The Dominican Republic

I flew out of Los Angeles on an overnight flight. I took Benadryl to help me sleep on the plane (didn’t help much). I had a 3 hour lay-over in Atlanta where it was pouring rain: which would explain why all my clothes were wet when I got to the Dominican Republic.

Somewhere out over the Atlantic Ocean, I spied this outside my window.

It was either the Florida Keys or the Bahamas. We landed in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, and this was what the airport looked like:

I had decided to rent a car, being as they drive on the right hand side of the road making it not such a big change for me. I had a lot of ground to cover and it didn’t seem like public transportation was going to be worth the hassle and time. I’ve driven in Mexico, so it wasn’t a whole lot different from there. Just very defensive driving and being alert to absolutely everything (from potholes to other motorists coming into my lane to avoid potholes on their side).

My first destination was Miches, a small beach town. I missed the direct route, because things were so poorly marked and they really don’t make very good maps for that country. It ended up taking me over 4 hours to get to my hotel. But I had driven through some very beautiful country and the people seemed very nice (all 20 that I stopped and asked for directions of). I stayed 2 nights in Miches in a little cabana on the beach. They have a main house with a bar and restaurant. I really did nothing more than relax there. I walked, even went for a run one morning, took in some sun and lazed about.

From Miches, I drove to the capital: Santo Domingo. Roads in this country are a challenge. There aren’t many road signs, they’re usually not paved, and the rain and driving cause major potholes all over.

I managed to make it in record time. I stayed at a guest house right in the colonial district. It’s owned by a lady from Tennessee. Her ex-husband lives in San Diego. Small world. She has an art gallery there where she sells local artist’s paintings, sculptures, metal work, and jewelry. Some of the stuff is from Haiti as well. There was an artisan fair in town, and I did a lot of shopping there, as well as the main shopping street of the colonial district. I stayed 2 nights here as well.

Down in the Caribbean areas (as well as other tropical places in the world) it is advised to protect yourself against mosquito bites to avoid malaria and dengue fever, and such. I brought along 23% Deet. This stuff can kill you. I think I fumigated my lungs every time I put it on, which might explain the cold I have now which is tearing apart my lungs and sinuses. Either way, I was still bit up viciously and itch to an ungodly extreme. I think they’re super mosquitoes. You never see them or hear them, only the crazy itch afterwards.

After Santo Domingo, I went off to the sleepy beach town of Juan Dolio. I stayed in a hotel that has quite an Indian Flare to it. The lady who owns it is Italian, but spent a lot of time growing up in India. She has started a humanitarian project, paying for education for young girls in India. Apparently it’s doing very well. The lady who is the secretary of the organization lives about a half hour from me. I met her down there, and she mentioned the possibility of me going to India and teaching at the school (English). It would be an awesome experience, but it starts in June and last several months. I’m not sure I can commit to something like that. We also did a yoga class while I was there. Here also, I laid on the beach (subjected to spontaneous downpours) and got a little swimming in. I also stayed 2 nights here.

The sunset on the plane ride home was beautiful. Although from Atlanta to LA, I sat next to a guy who told me the weather had been crazy since I left, and it had even snowed in Malibu! When we landed in Atlanta, I got a voice message from a friend who lives in my new town, and she said the freeways leading to our place were closed due to crazy snow. Thankfully I had already gotten a hotel in LA for the night since I got in so late. In the morning though the freeways were still shut down. Since we live in the mountains, there really wasn’t the option of taking another route, because each lead to ice and snow. It really wasn’t much in relation to the rest of the U.S., but apparently southern Californians are ill equipped (and trained) to drive in anything other than 75 degree and sunny weather. So my friend and I met up south of the road closures, did a little grocery shopping and running errands. They finally opened our road up around noon. I got home about 3pm to find myself completely blocked out of my driveway due to the foot and a half of snow blanketing the whole thing (not to mention the 2 foot high berm the snow plow created at the entrance). I turned around (with my jeep in 4 wheel drive) and headed to the hardware store for a snow shovel and ice scraper. I spent the next 2 hours shoveling snow (with a cold I picked up somewhere on my vacation).

