Visitors, adventure, and good food

It's been nearly three months since our last post, so here's an update. We have settled into our jobs and we have been enjoying company of guests for the entire month of August and much of the other months--the first time we have really had a lot of people visit us. I guess it helps being a lot closer to home and the people we know. People took our invitations seriously! Here's what's been going on this summer. We just finished a beautiful hike up North Fork of Bridge Creek:


Work:
It took a good month to get into the swing of work. With so many trails, tours, activities, lodges, rules, permits, regulations, history, flora, fauna, and natural phenomena to become familiar, it felt like we would never be able to answer questions without an "I'm not sure, let me check with someone..." When you wear the park uniform, you are supposed to be the expert on anything and everything. Each ranger develops his or her own naturalist and interpretive talks and tours including a half-hour evening program on our topic of choice. Mine (Jeff's) is on native uses of plants, and Kate's is on the geology that formed the Stehekin valley and mountains:


We also swear in junior rangers when they complete their assignments. Kids fill out an activity book and then turn it in to us and we give them some park patches, a ranger badge, and then have them say an oath and give them a certificate. I usually high-five them when they're done:



One of the more fun duties is being "Ranger on Deck" where we set up a display table and hang out on the deck talking with visitors, helping them plan their trip and answering questions. Here's Kate with the bearskin and some information packs:

We give a tour of the historic orchard. The bears like apple trees as well, and I watched this one jump up in the trees to bat green apples out of it:

Another one of the work-related activities is getting to know the park, i.e. hiking a lot. we get two days per month of paid hiking, better known as a "field day." Of course, we also just hike for fun, so that's one time that work and play is nearly the same. One memorable hike was to rainbow lake, a 10 mile hike that took us up to the snow fields feeding the stream that becomes rainbow falls, one of our guided tours. Here's Kate in the snowfields looking for our campsite:

Alpine glacier lillies filled up the fields where the snow was retreating:

Since it was too snowy to find the originally intended campsite, we moved to Rainbow Meadows a little lower down:

There was a bear foraging near our campsite when we arrived, but the picture was mostly a brown furry bump that's not worth sharing. If you talk calmly to the black bears around here, they usually run away. A coyote later walked right by our campsite and hunted rodents in the meadow right in front of us:


Visitors: We had three chairs in our house: one for solitude, two for friendship, and three for society. Like Thoreau at Walden Pond, we have enjoyed the company of visitors to break periods of solitude. We had a healthy handful of guests the first couple months but by August, our place became a regular bed and breakfast. Almost every day has been booked with someone, and we have even had double booked a couple times. On our calendar I counted 14 visitors for August, and 10 during the rest of the summer, some of whom are repeat visitors. Thank you everybody for visiting and making our stay here so much fun! here's a collage of some of our visitors whose pictures I had available:


Food: It has been a long time since living in a place where eating local has been so delicious, not to mention even possible at all. With Karl's organic garden with a delicious veggie selection, his dairy goats that make the most wonderful cheese and yogurt, and fruits imported from just outside the valley, we have eaten bountiful and fresh meals. Then there was a cherry tree next door that needed help unloading bushels of perfect, ripe, red fruit from the sagging branches. After getting sick of eating cherries, the rest became a few gallons of sorbet in the freezer. Then there were the apricots that our friends Jeff and Katie brought from the cabin in chelan, which also became sorbet. And now we have recently discovered a guy down the street selling fresh whole milk--the first time I have ever had milk still warm from the cow, just like they used to drink in the olden days. Add to that a local organic market in Chelan that delivers boat orders to Stehekin, and then the Stehekin Pastry Company, which we continue to visit on a regular basis, and we have truly eaten well this summer. Good thing we have such a commute by bicycle to put those calories to work!

And finally, a few more random pictures from this summer. Here's Kate inspecting wildflowers on the hike to McGregor Mountain:

Jeff does the same on the hike to Goode Ridge:

Here we are together on our field day hike up McGregor:

Jeff juggles his new glow toys at a party:

We took the float plane back to Stehekin for one of our trips and enjoyed the scenery:

Here is the rock overlook where we had lunch at Goode Ridge:

The milky way from our back yard, taken with Kate's dad's camera:


Jeff and kate rafting on the trip with Ben and Kristy:

Bridge creek at dusk:

And this is a cabin at Bridge creek that belongs to the park service and we can use as a base camp for longer hikes:


