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Final Day: feeling accomplished with a new destination

We took our time packing up our campsite on the final morning of work. I was called an overachiever for taking down my tent before breakfast and for a while we just stood around Jaime’s computer, laughing at some of the ridiculous pictures and movies we took in between doing actual work. There were still two large reaches left, but instead of splitting into two groups we kept the wolf pack intact and surveyed together. The first reach was large but relatively easy. The second reach was surrounded by logging and roads with huge rock slides at every turn, clearly changing the channel from its natural course and greatly decreasing sediment size. The rest of us tried to hold back our excitement for freedom as Jaime made the difficult decision to leave the site.

We ended where we had started, going full circle around the peninsula: on the Skokomish river. We sat silently in the truck, music blaring, windows rolled down, finally experiencing the beginning of summer heat. We all picked up our cars at Olympia, headed to the campground we have established as our safe haven, and finally showered. Chris soon headed out to meet his wife in Seattle for their honeymoon, cracking my back in at least twelve different places as he hugged me goodbye. Our wolf pack was down to three. I owed Paul dinner as I had forgotten my wallet on our last excursion, so the three of us went in search of seafood and a good view. After running away from the fancy places where women in heels and men in jackets climbed the stairs, we finally found a laid back outdoor seating, right on the water’s edge. Our waiter, to say the least, was entertaining. He introduced himself to us by haphazardly relating some drunk story where he ended up sleeping in his car. When we asked for more time to decide on our order, he said he would be back in three minutes – but wait. “You’re not going to time me right? Cause I’m not married to you, I’m not going to lie to you – it might be a little longer.” And that was just the beginning. Every five minutes some new gag or story approached our table – he wanted to try Jaime’s oysters or made fun of us being on separate tickets or wondered why my desert wasn’t gone faster. At first it was strange and we contemplated if we were on candid camera, but eventually it made for a highly entertaining evening.

When we returned, Jaime pitched her tent and went to bed, Paul passed out in the bed of his truck, and I headed to the laundry room next to the outdoor pool for Internet. I sank into the dilapidated but comfy couch, opened up my laptop and went immediately to my e-mail. Amongst Obama campaign letters and REI advertisements, a small note from a Curt Maxey made me literally cry with joy in the silent and dark room:

“Hi Rachael,

I’ve put paperwork in place to try to employ you for the upcoming fall term with the DOE SULI program, so I hope it will work out that I will be your new mentor, unless you get a better offer.”

I won’t readily admit it, but this past year very few things seemed to go right. I cannot begin to relate how thankful I am for this opportunity and how happy I am to finally study alternative energy, especially at such a prestigious institution. Not that I normally screw things up, but there is no way I can let anything go wrong with this one. Wish me luck.

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Wolf Pack

“You guys might not know this, but I consider myself a bit of a loner. I tend to think of myself as a one-man wolf pack. But when my sister brought Doug home, I knew he was one of my own. And my wolf pack… it grew by one. So there… there were two of us in the wolf pack… I was alone first in the pack, and then Doug joined in later. And six months ago, when Doug introduced me to you guys, I thought, “Wait a second, could it be?” And now I know for sure, I just added two more guys to my wolf pack. Four of us wolves, running around the desert together, in Las Vegas, looking for strippers and cocaine. So tonight, I make a toast!” – The Hangover

The four of us wolves, with Jaime as our alpha, had trudged through the depths of the wilderness together, forming the tight bond of a wolf pack. Every now and then I would be thrown out of the wolf pack for not participating, but would somehow reenter after saving everyone’s gear from a late night rainstorm. We bonded over “instant coffee” and youtube videos while howling into the night.

May I highly recommend the following for your perusal:

“Honey Badger don’t give a shit” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r7wHMg5Yjg&feature=related

