Spring 2018 Update: Return to Cape Cod

Hello family and friends! It has been way too long since I've updated you all on what's going on in my life, and I'm sorry about that. Some of you know what I've been up to but I realize that many of you don't, so here is a quick recap of my life since leaving Crater Lake last fall. 

I wish I could say that it was all good things, but unfortunately that's not the case. I returned to Florida at the end of October to stay with my mom for the winter and worked for UPS and the liquor store like I had the previous winter. I also decided to use the time of relative calm in my life to focus on addressing some health problems that had been going on for about a year. I don't remember how much of this I've talked about on the blog in the past, but for those of you who don't know, about a year and a half ago I was diagnosed with an autoimmune thyroid disorder called Hashimoto's Thyroiditis. Basically my immune system thinks that the cells of my thyroid gland are foreign invaders, so it mistakenly attacks them, leading to destruction of the gland and continuously decreasing thyroid hormone levels in the body. This diagnosis led me down a path of wanting to know what else might be going on, and I subsequently found out that many other hormones in my body are out of balance, I'm gluten intolerant (most likely Celiac) along with various other digestive complaints, have positive antibodies for several viruses my body has been fighting off, and I might have Lyme Disease, and could have had it most of my life. That was quite a shock to me, since I've never had any major symptoms that would lead me to suspect Lyme at all. However, this slew of diagnoses made me examine how I was really feeling and I realized that it had been a while since I'd felt 100% healthy. I just kept pushing through life, ignoring symptoms or thinking that it was normal. Everyone complains about being tired or having random aches and pains, so it didn't seem like a big deal until it was brought to my attention just how much my body had to handle.

Oregon Update: The Smoke Continues

In my last post I wrote about how smokey it was from the fires burning in the park, and how much of a relief it was to take a trip to the coast to escape from it. Little did I know, that was just the beginning of our smoke problems. Since then, we have had many days that the smoke settled into the park and did not dissipate for a long time. Air quality has been so bad sometimes that we have spent the whole day doing office work instead of going out into the field, and even inside we could still smell the smoke. The amount of smoke in the air changes day to day, and even hour to hour, but for the past several weeks it has basically been fluctuating between various levels of terrible. Words can only go so far in describing the situation, so here are some pictures to help.

This was our view while driving to our work site the first day that the smoke was really bad. 

Oregon Update: Sea, Sand and Smoke

A lot has been going on here at the park recently, but I'm still a bit behind on writing about what I've been doing the past several weeks so I'll give a bit of a recap of that first. 

Me in my official Park Service uniform

Pacific Crest Trail: My First Solo Backpacking Experience

As I mentioned in my last two posts, I went on my first solo backpacking trip over 4th of July weekend. It's something that I've thought about doing for years now, and I finally got up the nerve to go for it. Part of the motivation came from finding out that Anette, the woman I did WWOOFing with in Norway when I traveled in Europe a few years ago, was starting to hike the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) that week in Ashland, OR. For those of you who may not know, the PCT is a long-distance hiking trail that runs from the Mexican border to the Canadian border through California, Oregon and Washington, and it just so happens to go right through Crater Lake National Park. It was perfect for me because I don't have a car so I didn't have to worry about getting to some far away trailhead, so I decided I would hike south for a day (my plan was about 10 miles), camp for one night, and retrace my steps the next day. I was hoping the timing might work out for me to meet up with Anette on the trail and we could hike back to the park together, but I also knew that might not happen, so I was equally prepared to do the whole trip alone.

Oregon Excursions, Part I: Silver Falls State Park and Oregon Coast

Here is the first of hopefully several posts about trips I take while I'm in Oregon. This one is about my trip a few weeks ago to Silver Falls State Park and the coast with two of my coworkers. We had a great time, and I enjoyed getting to see more of Oregon. It's a beautiful state and I hope to see as much of it as possible while I'm here for the season.

So our first stop on the journey was Silver Falls State Park, which is several hours north of Crater Lake. The hike we did was called Trail of Ten Falls, and it was a a loop of about 8 miles (exact distance is questionable because none of the maps and signs at the park seemed to agree with each other) that passed ten waterfalls along the way. The scenery was amazing lush greenery which was reminiscent of a tropical landscape and reminded me of Costa Rica in certain places, and some of the waterfalls were breathtaking. Here are some pictures of our hike (the following group of photos is courtesy of my coworker Tara Chizinski).

This waterfall was the main attraction (I believe it was the tallest one) so there were lots of people around. As soon as we got past the first few falls, the crowd decreased dramatically and the hike was very quiet and calm. 

Life at Crater Lake

I have now been at my new job at Crater Lake National Park for 5 weeks (time sure does fly). I'd hoped to work for the National Park Service for years now, and it's so exciting that it's finally a reality! I work for the Botany Division as a Biological Science Technician on the Invasive Vegetation Management crew, which is a fancy way of saying we remove invasive weeds. The first couple of weeks involved studying for our pesticide applicator exams, since we will be using herbicides to treat some of the weeds later in the season. Once we all passed our tests the job got much more exciting because we actually got to do field work instead of sitting in the office all day. Now most of what we've been doing is going to sites with known populations of weeds and hand pulling them, and the other part of the job is surveying burned areas to see if new populations of weeds are establishing. You could say it's not the most glamorous of work, but I don't mind because we get to be outside all day and basically get paid to go hiking.

My first glimpse of the lake on my first day of work. Beautiful!

Highlights of the Mississippi River

Welcome back to my blog! As many of you know, I worked as a deckhand on a riverboat on the Mississippi River for two months this spring, and as promised (although a little late), I would like to share with you some of my favorite places that we visited.

Me in front of the Queen of the Mississippi