What's to come:
We've been hinting at it for a while, but our plans are made for this winter. After an astronomy conference in Acadia, ME and most of October to visit family and get our affairs in order, we fly to Nicaragua on one-way tickets just in time to see the close of the tropical rainy season. Like last summer, we'll start with 3 weeks of spanish school, and but this time we go to work when school is done. We'll be working on a watershed restoration and reforstatioin project in the Boaco region, east of the Capitol Managua, volunteering with a nonprofit organization, Green Empowerment, and their Nicaraguan partner organization, AsoFenix. We should be working full time until some time in April or May. Then the cycle begins again and we hope to be summer seasonal workers again in the US. If the US budget aligns well with the stars, we may end up at Stehekin again. Perhaps this will be the beginning of a long-term pattern. Keep in touch and remember that we still love visitors, so don't hesitate to look us up whether it be in Nicaragua, Stehekin, or somewhere else we can't even imagine yet. In the mean time, we expect to be blogging our Nicaraguan experience and occasionally facebooking as a means of keeping in touch--so check back in with us in November if we don't say anything sooner.

Cheers,

Jeff

Stehekin

After spending 6 days driving across the country from georgia to Washington, Kate's mom met us in Chelan, WA, on the other side of the lake from our final destination, Stehekin. When I say "other side of the lake," it's actually a 55-mile boat ride across the lake lenghtwise. The lake is a skinny, glacier-carved lake with nearly sheer sides, making it impossible to get there by car. The ferry runs in each direction one time per day, so it's quite a major deal to go in and out of Chelan for supplies. We had to get the majority of our errands done in one swell foop. We spent one day shopping, banking, and setting up accounts at stores to have stuff shipped to us so that we would be able to get what we need from Stehekin. Then we packed it all onto the loading dock--maybe 900 pounds of supplies in all (you pay by the pound to have it shipped), and the next morning we said our good-byes and were on the ferry to Stehekin.

There are actually two ferries that run parallel to each other, the faster boat costing more. We ended up taking the slow boat and learned that it is often a smoother ride and quite enjoyable with some amazing scenery to enjoy the entire trip. If you are in it for the long run like we are, there's no reason to rush it. You see these mountains jutting thousands of feet straight out of the lake along the length of the trip:

we trucked our stuff from the boat 6 miles up valley to our summer cabin. There are cars here in Stehekin, it's just that they have to be barged in--a luxury we will not be taking advantage of here. Our cabin is quite nice--it's a 2 bedroom house that we have for ourselves and guests. It's got most of the amenities such as electricity, water, a cute little gas fireplace for heat, full bathroom, washer and dryer, and a kitchen with everything except for a dishwasher. There's even a little storage building out back for us to keep our bikes and tools in. And there are no keys for anything. They tell us there really is no point in locking anything here. You really can't get very far with stealing anything in Stehekin. So here we live for the summer:
Since we arranged to have one full day between arrival and starting work, we spent that day exploring the area on our bikes. It's a 6-mile commute through the valley to our office, between which the "town" of 80-some residents is spread out. Just up the valley from us, there is a little clearing alongside the river where some beavers are working on a dam. It's actually the first time I really had a good look at beavers in the wild. we watched them for a long time from less than 100 feet away, and the giant rodents didn't seem to be bothered by our presence:
Down the valley we crossed Harlequin bridge, which offers breathtaking views of the Stehekin river and the mountains in the background during our commute:
Our next stop was the famous bakery; really, the only bakery in town. We had a scrumptious lunch with coffee and pastries before continuing on the ride:

The next stop was the organic garden. We met Karl, the owner, who showed us around and sold us a pound of creamy goat cheese. Although we will be ordering and shipping in goods from the grocery store in Stehekin, we are very excited about the idea of getting some of our produce from a very local source. A little further along the way, the road opens up to the lake, with amazing views. We decided to take some pictures of what would be our daily commute to work with Kate and her vehicle:


After checking out town and meeting more people in town, we took a stroll down the lakeshore trail, just beyond the the visitor's center. What a spectacular time to arrive here! The wildflowers are in full bloom, and we walked through fields of lupine along the trail. Much of the area had fires recently. The combination of freshly cleared areas and perhaps the right weather made for some interesting contrast between the scorched trees surrounded by colorful blooms:
Our two weeks of training have started well. Most of the job centers around the Golden West Visitor Center, which is just above the ferry landing. From there we'll spend a fair amount of time manning the visitor desk and giving talks and presentations around the center:
There are also some tours with the bus to a historic orchard and a nearby waterfall. Our orientation to the Rainbow falls tour was quick, since the spring runoff made for a very wet view of the falls from the viewing platform blasted by mist:We spent some time in the orchard for our training, soaking in the warm sun and beautiful scenery around us:
We've been excited about our first five days here and we look forward to a full season of adventures. We're looking forward to visitors to break the occasional loneliness, and we already have some names on the calendar. We welcome all friends to visit and stay with us--just check with us ahead of time if you want a guaranteed guest room. Otherwise, there are lodges and campgrounds all over the valley.