“om nom nom nom” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shbgRyColvE

“Coloradoing” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGBTnVNOjo8

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Hunting and Deforestation

On a day off in Olympia, Paul, Chris, and I went shopping at Cabella’s an outdoor outfitters like REI, but with a more hunting/fishing slant. I guess the stores are famous for their taxidermy, making them almost like a museum with little plaques of the common and scientific name in front of each dramatically posed animal amidst some showy display. It was kind of heard to stomach. I tried to analyze why I was so shocked and slightly revolted – after all if this had been a purely scientific museum like the Smithsonian I would have gazed in awe…I think. I don’t want to hate hunting purely because I feel like that’s what I have been trained to do. I shot a gun for the first time this year at Bob’s gun and tackle in downtown Norfolk. I kind of wanted to do it, just to do it – to say that I had shot a gun, to understand the experience. Like those arcade games and that old duck hunting video game, I liked the skill of aiming and the thrill of it going off in your hand. But I didn’t like the power. Guns weren’t created to shoot at a piece of paper, they were for hunting – both of people and animals. I didn’t like bearing the responsibility of another life in my hands. I realize most people would not view an animal life in concert with a human’s, and while I certainly don’t value them as equals, it is still a life. I immediately jump to the bear’s family or all the obstacles it must have overcome to live to adulthood only to be randomly struck down. Don’t get me wrong, PETA bothers me to no end and I’m not about to head some campaign against hunting and guns – I’m actually completely torn over what I believe on this issue. I mean just because I personally don’t like it, doesn’t mean others who actually enjoy it can’t do it ethically and responsibly.

Reading about Roosevelt in “The Wilderness Warrior” had me at first wanting to try hunting, simply to understand why Roosevelt was so attracted to the sport and why his sportsmanship pleas coincided at all with nature preservation. But after seeing antlers in various ranger stations and the skins in Cabellas I realized I was out of my mind and would never be able to do it. In truth, it has been hard for me to connect at all with Roosevelt.  The core of what he did as president fascinates me: from rallying against corruption to saving wilderness, but his personal character of memorizing lists of every species (especially birds and their latin name) or voraciously planning his next hunts is not something I could ever relate to. I have always been fascinated with the way people think: not necessarily the specific actions that made them famous but what aspect of their character allowed them to make such decisions. In “Team of Rivals” I meticulously followed Lincoln, hooking onto his patience, perseverance, and clear mindedness. I’m not at all trying to state that I somehow resemble these people, but that I could understand them, that I could relate to their decision making processes enough to try and emulate their best qualities. And so far, though this is an incredibly good book, Roosevelt and I just aren’t clicking.

Deforestation/logging is slightly similar. Simply put, we need trees: for books, houses, and other stuff that requires wood. I understand this. I can’t completely deplore a practice if I still enjoy the benefits it reaps. I have never seen as many trees as I have in this forest, which makes the places of their removal that much more noticeable and disconcerting. I have to hope that most of these endeavors are done sustainably. Along the side of the road there are PR signs about how the forest was harvested and re-planted in 1985 and set to be harvested again in 2025. And while certainly not the most ecological practice, that seems pretty fair: plant a tree for every one you cut down, move in sections throughout the forest so that only pieces are broken and not the whole thing at once. In general, I do tend to be on Gifford Pinchot’s side instead of Muir: the forests should be put to use; sustainably, of course, but leave it to parks or other designated areas to be free from all human disturbance. But that is all politics within the park system. Outside, on private property, everything is up for grabs. We couldn’t survey one reach because an explosive welding company was working in a pit nearby. Logging occurs right up to the national forest property line. When Chris and I went looking for a stream on private property, we ended up on the front lawn of a logging company, my mouth agape to the sheer massiveness of an entire chunk of woods just destroyed as we looked out over the valley. And they were just getting started. Most of the roads we drove on looked brand new, nestled on the edge of steep cliffs that no longer had vegetation to hold them together. A new road was literally being bulldozed up against the stream we had wanted to survey with unfiltered culverts shooting fine sediment directly into the water. This is the most devastated area we ever drove past, but I can’t imagine it is the only one. Even Chris was sketched out (though more for being on private property) and we quickly high-tailed it out.

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Freakin Twilight

In previous entries I may have awkwardly sprinkled a few twilight references in there, but here is the full scoop. I hate twilight. To be fair to the…saga?…I have not read any of the books, nor seen any of the movies. One friend who read the books described it as watching a train wreck, another [cough, Paisley, cough] just won’t stop drooling over all of the Abs, and another woman I babysat for who was highly Christian chided that the books were very sinful, but she read them anyways – and I should read them too. Or not.  Yet somehow I ended up all over the peninsula where they were filmed. Forks was perhaps the worst as most of the filming occurred there. One shop had “Welcome to the Twilight zone” on its sign while another hotel boasted, “Edward Cullen didn’t sleep here!” There was a “Dazzled by Twilight” company that sold both twilight tours of the area and souvenirs. In the one restaurant we went into, a simply named pizza place, there were brochures detailing that the hardware store we just bought tarps at was where Bella worked and that Forks high school was just down the road and to the left – but remember, it’s still a functioning high school, so please keep your creepy selves away and let the students learn. The Quileute Indian Reservation which Jacob was supposedly a part of, was much more toned down though, there was a tiny “Jacob’s coffee shop” which had posted signs for Vampire parking only.

