So, Here's De Urth....

Pretty sveet urrth nice an' round.

Anywho, so I realize that I'm the absolute worst at this whole blogging thing. I'm going to give you a quick summary of the past 6 months. Some parts will have more detail (closer events more likely). And in the event that y'all actually want to know more about any particular event please feel free to ask and I can let you know more. If I remember more that is. (I'm like 80.... Shhhh!)

SOOOOOOO.....

Glacier. It was pretty much an amazing summer with amazing people. But like all amazing things, you tend to remember the amazing things and rush over the troubles. I loved 90% of my co-workers and didn't really know like 8 of the other 10%. That being said, towards the end of the summer I had daydreams of killing almost all of them.

That's what happens when you stick a small-ish group of people in a place they can't really leave for 3 months. We lived in dorms, we ate in a cafeteria, we spent all of our time together. So we found out all of the things that drive each other crazy, and proceeded to do them to each other and not always unintentionally.

However, I still do talk to a solid chunk of the friends I made there. I miss them. And let me tell you about some of the shenanigans we got up to.

We went cliff jumping, and I got close to the edge because as we all know I'm a total clutz and I didn't want to scrape myself down the cliff if I tripped and fell off the edge. As I stepped up to the edge, it literally broke off under my feet and went crashing into the water 15 feet below. Had I gone with it I'm sure several bones would've been broken and I would have been bleeding. Luckily I did not go with it and the giant piece that broke off did not hit Claire. But that is the most terrified for my life I have ever been, and I would not like to repeat it.

Chelsea and I went up to Canada. Drumheller, Alberta is the home to The Royal Tyrell Museum of Paleontology. And their entire town is themed in dinosaurs. The WHOLE city. It was amazing. We went dinosaur hunting. Took a ton of pictures and the museum was just beyond amazing. Never have I nerded out so hard. Especially since I had more or less just finished taking Vertebrate Biology, a course where we devoted a unit to dinosaurs and other fossily things. It was nerd heaven. I actually contemplated moving to Canada to work there.

Claire and I went hiking to Iceberg Lake where we made the incredibly intelligent idea to swim out to an iceberg and climb on it. It was literally freezing. I lost feeling in the tips of a couple fingers for like an hour after. But I sat on an iceberg. It was pretty fricking amazing.

We had a staff Olympics. Where I ended up playing poker, and potentially would've won if I hadn't needed to work 3 hours after I finally just gave up. I was playing against my boss. He did it on purpose. And just kept smiling at me. Such a jerk. Great boss. Still a jerk. There was also a scavenger hunt which Chelsea and I successfully (with some help from others) found all of the clues which included climbing into caves surrounded by a forest of stinging nettles, climbing bee infested trees, trekking through the lake, climbing under bridges, and required an extensive knowledge of painters, the grounds and pop culture references also the airport code for some random airport in canada (which btw, was YWY because the clue was hidden in a car with the license plate YWY 007). It was so much fun.

But the summer wound down and we closed. Which was mostly awful. The housekeepers are pretty much the last staff to leave because we not only had to clean all the guest rooms, but also all of the dorms. It was an intense three days of almost killing each other. And then Claire and I ran off to Missoula for a night and then we were off to washington.

NEXT CHAPTER

So after Glacier I came back to Spokane where I worked for like 3 weeks (not much to say there) and then immediately left again to go visit my family in Reno and then to Seattle/Bellingham to visit friends and celebrate Claire's 21st birthday!

My family and I went and visited my grandpa in Wendover which is literally on the state border between Utah and Nevada. There is an actual painted line across the main road that says Utah on one side and Nevada on the other. It was a great trip. We played stupid car games, lit off fireworks, shot guns, drove a polaris, got to ride in a firetruck, and my favorite part, went and saw the salt flats in Utah.

The best part about that, and why it was my favorite was that it had recently rained like hardcore. They were completely flooded and it was gorgeous. It was a complete mirror of the sky. It was so ethereal and unreal but so gorgeous.

And then I returned to Spokane where I worked again, but also only for like 3 weeks where I promptly left for Seattle again because I was going to:

BELIZE!!!!!!!

Belize, Belize, Belize. Was such an amazing trip, completely un-Belize-able. I played beach volleyball. Got completely soaked on multiple occasions by downpours that coined the term downpour. You could've showered in it. In fact it was better water pressure than our showers. Not that we showered much. You just were kind of always wet. I aced all of my ID exams which I was sooooooo proud of because the first day we went snorkeling, I was completely true to myself, I was super clutzy, kept laughing and getting water all up in the snorkel and my mask and mouth. But by the end I was diving and staying steady to take pictures and could identify almost every fish that swam by.

We got to see huge manta rays. AND AND AND AND BABY SEA TURTLES. Like the kind that literally just hatched. We got to hold them. It was amazing. In fact it completely interrupted one of the lectures (I want to say I'm sorry Dr. Nelson, but baby sea turtles!!). Oh and I got stung by an anemone. That was really exciting. And by exciting it felt like that strip of skin on my leg had fallen asleep. Like the prickly pins and needles asleep. But it went away after a day so it wasn't too awful.

The food was amazing. Everything was fresh. In fact I ate conch directly after it was pulled into the boat that we were snorkeling from. Conch is actually really good. It's like a slightly tougher clam (for reference). And coconuts, I miss fresh coconuts so much.

I had some doubts about going on this trip. Prior to going, because I had graduated, I knew the professors and three of the students. I was so surprised by what an amazing time I had getting to know everyone who went on the trip and I'm so incredibly glad I went.

NOW......ish

So after leaving Belize, I went back to Reno for the holidays (Woo family time!).

And now I'm back in Spokane. Working at McDonald's where I have recently been promoted to Swing Manager. It's a pleasant change. Not only do I make more money, but it's nice to know that I'm promotable, and that all of my hardwork and effort has been noticed and appreciated.

I'm also volunteering in both a Biology and Chemistry class. Just sort of helping out the teachers with set up and grading and also observing their teaching. Because even though McDonald's manager doesn't say it, I still want to teach high school science (it's a process).

I'm happy. Not carefree, but happy for the first time in a long time. Too long of a time.



So that's where I am. Sorry for such a looooooooooooooooooooong hiatus-y type dissapearing act. I will try not to do it again. (I make no promises that it won't though.)

TTFN (ta ta for now)
Shelby