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.