Cheers,

Jeff

last weeks at Rock Eagle

Yes folks, we're sad to say, but our final season at Rock Eagle is coming to a close. For those of you who haven't heard, our next job/adventure will be working as interpretive park rangers at the Stehekin area of the North Cascades National Park complex in Washinton State. At the end of a grueling series of job applications, we had a few nice job offers and ended up getting one of our top choices. It was a difficult choice with an Audubon Center in the San Fran area, but being back in Washinton and with the National Park system was important to us.

Life at Rock Eagle continues to be a wonderful experience. The nature of the job is essentially the same since our earlier posts, with a few minor changes. We are still teaching the same classes, but after 6 months of teaching, there is less stress about class preparation and such.

The following are a few more interesting and perhaps random things that happened here. Kate finally got to do some belaying and climbing this season (she was sick during training last season):





During a hike in one of the nearby national forests, we were greeted by a large timber rattler in our trail:Our training in February began with cool weather and a little snow. This was the pioneer site at our camp during our pioneer tool class training:

And here's a picture of me and Brian, a coworker, at the well pump just a few hours later as the snow melted off:

My mom and cousin Kristy came to visit us for a weekend. We went to Jekyll Island again to show them around. There are miles of empty beach near the 4-H center where we stay, and a neat shipwreck near the shore:

There were horseshoe crabs, and this was the first time we got to see these strange creatures up close:
After long walks on the beach and sunset evenings on the piers, We all came back to Rock Eagle and showed them around campus a little. They both got to see our birds and hold our snakes. Here are Kate and I with our screech owls, Ollie and Ellie:


Kate is working in the ornithology lab this season, so she has the training with the big raptors. Here she is with Buddi, the great horned owl. She's a pretty intimidating bird, but quite a beauty once you know how to handle her:
Here's Kristy with Hugh the corn snake:
Mom got to hold Hugh as well:

And here's Kristy again with Digger, the gopher tortise
Kristy was here coincidentally for a wilderness first responder course in a nearby town, where she and her classmates met us a the local swimming hole for some swimming and cliff jumping:
The 13 year periodical cicadas just happened to emerge here this spring. We were lucky enough to catch them in Kentucky a few years back, so we got to witness the whole phenomenon here for a second time. The forest has been ringing and singing with those buzzing creatures.
That's it for now. On the 27th of May we start our drive west to Stehekin. More to come later!

Road trippin'

Hi again from us, and Happy Thanksgiving (for the two minutes left of it as of writing this sentence).

Well, we just completed our first season at Rock Eagle, we're sad to be done, but looking forward to working with the same great people again next year. And now, for the first time in a decade, we have a long time before our job starts up again in February, so we want to catch up with family and friends back in Washington. So the road trip starts tomorrow. Actually, tomorrow we go to winterize our house in Kentucky and see the neighbors and maybe visit the old office, but it's a 10 hour drive there, and another 50 hours or so to the west coast. So the trip begins. And we do expect to see a few folks along the way, as we seem to now have friends scattered across the country. Wish us luck!

And one more quick story of our recent trip to Tybee Island and Savannah. We had to take advantage of our free lodging at the 4-H center on Tybee, and we're so glad we went! Tybee is beautiful, with spectacular beaches, and just a half hour from Savannah. Savannah was covered in spanish moss and gnarly live oaks and dripping in history. Here's a picture from the cemetary:

We stopped by Fort Pulaski National Monument on the way out from Tybee. It was similar construction and time period to Fort Jefferson that we saw on Dry Tortugas during our trip to the Florida Keys last year. They had some cannons set up in the fort:

And you can still see cannon holes in the wall where the Union army's firepower forced the Confederates to surrender the fort. It was an important victory in the Civil War, and also an important change in tactic, demonstrating how rifled cannons would make the brick forts obsolete.

Anyway, cool stuff on the Georgia coast. We hope to go back again next year.

Tough week.

This week, we were turned down by Peace Corps.