I managed to shovel enough for a parking spot for my jeep (forget the whole driveway, it’ll melt in a few days), a path to my porch, and enough off the deck to not drag snow into the house. Then I went inside, took some Nyquil and went to sleep. What a crazy end to a tropical vacation!!

By the way, today at work we burned piles of brush… in a foot of snow. My boots aren’t waterproof. I’ll be driving into the city this weekend to buy snow boots.

Debbie's Visit

So Deb came up to visit me a week ago (I've been busy). I was bummed there wasn't any snow for her to see, but driving around, we found some! Just up the hill from my house!

Doesn't Debbie look cold? When she got there, we did a quick tour of my house, then up to my station and then to lunch at a Mexican Restaraunt here.



Look how prepared we were. I'm telling you, it was at least 70 degrees down in the valley by my house. We were sliding all over in the snow. Afterwards we went sight-seeing, and I took Debbie off road for the first time. It was pretty tame too, being as it had gotten dark, and I didn't need us to get stuck up in the mountains over night when I had to be at work the next day.



I'm gonna miss you Debbie!!! See you next December!

Bugger

Don't you hate those people who always look good in photos? Even at 7am? Even after a hard 5K. Grr. So, as promised, here's some pics of Debbie and I. The Thanksgiving Day run was held in Balboa Park in San Diego. It was raining. At one point it was even pouring. Like Seattle kind of rain.

This is Deb and I before the race. All I can say is that I think I was very tired. Deb looks great. I should have kicked her right before the picture.

Dude, it was wet. You can't see it, but we're in an gated off beer garden after the race. The thing is, you can't go grab your beer and go find an awning to sit under. You must stay in a designated area so as not to be wandering loose in the park with alcohol. Also it ensures that everyone drinking in that area is indeed of age. So it was pouring. I had just changed into a warm (and dry) t-shirt and jacket after the race (because I was soaked). As you can see here, we were not incredibly dry. Again, Deb looks fantastic, and I've decided I'm not allowed to smile that big in photos anymore. I was seriously tired though... in my defense.

It may not look like it, but I'm very content right here. I was cold and wet and for some reason my face looks swollen, but I was very happy. I think we stood in there enjoying our beers for at least 15 minutes in the pouring rain. It was around 9am. Oh, and the beer was Stone IPA. I don't think I would've stood in the rain that long for a Bud Light. Ok, maybe I would've. We had a lot of fun though. I had a decent 5K, something to be proud of. And it was definately exciting to be drinking beer in that atmosphere. Drew was there too, but for some reason, Deb hasn't posted pictures of him yet on her facebook. Yes, I stole these photos, without permission. But there's my disclaimer, so it's legal.

Off-season

Well fire season is officially over. I think I needed it to be. I've seen more of my friends in the past couple weeks than I have all year. I feel like this is what I've been missing all summer. I just don't get to see anyone during the summer months so now I'm making up for it. As soon as I get pics from my pals, I'll post them. There was yesterday morning having beers in the beer garden after the Turkey Day 5K in the pouring rain with Debbie and Drew, Thanksgiving at Natalie's, and even a few days ago, the girls went out for Italian... and the next morning: coffee at the butt-crack of dawn. Pics to come!

Snow!!!

We had our first snow of the season on Sunday morning (November 9th). I woke up to white stuff everywhere, and as I was leaving for work, a very pretty flurry had started.

The night before:

I did absolutely nothing to doctor up this image. Gorgeous sunset!

Being as I was taking pictures of the sunset that night, I had my camera waiting on the kitchen table for this:

I realize that may not be exciting to some of you, but I just wasn't expecting it. It was much more fabulous in person.

There were still a few small flakes coming down, but most of it started to melt as the morning went by.
This is what it looked like as I was leaving for work. It had started to snow pretty good by then. The snow on my jeep melted because I had started it up 20 minutes earlier and the heater was on inside.

