the trip.  The area where I will be hunting is actually the only mountain range in the entire lower 48 where caribou (reindeer) live, so hopefully I will get to see some of those (but definitely not shoot, since those guys are federally protected).

Nasty Gasket

I've had a very slow coolant leak for at least the last year and half now that I have tried my best to mostly ignore.  Starting back at the beginning of the summer, though, it started getting worse so much that my truck would start overheating if I ever used the heat.  But since it was summer, I decided to ignore it a little longer.  Now that it is getting colder, I don't have the luxury of ignoring it anymore and I have been forced to fix it.  The first challenge actually came with finding the leak.  With the engine block covered in dirt, oil, and grime after years of no attention, it was very difficult to see any new leak.  Nor was the leak in any of the usual places such as the radiator or a radiator hose.  With the help of some internet research done by Sean, I was able to pin it down.  That was the good news.  The bad news is the leak is through the lower intake manifold gasket.  To get to this, it meant I would have to disassemble about half of the engine.  And to do that, it meant I would have to disassemble everything that is on top of the engine under the hood.  

Well, I have gotten that far.  I have gotten all the way down to the guilty gasket, and there is no question that this is where the leak is coming from.  Apparently this is yet another common problem for my truck.  I was pretty happy, though, that getting to it only ended up taking a total of about 7 hours.  I imagine it will take me another 2 or so to get it cleaned up, and then hopefully less time to put it all back together than it took to pull it apart.  Of course, that is also assuming I remember where all of the sensor and electrical plugs go.

It is probably really good that I didn't ignore it for much longer, because the coolant passageways are starting to looks so bad that I am actually surprised I didn't end up with coolant in the crankcase.  My approach with my truck up to now has been to just fix problems as they arise, since there is so much wrong with it.  It looks like that philosophy could have spelled a lot of trouble (and probably a dead truck), but I don't really have the time or money to preemptively fix everything that is wrong with the truck, so I will just have to keep responding to problems as they arise.  I guess I could respond in a little more timely fashion next time, though.

This was the first picture I took during the job.  This is after everything above the lower intake manifold, including the upper intake manifold had been removed.

Here you can actually see the gasket/sealant protruding out from between the engine block and the lower intake manifold.

After I took the lower manifold off, you can see the horrible condition of the gasket all around.  Coolant was leaking from all sides, not just one point.  And there is clearly nothing left to the front seal.

Here is a closer image to the front seal.  The instruction said that I would have to pry the manifold off of the engine block, but since there was absolutely no seal left, it just popped off.

This is the left rear coolant passageway.  Not only was I leaking, but because of GM's awesome Dex-Cool, the passageway was mostly blocked with gunk.

The right rear coolant passageway was just as bad, if not worse.

Here are some of the random parts I removed throughout the process.  The black thing in the middle with the orange gasket is the upper intake manifold (upside-down) and the thing in the lower left corner is the lower intake manifold.

Deer Hunting!

Last weekend, I spent a lot of time carrying my gun around, up and down a bunch of canyons.  That is probably the best way to describe it.  I have yet to shoot my gun, though I have had a (legal) deer in my sights, but more on that later.

Saturday morning started out, or rather continued on from Friday night (I worked until 4:30 am and then took a shower then went out to hunt with no sleep), with a trip just about 15 miles from here to a spot called Almota creek.  Here, there were a few forested canyons that has a creek flowing through the bottom of it.  I saw a lot of does and a lot of Blaze orange vests, but no bucks.  There was one point, though, that a buck called after a whole stand of does for about 7 minutes so loud that the whole canyon could probably hear him.  Unfortunately, he was probably about 1000 yards away all the way across the canyon, not to mention I couldn't find him, despite seeing the 12 does.  Anyway, after walking around for long enough, and getting irritated with so many other people out there, and falling asleep in a wheat field for about an hour, I decided to call it a day and go home.

It has been cool enough lately to give some great fall colors.

This was in the bottom of the canyon here and a pretty cool tree by itself.

If my camera was better, you would be able to see all the of the orange speckling the hillside.

