Pics of the South East

I'm not sure why I haven't been inspired to do this until now (now that I'm home) but I wanted to post some highlights of my trip to the southeast. I didn't take a whole lot, nor did I write down in my Smokey Calendar what on earth I was doing (which is something we all do to keep track of fires, hours, etc) so short of these pictures, there's really no record of me ever being there. Ok, not exactly.

Here's a pic of some of my buds on the crew:

That's Crystal, Sean and Drew. If they knew I was posting that pic, they'd have my head for sure. I think it's sweet.

Here's a flying squirrel I tried to rescue from a fire in Florida:

He wasn't too keen on being rescued, or being picked up by a big scary person. He shimmied out of my hands pretty quickly. I'm not sure what was wrong with him, but he wasn't doing very well. By the look of him I'd say smoke inhalation. No signs of trauma or burns other than the traumatic way in which he was carrying himself.

Here's a fire in Florida:

This is the view outside my hotel window when we took two R&R days in Jacksonville. We were downtown right on the river, with a rooftop pool and fitness center. Very cool.

This little fella was sleeping in the sun at the museum in Jacksonville.

This was my first alligator sighting in the wild. We were cutting brush around a helicopter dip site and this little guy was a curious bugger- he kept circling around towards where we all were. I have a feeling people fed him. The other alligators we saw out there would slink back into the water when we came by, not this guy though.

This was a big guy! I swear everywhere we went it took us twice as long as it should've because we had to stop and snap pictures of all the creatures we saw, just like a bunch of tourists.

I had more pictures of inappropriate things, so you don't get to see many more than that. The following are some pictures I took on the way home. Had I not been so anxious to get home, I could've done the tourist thing and stopped every so often to take pictures, but it would've taken days longer to get home. It already took 4 days of driving for 10-12 hours.

This is Wendover Will. He wasn't so much welcoming me to West Wendover, NV as he was really waving goodbye. The Nevada desert at 6am.

I saw a really pretty mountain range alongside the freeway and stopped for photos since I had to pee anyway.

I took this picture while sitting at a construction area waiting to be led down the road by the pilot car. The sky was an absolutely amazing blue that day and those mountains had a green and purple tint to them. If only my photos could really do it justice.

The long road ahead....and I mean really long. All day.

Another shot of the road. The wind was terrible that day, pushing me all over the road. But if you ever get a chance, I strongly recommend taking the 140 up from Winnemucca, NV through Oregon. It's absolutely gorgeous. I would say spring time would be your best bet. You won't make it in the winter, it'll be too hot in the summer, and it'll probably be pretty ugly in the fall. But yesterday the views along that highway were stunning.

Now I'm home and it's wonderful! Slipping into my own bed last night was like sliding down into a pillow. My bed is soft, the sheets are silky and the down comforter is like sleeping inside a cloud. This morning I woke up at 5am so excited about life that I wanted to tackle the world. I went for a short run then continued putting my things away, did some laundry and went grocery shopping. Tomorrow I start work back up again with my crew and am excited to get the summer fire season underway.

It's the end of the winter fire season!

Crystal just told me my presence is calming. I'm fairly certain no one has ever told me that before. Amusing maybe, but calming? Most likely not. I'm sitting in her room watching her try on a punk wig named Vanessa. It won't fit over her bun. I guess the lady at the wig shop spent quite some time and effort putting it on her, getting her waist length hair all tucked up into a short pixie cut wig. The wig caused quite a stir around McCarty (that's what our barracks are called) when she showed up with it. I tried to be cordial but all I could think was that her new friends that she had left with must have been quite an influence to encourage her to chop all her hair off and dye it a dark red. Anyway, I digress.

It's the end of our winter season. The last day is two days from now. I get in my vehicle and drive west 3 days from now. 6 days from now I will be arriving at my home, unloading all my junk and sitting down in my own house and sleeping in my own bed. I have not seen home since the end of December.

We just got back from an uber long roll in Florida. We did a 14 day stint, took two days off (we call it R&R in place) in Jacksonville, FL and then went right back in to some fires and worked another 19 or 20 days (I didn't count during that second round). So overall we spent more than 34 days away from home on that roll. It's our last week and we're no longer available, we're working on all our close-out stuff. So Crystal and I have decided to do a couple more fancy dinners before we head home.

I'm not sure what all I've said about Crystal, but she's actually off my home unit (my same forest) and lives about a half hour from me. I met her once before we came out here, but I've reluctantly agreed to continue our friendship when we come back home. Just kidding, she's actually a fairly decent person to hang out with.

So last night we went to Que Sera here in Black Mountain. Our favorite place I think, although it's in close competition with The Blackbird, which is where we ate tonight. With an appetizer, an entre, a dessert and a drink or two, we're looking at about $50 per person. It's been fantastic. I think that's the only thing I'm going to miss about this place.

I've also decided to take up photography, digital to be exact. With a digital SLR camera. I decided with the investment that I'll be making, to research the cameras and photography first (hello Photography with Digital SLR's for Dummies) and then buy the camera. So I've got it narrowed down to about 5 cameras. I just have to decide how much I'm really allowed to pay for these things. I mean, I do have a mortgage and all. I have to start making adult decisions someday.

Crystal is packing her things while I sit here and write. Yesterday we had a competition going about whose room was more a disaster. She may have won but I believe it was because I was not quitting until my room had some sort of order to it. We had to empty out all our gear, which is 4 bags of stuff: line gear, hotel bag, briefcase and black bag (black bag has camping stuff and extra clothes...and of course is usually black). We turned in the bags, so I had to transfer it all into my bags for home: red bag (it's red and contains extra clothes), black bag (it's black and contains a sleeping bag, tarp to lay on, pajamas, underwear and baby wipes), line gear and a back pack. The problem is, the layout of our off time is different between the crew here and the crew at home. Here we stay in hotels (due to weather and insect/animal issues) whereas at home we usually sleep on the ground with the exception of a couple nights stay in hotels when we're travelling to and from fires. So bags need to be packed differently. Our line gear (what we carry on the fireline) is basically the same.

So we had to completely empty out all our bags and compiled with the huge load of laundry I had spread out on my bed, it was a disaster. What was worse was trying to remember how I packed my gear at home, as I moved stuff into my home bags. I'm a little worried because I keep finding things that I forgot to pack in my red bag or black bag. I'd hate to find out the hard way that I've forgotten something.