On my way to work, I snapped this picture. There were a lot of other pretty things to take pictures of later (like snow at work, ice crystals in the trees, etc) but by then I was over it.... maybe because I have to work in this now. Yuck! Corey (our apprentice) and I went for a run in it. It wasn't too bad, but I shudder to think we'll be doing fuels projects in this all winter. I certainly don't get paid enough for this.

My Crew

Now that the fire season is officially over, here is my crew. I know, it's kinda late, but we've been gone on a fire and things have been hectic since we got back.

Left to right: Eric (captain), Louie, Lanolin (Jason- he's allergic to sheep's wool), Me, Christian, Kyle, Chris (engineer), Dominic (in front).

So all the temps/seasonals have been layed off for the winter. All that remains of this crew are myself, Chris, Eric, Dominic, and another Apprentice who isn't in the picture: Corey.

Brrr!!! Part II

The cold weather has been making me especially lazy lately. This morning I had a brief mental conversation with my bicycle that ended in something like “no way”. So I scrubbed my bath tub instead. Until my dear friend Debbie called. As we were ending our conversation, she mentioned how she was off to the gym. Enter guilt trip. But please realize it was 20 degrees colder here than it was there. So I agreed to go ride my bike.

Excellent idea. I’m just so very sorry that you can’t hear the sarcasm in my voice. We have actual weather up here. At first it wasn’t so bad. I took off down through the valley on the sunny side, bundled in bike pants, a fleece pull-over, and knitted gloves pulled over my padded bike gloves. The wind either did not exist or it was at my back. I went about 3 miles and turned around… only to be hit head on by a 10 degree 50 mile per hour wind. From the front, then the side, then the front, then the side. The wind was so cold and strong my eyes watered to the point of being blind. My body tensed from the cold, my ears ached. And every few seconds, a strong gust of wind would throw me towards the edge of the road. Dirt and pavement swam back and forth in front of me as cars occasionally whizzed by. I swear I was heading downhill, but instead of shifting with the terrain, I had to shift with the wind. It was incredibly miserable.

So somewhere between mile 4 and mile 5, I agreed that I deserved to purchase a trainer for my bicycle. That would be a small contraption that converts your regular outdoor bicycle into an indoor stationary bike. I wasn’t going to due to the recent collapse of our economy as we know it, but this was the last straw. I had suffered through a pathetic yoga/Pilates fusion DVD the night before and needed a good cardio workout to make up for my lack of effort. But I can’t see encouraging myself to brave anymore winter winds just to get a workout in.

And of course now that I’ve placed the order, the winds have calmed and the weather has warmed up. But I’m not fooled. I’ve been told we’ll get our first snow around Halloween.

By the way, we had “picture day” a few days ago, so stay tuned for crew pictures!

Brrrr!

It's noon, and we've finally hit a toasty 49 degrees (F). We've all been extended the last few days due to red flag warnings, high fire danger, etc. Last night it got down to 12 degrees (F), and didn't rise above freezing until after 9am. Not that I doubt that fires will take off running in sub-freezing temperatures, but the act of getting up before sunlight has yet to warm the land is painful if not down-right ridiculous. When I got into my car this morning, it was just light enough for me to confirm that there was indeed frost on the roof of my jeep. I was however, very excited to find no ice to scrape off my windshield. There's something to be said about low humidities. I don't even own an ice scraper yet.

Yesterday day we went down to another station to cover for days off for that crew. We passed farms along the way that had icicles hanging from those big irrigation sprinklers. Unfortunate. Worse than that, we're on fire restrictions up here and have been since July, which mean no campfires anywhere. Who would camp where you can't have campfires? Especially where it gets below 20 degrees at night? Well we were fortunate enough to be tasked with being the jerks to go put out everyone's campfires that were rebels enough to light one in the first place. I felt like a jerk, but in our defense, there are signs up that say no campfires... only gas portable stoves.