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Squire Swim Team

All of us, at at least one point this summer, overtopped our waders. I believe Chris was the first, though for some reason I’m completely blanking on his story. I was next, falling in at dusk after a full days work in the heavy rain. The last two survivors fell on the same day at two different locations on Squire Creek. The creek was one of the larger ones we had done and the water was still running higher than normal from all the rainfall. I was teamed with Paul on a downstream section and he thankfully had volunteered to wade through the rough water and run the stadia rod while I stood on relatively dry land with the auto level. Though he certainly lasted longer than I would have, on the 4th cross section his foot got stuck underneath a root on the left bank and he toppled forward. I noticed the slip, but didn’t realize how bad it was until later. It had also now begun to rain and on top of falling, Paul was now getting soaked without his rain jacket. Further up the stream, Jamie was on top of one of the steep banks, laying out the tape for a cross section. I’m not sure if she slipped or tripped or what happened, but somehow she face planted off the side of the bank into the water, laughing and shouting to Chris as her floating boots lifted her downstream with the current until she was stopped by a nearby log jam. Of all of us, that was probably the most eventful swim and epic fail – how did we miss it?! When everyone was warm(er) and dry(er), we saluted Squire and thought up potential t-shirt designs for her swim team.

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Locals

Collectively, we decided that in order to live here you need to be…strange? A little off your rocker? Maybe that’s what happens in more isolated areas?

A lot just kind of walk right up to you and ask, what are ya doin? It’s hard to explain. We can’t say geologists because then people discuss rocks with you. And really we tried to avoid anything about climate change or the forestry service. Not that either of those necessarily have bad connotations, they just have the potential to ignite some sort of opinionated lecture. So most of the time we stick with looking at Salmon habitat. Most of them like this, but then we undergo the unfortunate time of listening to everyone’s fishing stories and then having to confess that we actually know nothing about salmon. When we mentioned to our camp host that we were surveying one particular stream even though there really isn’t any reported studies of fish, he regaled us with “Bulllllshit there’s no fish in there! Now let me tell you…” and so on for about ten minutes (later he would introduce us to all of his bear statues). Others look at our surveying equipment and ask if we’re selling their land or increasing their property values. Those who don’t know what surveying equipment looks like, often ask if we’re going fishing – either the traditional way or some sort of electrocution method. Laughingly, we came up with a few sample responses (none of which we ever actually tried). My personal favorite was Jaime’s: I’m a scientist; I work for the government (has a sort of Manhattan project flair, doesn’t it?). Others included that we’re surveying for the new dam or coal plant that will be going in soon. Lol, everyone loves that.

One stream Jaime and I did, situated next to a backwoods campground, had quite possibly the best assortment. There was a family reunion, in which even though I was freezing cold in my waders and three layers of jackets, the girls bravely donned swimsuits in order to wash their hair. Jaime and I laughed at each other: it had been at least a week since we had washed ours. One girl, for no apparent reason, though I suspect it was to make bubbles, dumped half of a Dawn dishwashing soap bottle into the river. Just climbed up on a log, opened the cap, and started squeezing the bottle and smiling. Another elderly man had the longest beard I have ever seen. He randomly appeared on the rocky bar maybe twenty feet down from us, and, after watching us pick up rocks to measure, he himself would pick up random rocks and toss them aside. Another man on the other side of a wooded log jam had a newspaper bag in his hand and was just picking up rocks and placing them inside. Jaime tried to ask what he was doing, but all he replied was “picking up rocks.”

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There’s a heat wave? Why is it so cold…

The month after the Fourth of July break, it was collectively decided to just kind of push through the next month. No more long breaks, just lots of working with a one day break every week or so to shower and do laundry. During one of these sessions, we all huddled around laptops for a morning, submitting time sheets, applying to jobs (me), and working on abstracts for an upcoming conference (Jaime and Paul). The Today show served as background noise for much of the morning until the weather report across the nation caught my attention. I hadn’t realized it, but apparently this is one of the hottest years on record. The whole country was doused in bright reds and oranges with a flashy sun-proclaiming warm, hot, or sizzling. It was “sizzling” over Virginia with greater than 100 degree weather. I had to laugh. It has been consistently 40 or 50 degrees since I arrived on the Olympic peninsula, with cold sheets of rain never seeming to cease. One particularly warm day where I only wore two layers of clothes, Chris had exclaimed that morning: “wow, it’s 9am and already 60 degrees!” Part of me wanted to be in the warm summer weather, but I have lived through too many Norfolk/Williamsburg summers to have had any sort of jealousy. Where is the happy medium?