It's about 5 days until I head down to San Diego for a two month internship and I'm fairly certain I'm not prepared. I just woke up from a two hour nap and may not make it out of bed again today.
I ran a half marathon on Sunday and dropped 6 minutes off my best time. It was a tough run but well worth the pain. I was looking forward to a relaxing Monday.
Then I got a text message Monday morning that we were being ordered up for a fire and how soon could I be on campus? I made some phone calls, packed up my stuff, and we arrived at Los Padres National Forest just in time for the overhead briefing. Apparently someone thought we were overhead because we were hustled into it seconds before they started.
We checked in at camp, then headed out to the fire. It was dark before we made it to our spot, we launched a weather balloon and set the LiDAR to run through the night. After meeting with Division and Night Ops, we leaned back in our seats and tried to catch a couple hours of sleep. In the morning, we launched another balloon, fished through our sack lunches, then followed the engines out towards camp.
Day was when we were supposed to be sleeping. But we were not sleeping. We didn't do much of anything except meet with people and drive around, but the fire was out so we started demob at 7pm. It was suggested that we head over to Fort Hunter Liggett for a fire they just broke that could go 4,000 acres. We were due in San Jose for a training fire briefing at 0700 but figured we could swing into the next fire before making the two hour drive home.
We hung out a bit long at the FHL fire and didn't leave until 10 pm. We got into San Jose just after midnight and tossed everything from the back of the truck into the back seat. We weren't dealing with anything that night. We were operating on only a few hours sleep and we weren't done yet.
In the shower, I glanced down at my watch. It said it was Wednesday.
Wednesday?!! It can't be Wednesday!! That means tomorrow is Thursday and I've got stuff to do on Thursday! Where did Wednesday go?!
It occurred to me that the numbers on the time started with zero... which meant it was midnight and change...which was why it was Wednesday. Tomorrow was Wednesday and now we've moved into tomorrow. So right now was Wednesday and tomorrow was Wednesday and it would be Wednesday for the next 24 hours.
I needed to go to bed.
At 0600, my alarm went off. I crawled out of bed and forced a cup of coffee down. I ate a bowl of oatmeal, got dressed, and rushed off to campus to head out to the training fire.
No one was there.
I opened up my phone to text Chris and realized he had texted me.
"Did you get the email about Grant Ranch?"
Ugh.
"No."
I pulled up my email. They had broken a fire yesterday, the training fire was canceled, could we make it to the real fire? Briefing was at 7.
I texted Chris back to ask if we were going to the fire. He didn't respond. After sitting for 5 minutes, I sent my advisor a text. He didn't respond. I tried calling Chris, it went straight to voicemail. I gave it a few minutes and tried calling my advisor. It also went straight to voicemail. What the hell are those guys doing? I was too tired for this nonsense. Two cups of coffee had done nothing to clear the cobwebs and my agitation was increasing.
Chris called back. His phone hadn't rung. The fire was only 120 acres and was 30% contained. The current RH was 81%. We decided not to head to the fire, but Chris was on his way to help unload the truck.
I made it back home by 11 am. After having only 7-8 hours of sleep in the past 48 hours, I knocked out easily. And woke up two hours later. I dreamed my friend tried to comfort me by loaning me her kitten.
I have a triathlon on Sunday and have to work in San Diego on Wednesday. I'll head down there either on Monday or Tuesday, depending on how prepared I am Sunday night. I'm too tired at the moment to figure out what all needs to be accomplished.... and I'm also too tired to accomplish anything. I just finished my second cup of coffee since waking up from my nap and I'm not sure if it has helped at all. I'm still sitting up in bed. The thought of getting dressed, getting my contacts back in, and "doing stuff" is still a bit much to bear.
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