Let that be a lesson to you. Always call ahead to see if campfires are allowed. If it's anywhere in Southern California, the chances are you can't have a fire.

My House

First, I’d like to start off with a picture of a little coyote who was roaming around our station. There’s a few of them.

Now onto my house. You’ll have to excuse the lack of furniture and décor, as well as the mess of things that don’t quite have their own place yet.
So here’s my house. I plan on putting something on the front porch to take up that empty space in the right corner. Obviously, there’s the front door. It leads into the kitchen. The top window is my bedroom. If you go to the left, that’s my deck.

Here’s the deck. If you go down the stairs on the other side, it leads to a storage shed as well as down into my front “yard”. Really it’s just a bunch of trees. Maybe I’ll do something with it later, but for now it’s unimpressive. If you walk in to the door here, it leads into my living room.


This is the view to the west, looking from the deck. The view is really hard to capture on camera in either direction because the trees are in the way.


This is the kitchen, obviously. On the right hand side by the side window is where my little breakfast nook with stools is going to go. It’s not here yet. I eat on my living room floor.

So turning directly around is the first glimpse at my living room. The door to the deck is on the left. Like I said, it lacks furniture and décor, but that’s in the works. And yes, my roomie is my bike… for now.
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This second picture is as you turn the corner into the living room. Again, notice my beautiful bike.

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This is turning around and looking from the corner of my living room (where the funky lamp was sitting). The door on the left is the bathroom, right before you go up the stairs to the loft. Obviously that’s the kitchen again on the right.

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This is my bathroom. Just like any other bathroom I suppose.
It has a toilet, sink, bathtub, and shower. It also has some pretty high shelves that don’t hold much because I can’t reach them. I’d show you, but it’s really hard to get pictures in small rooms.
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So, up the stairs we go. It may look a little dusty… that’s because it is. I haven’t gotten that far into my cleaning yet. I feel like I’ve hardly been home. Yes that’s my shoe rack up there on the right. I don’t have closets. Still working on solutions for that. One thing at a time.

This is my bedroom loft. No doors or walls that face the living room, so it has a very wide open feel to it. Very cool in my opinion. I love it.

My bedroom again with the shades drawn to block out the afternoon sun.

For a little different perspective, this is looking down into my living room from my loft. Strange, I know, but this is also pretty hard to capture on camera. Maybe I’m just not trying hard enough, but I’m hungry and I need to go grocery shopping.
So there you have it in a nutshell. Come and visit to make a little better sense of it all.

All Moved In

So I'm finally moved into my new home. This morning I unpacked my last box... and dumped the contents on to the floor. Who needs a place for everything anyway? Plus the boxes of books that I've thrown into the storage don't need to be unpacked anytime soon. Thus the storage sheds.

I've been sleeping on the futon mattress that Debbie sold me. You should have seen me man-handle that thing from the van into the house, then later- up the stairs to my loft bedroom. Could've killed me, I'm sure, but it got there and I survived it.

Other than that, the only furniture I have is deck furniture. A bistro set with a table and two chairs, plus two patio chairs and a lounge chair donated from my landlord. My futon frame was out of stock, and they decided not to inform me, so I've ordered another one and am awaiting it's arrival. My new pillow-top queen mattress from JCPenney is set to arrive in about a week. The little dining set should arrive in less than two weeks. I'm undecided on my bed frame. Mainly I just need to do a little more research online to see how tall my bed will be with the new mattress plus a bedframe. Looking at more of a low platform bed with drawers in it.

As we speak, there's a fire going on in our northern district. Besides my captain, myself and one other firefighter, my entire crew is down at the district office covering another engine. My captain is covering the other engine at our station, the other firefighter is comitted to a fuels project, and I'm alone on a pick-up truck. Probably not going anywhere, which is good because I need to get down to San Diego tonight to get my teeth yanked around tomorrow morning. Yippee.

I'll post some pics of my new place when I get them. They'll most likely not include furniture, but you can use your imagination.

Argh!