The next, having been so frustrated with how many people were at Almota Creek, I decided to try another spot.  On Sunday, I headed down to Rimrock Canyon.  It was a little farther away at 25 miles away, but it is a pretty sweet spot with canyons that start at the elevation we are at here in Pullman (actually a little higher), and go straight down to the Snake River Canyon 2000 feet below.  Right when I got there, I already knew it was going to be better because there were a lot less people.  Or maybe there was the same amount, but it seemed like less because there was about three times as much land.  Then, only about 10 minutes into being in the canyon, I saw my first buck.  He was running down the canyon, so I started to stalk him and tried to get close to him and above him in order to set myself up to take a shot.  After he disappeared behind a ridge line, I was able to get him in view again.  I brought my gun up just as he paused for a second.  But he was about 250 yards away and started to walk again.  I wasn't confident enough for my first shot to be so far away while he was still moving (not to mention I am not sure I completely trust my $35 rifle scope at that distance).  After that happened at the beginning of the day, I thought for sure this was going to be my day.  But after that, I saw a whole lot more does, and a couple coyotes, but no more bucks.  I heard a few shots, so I am pretty sure there were some other successes that day.  I also ran into a couple guys who were hauling their deer out from the day before, so it is pretty clear that this is a place where you can get a buck, which I was unsure of at Almota Creek.

Overall, it was a pretty awesome day.  I already like hiking, and this is just hiking plus the added potential of stalking and killing something that I can use for food for the winter.  It is just more time I get to spend outside in this awesome place that I live in.  I actually never realized that there were so many farms on the edge of town that had property lines that jump straight down to the river.  I love it.

I can't wait to get back out this weekend.  Hopefully I can make something happen because this weekend is my last chance to get a muley this year.  

The canyons here were crazy steep and much rockier than the day before.

Here is a picture showing the steepness of the canyon.  It was a little harder to walk up and down this one like the day before.

Once I was about 1/4 the way down, I finally had a nice view of the Snake River, 1500 feet below.

This was the canyon right next to the one I spent most of the morning in.

Trailbuilding and My First Hunt!

I know it has been a while since I have posted, but that is again due to not having too many adventures lately.  I have been pretty crazy busy working.  And when I am not working, I am usually trying to catch up on sleep.  But this weekend, I decided to forego the whole sleeping thing and have some adventures.  After working all through Friday night and getting home at 5 am, I slept for a couple hours and then went over to Moscow Mountain to help with a trail build day.  It was really hard to actually peel myself out of bed, but after working up on the mountain, I was very happy that I did.  I had a ton of fun, worked myself until I was sore, met a lot of cool people, and experienced some cool sights and sounds on Moscow Mountain.  One cool things that I heard was just as we were getting started, I heard a bull elk bugling in the distance.  It got me pretty excited for some elk hunting in a few weeks.

Here is a really big hole in a tree made by a very big woodpecker.  These were all over the place in one area we were working.

Here is one picture of the trail I was helping to build.  That log was actually already very conveniently cut down and cleared off a nearby logging road.  It served very well for a retaining wall. 

 Then after working hard on the trail, I made it back to Pullman started getting ready for the next day's adventure.  It might be about 20 years late, but on Saturday, I got my first ever hunting license!  I got the small and large animal license with tags for deer, elk, bear, and cougar.  I only had to work until midnight on Saturday night, so waking up early Sunday wasn't as hard as Saturday.  I got up and headed up to a spot a little north of here to hunt quail, chukar, and grouse.  I flushed a couple birds while I was out, but they were both too far away for me to get a shot.  I also saw a coyote in a field below me, but he was way too far for shotgun range.  I tried to get above him on the other side of the tree stand that he entered after the field, but he never came out.  And then I saw a couple deer, but deer season doesn't start until this weekend.  So, I came home empty handed for my first ever hunt, but it was still a ton of fun and it was a beautiful morning.

I also saw some cool things while I was out on this land.  The first picture on this post is a really cool old railroad bridge that crosses the South Fork of the Palouse River and was my access over the river to get where I hunted.  Below is a picture of an old homestead.  Once I saw the homestead, it made the random apple trees I had found make a lot more sense.  There are actually of a lot of relics and remnants of homesteads in the area, especially over on Moscow Mountain.  Then the other two pictures below are more pictures of the old railroad that was following the river.  The one that didn't turn out so well because of the lighting was a shot of it going straight through a hill, which this particular railroad does a lot.

And finally, yesterday I also made the drive up to Cabela's to get some other essentials for hunting, particularly a rifle.  Unfortunately, the trip was mostly unproductive, since they didn't end up having any rifles quite in my price range.  I did however, end up getting an awesome hunting pack that wasn't actually on the Cabela's website when I was scouting them out.  The inner chamber is much bigger than my current backpacking pack and it also has some other big pockets on the side and front.  One of the coolest parts about the pack is the hide-able hauling flap for hauling game out of the woods.  Now I am all set to do some backpacking hunting.

That's all for now.  Hopefully some future posts will have some pictures of some successes!