Back to O-town I will go.

Literally the day after I moved out of my hell-hole of an apartment in Ontario I got an email. "Okay, great, an email..." you are thinking. But this email will define my life for the next two years. I got a permanent position with NRCS in none-other than......ONTARIO!

Dang it! But I shouldn't complain, it is a great job, in my field, with benefits! I really am quite lucky. And I won't be living above a lottery/pool/bar place. I won't even call this place a bar, bars are classier than this sh*t hole was. So, for the first time in years I will know where I will be for two whole years! Stability!

BENEFITS!

It's sinking in...I have benefits. This means four things to me:

1. I'm growing up
2. I have a REAL job...scratch that, a CAREER
3. College is almost over
4. I have life insurance and someone could marry me, off me, and take that money.

Number four scares me.
That's all.

Ontario: 1 week down, 5 to go.

I can't explain this town...it smells like a mix of factory smog and potatoes...ugh. All I can say is I miss Enterprise. The mountains, the people I met, not smelling cigarette smoke in my apartment, the Eagle Caps, Hells Canyon, MOUNTAINS, trees, water!
But, this job is my dream come true. I'm out in the field all day, analyzing and classifying soils, creating map units and correlating ecological sites. It's like a giant, 600 acre puzzle every day (yeah, we map about 600+ acres per day). Wednesday I got to analyze soil in the snow and 35 mph winds by Ironside mountain! HELL YEAH!

One month in...two to go.

I have been in this amazing valley for a month now, and have discovered two important things:

1. Things get lonely when you don't know a soul around you.
2. Things are brand new and SO refreshing when you don't let loneliness get to you too much.

Refreshing enough I have gotten out and visited many taverns and met quite a few people. It has been interesting on one hand, and truly fun on the other. I've met some really weird people, but some awesome ones as well. One, a bartender of course, gave me the number of a tattoo artist over here (as well as his number...). So today I took advantage of the local artistry:

That was cold...

UPDATE time, since someone, I won't name names, is whining about a lack of blogging from me.

Last weekend I hiked some trail along Hurricane Creek. I thought I was headed to Echo lake, but ended up (I think) at Douglas Lake. I thought I would just go for an easy training hike, with my pack fully loaded and weighted a bit extra for conditioning. Easy hike ended up being an elevation gain of nearly 1,000 feet in four miles...all switch backs, but still mighty steep!
I got to a Lake and decided to call it good, my legs were aching, and I knew I still had to get back down without falling over the edge! The heat must have really gotten to my head, though, cause I thought the lake would be a good way to cool off...it was...it was FREEZING! I should have known, since it is a high mountain lake and all! But the little skinny dip was refreshing, albeit numbing!

Week One: Complete!

I have lived in Enterprise for exactly one week today! AND I LIKE IT. I have great neighbors (even if the next youngest one is over twice my age) and wonderful co-workers. The clients I will get to work most closely with this summer are great. I have already had to get over some of my fears:

• driving a stick shift. My assigned work truck is a manual. I learned to use the clutch, and have since driven to nearby cities. Soon I will be taking her to Baker City, La Grande, Ontario, Jordan Valley, and beyond. I like stick shift!
• making phone calls. Pretty much what I get to do for most of the day. I'm having to get over my phone phobia
• asking questions. I have to do it, and it's getting easier.

I also get to do things that I really enjoy:

• I've already gone on a couple hikes in some awesome country.
• I've gotten to trail ride around Wallowa lake
• I will get to drive cattle this weekend!!!!
• Terminal Gravity Brewing has some of the nicest bar-staff and brewmeisters around
• cowboys...enough said
  

A week from now...

So in six days I will be moving almost 500 miles to Enterprise. I think it is really starting to sink in now. I have found a nice little place to rent--an apartment overlooking an old mill pond with the Eagle Cap wilderness as a back drop, Ruby Peak front and center. It is also minutes away from trail heads to one of the most inspirational landforms I have laid eyes on; Hell's Canyon.

Last time I went to Hell's Canyon was about this time last year, with a couple professors and some fellow grad and undergrad students to follow the path of the Missoula floods. (If you don't know what these are...check out the documentary Ice Age Floods from NOVA, it's worth it!) Even surrounded by people I don't know very well, I was amazingly at ease the moment I set foot into the area. I think I am meant to be out East. My personal favorite piece of poetry came from that moment:

Warped
Time bends
Unthinkable angles obtained
By an intangible yet innate force
Angles not real, not imagined either
Time makes shapes unrecognizable
Straining to understand
Efforts are futile for minds
To grasp alone
But unfocus from the issue
And like a mirage
A flitter in the perripheral
It becomes all too clear
Brief, fleeting, blindingly true
You catch time warping.