Their reason for turning us down was that we are not willing to go anywhere in the world, and they wanted to send us to sub-Saharan Africa. It's not that we have anything against sub-Saharan Africa, it's just that our goals and desires for our two year service do not match a placement there. Their new policy (instated sometime since the last time I applied, in 2001-2002) is that all volunteers must be totally geographically flexible or are not qualified for service. This policy is in spite of the fact that one of the big questions in your application is where you want to go , and that they nominate you for a certain region (we were nominated for Latin America months ago) and expect you to fulfill certain requirements specific to that region (i.e. language credits, that turn out to be rather expensive) in order to get to the placement step. We reached the placement step at the end of last week, and the placement officer insisted that she has to go with what is open at that time. That means that once a potential volunteer reaches that placement step, they do not wait to see what will open up - so it is a crapshoot if there is something available at the exact time when your medical and legal clearances go through. Hmm.

So we are now looking for other paths to a one- to two-year, affordable term in Central or South America. Internships, volunteering, and just going down there and finding something (bartending? why not?) are all being explored. The catch is that many organizations require you to pay them to volunteer on top of paying for a place to stay, medical insurance, and your plane ticket, etc. We would love to have the experience be relevant to our future work, preferably something environmentally focused. We want to improve our Spanish, so we would like to be somewhere doing something that requires the use of Spanish. Suggestions are always welcome. We already have a few, thankfully - it makes it easier to take the Peace Corps let-down.

Another thing that helps us through our frustration is the fact that we work at an awesome job with awesome people. So here's a shout-out to the Rock Eagle crew - if I were to say you all rock, that would be just too easy of a joke and I'd have to roll my eyes.

Edit after the original posting: The really rough news this week (which I didn't feel I could write about here until it was announced by my brother and sister-in-law, which it now has been), is that they lost their twins at the 12- or 13-week mark of her pregnancy. She had been having troubles since Thursday, and today finally had to terminate. I'm so incredibly sorry for them. So yes, the tough week was not just caused by the Peace Corps let-down, but by true trajedy.

Here's to hoping next week is better, and healing is on the way.

Jekyll Island

Hello again,

As seems to happen on weekends (and weekdays, and vacations...), I overestimated the time I had and underestimated the time all my chores would take. So this blog post will rely heavily on the picture's-worth-a-thousand-words principle.

Last weekend, we went to Jekyll Island with a friend and co-worker, Lester. (The week following was really busy with school groups, so I didn't have time to post until now.) Jekyll is a barrier island off the southern Georgia coast where another 4-H center is, and since the benefits of working for Georgia 4-H are not high monetarily, they offer current employees free housing at their other centers for vacations as part of the benefit package. We took advantage, which is good, because hotels on Jekyll are pretty pricey. It was once the exclusive vacation resort of a club of rich people including J.P. Morgan, Rockefellers, etc. The historic clubhouse still stands:


...and us poor folk get to enjoy it now - at least, it's coffee shop (no, this is not the 4-H center):



The golden orb weavers enjoy its grounds as well. This spider was larger than my palm (legs included, of course), and had a body nearly two inches long. They were everywhere on the island.


For all the planning that goes into having such a place open to the public, I do wish that they would grammar check signs:


We went for a walk on a trail on the north end of the island, trying to get to "boneyard beach," (more on that later), which we were only partially successful at. It was a pretty walk, though:


The whole island is pretty, though, so what should we expect?


That night we splurged for dinner at the "Rah Bar" on the pier. Yum!


The next day we got to boneyard beach proper. The north end of the island is being eroded away, while the south end is being added on to. (The 4-H center is at the south of the island, and when it was built decades ago, it was waterfront. Now it's a five minute walk to the water from there.) Boneyard beach is where the beach is eroding away from underneath trees:



Most of the trees down were huge!


Lester enjoyed them as well:




Finally, when we knew we really should be leaving so we could prepare for teaching the next day, we spent a little more time on the 4-H center's beach at the south end of the island. Lester birdwatched:


...and Jeff dug himself a jacuzzi:


Lester gave him a hand when the tide started getting closer:


But Lester wouldn't get into the jacuzzi when finished. The foam and dirt was kinda gross, but Jeff was really proud of his creation.

And then, we returned to Rock Eagle. The week was busy but fun, although I got a recurrence of the stomach infection I had before, so I was slowed down quite a bit. I'm on antibiotics -again-, which hopefully will knock it out finally. We're still loving our jobs, though, so life is very nearly perfect!

More another day.