I feel I've been pretty darn flexible with my new move. I've shopped at new places, bought groceries at the town market, moved into a PO Box, and live an hour from anywhere. I've changed doctors (ok, not orthodontists) and dropped out of school (ok, not really). But what on earth am I supposed to do about my hair?

Let me go back and brief you on my hair history. Without getting into the gory details, I've been mean and daring with my hair throughout my life. After 8 too many bad haircuts, I went where Natalie went... because she had gorgeous hair and wouldn't let anyone near her hair with a pair of scissors that she did not trust with her life. So I went to Revive (kudos, just ask me where) and have never gone anywhere since. This was four haircuts ago. I don't get my hair cut often enough, but we wont discuss that right now.

So I've done a little research on the web, and have come to this conclusion: I'm terrified of getting my hair cut up here. I don't know anyone who gets their hair cut up here (not anyone I'd want my hair to look like anyway). It's gotten so long, and it's been behaving in the drier air (or is it the water?) and I don't want to ruin it's good karma by bringing it in to a stranger who might have less than pure thoughts about my hair. I could end up with a bob. Or a mullet. Or really short hair. Seriously.

I think my answer is to just wait until I'm back in San Diego again. My hair appointments will have to coincide with my orthodontist appointments. I've tried really hard to assimilate to the life up here, but my hair and my teeth are different. They're sacred, and can't be screwed up. Goodness.

I hope my hair guy knows what he's done.

The Bike Ride

I went for my second bike (that would be a push bike) ride up here this evening. The first one was pretty uneventful with the exception of a lady in a car slowing down to make sure I was ok. Hey, I'm at altitude here. Mile High Saddle. And that's just the saddle. Everything is a hill around here... both ways.

So anyway, we haven't had much time for PT's lately, so I've had to conjure up all my discipline and motivation to do it on my own. So yesterday morning I went up the road for a run. It was absolutely gorgeous!! I decided I could get further and see more if I rode my bike, so that was the plan for this evening. I took my camera along so I could show you guys. Especially since many of you are wondering why on earth I would move out here.

This is the road I went up (looking back towards Apache Saddle). It's called Cerro Noroeste. Notice the trees. We have lots of them.

This is looking towards the northwest. It was a little hazy, so it's really hard to capture what my eyes could see. I wish I could capture it all in a picture.


It's amazing how much the eyes can take in out here. Everything is so big (expansive?) for lack of better word.

And of course I had to stay for the sunset, and then haul butt down the mountain because I didn't had batteries in my headlight. Not to mention that every squirrel and lizard rustling in the brush convinced me I was being stalked by a mountain lion.

I Have Internet!!!

But I have to stand at the kitchen sink to get it. I also get cell reception in my room and at one corner of the kitchen table.

As I write this, there's a fire going on somewhere in the valley below me. I see no smoke or flame, so I'm staying put for now. I'm on days off, so I'm not sure what to do if it comes ripping up the saddle. I could stay and fight it, but then again, I"m on days off. So I may just pack up and head for the coast.

Today I went into Santa Clarita for shopping and errands. It was about 45 minutes down there. I was in a wonderland. There were all the stores that are in San Diego! It made me dizzy just looking at all the possibilities! Funny thing was, I had to buy a little cooler to put my frozen goods in for the ride home. Thank god I did. I got stuck in traffic in swealtering heat going up the grapevine. Only when I started worrying about dying of heat stroke did I stop worrying about my bon bons melting in the seat next to me. They made it though. So did I. Has anybody tried ice cream bon bons? They're delicious!!! You can get them at trader joes.

I also ate sushi today.

I did however, fail to get my eyebrows waxed, and the possibility of getting them done in town is looking pretty sad. So I may have to go back to Santa Clarita tomorrow. It's an emergency.

I took a few pictures to tide you guys over for awhile. I don't have many, but today was really my first free day. So, more to come.

The crew:


My barracks and the station:


The only bear I've seen so far is the one that greats us at the gate: