Yellowstone

Hello!  been a while but finally had something noteworthy to blog about :)

I moved my blog to my website and you can find it here
http://www.artofbeinglost.com/blog/2012/9/yellowstone

Cheers!

Art of Being Lost

So after years of contemplation I have finally started my own photography business :)  I was always worried that attaching a price tag to my photos would diminish the passion I have for sharing my wanderings with friends and family but I think I figured out a way to share the pictures even more efficiently and maybe even help fund some future adventures as well.

artofbeinglost.zenfolio.com and artofbeinglost.com are my websites and I am working to put up the pictures I have taken the last couple years in my travels.

Thank you my friends for following me!

Greg

End of an Era

End of an era

Sorry for the long silence, excitement has been plentiful but sadly it was not the excitement of open horizons and wonderful friends.  Quite a bit has changed in the last couple months, and it all started with a Monday morning surprise meeting on the wind farm where management informed us that AES was leaving Wyoming and selling the contract to another wind company in a month.  Now getting laid off on a Monday makes for a shitty day, especially when you have 30 friends and coworkers who suddenly became your competition for a job that may not even exist for you anymore.  Needless to say morale on the hill was about as low as a pile of cow shit and managed to get lower as the “Transaction” (ie, the end of our job) date got pushed out farther and farther.  For 3 months all of us showed up for work not knowing if we would actually have a job that day.  As I was the newest wind tech it was initially said that I would not even be offered an opportunity to interview with the new company…  

I had to laugh at the thought of all the work and effort I had put into rejoining a civilized society that apparently wanted nothing to do with me.  I gave up Africa and lived in a horse trailer for 4 months so I could work in an industry I believed in just to have it all crash down on my ass.   It was only aggravated by seeing the wonderful pictures and hearing the epic tales from my friends still living the dream. 

It all accumulated in one horrid week.  Management had cut all the budgets they could limiting our pay, my car used a gallon of antifreeze in 5 days (leaking into the transmission even) and the summer had ended with snow locking out my mountain sanctuary into which I retreated for solitude.   Behind every problem was the thought that I had given up the horizons of the world for a broke down car and a job working for a company that viewed me as an minor expendable asset, a mere number buried under pages and pages of larger corporate concerns.  I was seriously wondering if I had molested a pope in a previous life and royally pissed off fate/karma/heaven.

Then one week it turned around, not completely, but after months of getting worse and worse some good luck finally came my way.   I heard of a job opening on another wind farm about 30 miles farther out, newer company and newer turbine, and was surprised by an immediate return call and interview offer.  I met with Seth and had the best interview of my life.  After months of working in a horrid environment with low morale I was surprised by his drive and will to accomplish something.  We shook hands and I received an offer letter a week later.  I literally signed on and gave my two weeks to my boss the day after my old company finally decided to hire me on full time (although they would still lay me off any day…).  

That being settled I rattled the old car into town one last time and bought a shiny new red pickup.  All the used cars I found were over priced and I really liked the thought of having a warranty for the next 6 years.  And it’s pretty :).   And so I have been driving my new pickup to my new job and have really enjoyed the reliability of both.  Work has been great, I haven’t laughed so hard at work since an eventful night in Atlantic City, NJ 4 years ago.  And the newer turbines truly showcase how far the technology has come in 15 years while the new company is awesome in the fact it has superb training and is willing to invest in me as an employee. 

And to cut the last tie to my wandering life, despite the silent protest of my camera and backpack, I signed a lease today.  Luckily I found a 6-month one; I still feel that a full year lease is too big of a commitment, especially with the cold wintery weather coming down off the mountains.  Last Monday it was 136 degrees warmer in Cairns, Queensland than it was where I now live…  Needless to say I have some misgivings to settling down and leading a normal life.  Despite the luxuries of civilization, hardly a day goes by where I don’t wish I wasn’t off swimming with sharks.

Balls Out Wednesday

 

Now I have to start this post with a disclaimer.  Up till now I have endeavored to keep my blog more PG-13 for my mom and people associated with my mom or her morals.  This particular blog post is not meant for my mom or anyone of comparable character or gets too uptight about life, religion or nudity.  This post is for people that have a bit of a sense of humor, who giggle at crude jokes and find anatomy parts humorous.  If you read beyond this point and get offended then it’s your own damn fault.  You have been warned :D

Needless to say no pictures accompany this post….

So I work with some interesting people as you might have figured out.  Tattoos, gun wounds and drug altered minds run amuck among the turbines.  I have ceased to be surprised by prison stories or personalities but today was more than my calm could handle and the incident had me laughing in tears.  My one coworker, I will call him Mr White to protect the not-so-innocent, made the statement that one of his testacies was significantly larger than the other.  During lunch.  I dissuaded visual proof of the statement indefinitely, or at least until we were finished eating. Even though throughout lunch his testicular phenomenon remained the butt of many jokes but luckily remained confined.  Scarily though Mr Orange admitted to coming in semidirect contact with the topic of discussion and of all descriptions described it as “being like a pillow”….

Upon finishing lunch a couple of other coworkers, once again named Mr Pink and Mr Blonde, pulled up where upon they were told about the phenomenon hiding in Mr White’s trousers.  With no reservations and throwing all qualms to the wind coming off Brokeback Mountain they jump out exclaiming that they needed to bear witness to the physical embodiment of Mr. White’s testicular fortitude with all the enthusiasm of a mormon missionary meeting an ignorant heathen. 

Unabashed and unconcerned to exposing his privates to a group of men (wearing hardhats and safety glasses. Proper Protective Equipment corporate calls it… )  Mr. White jumps out of the truck, and with the dexterity that belies such an extremity, hauled out both of this family jewels to the horrified exclamations to all whether we wanted to see or not.   Now I have seen some weird things.  Growing up on a ranch then living in Philly makes it pretty hard to surprise or offend me, but holy shit this thing had a personality of its own.  Imagine a 3-week-old grapefruit contained by a wrinkled paper bag that also harbors a normal walnut and you have a pretty accurate mental image.

How some people find testies attractive I will never understand.  

Mr. Pink and Mr. Blonde both jump back in case it is hostile while Mr Pink invoked His Lord’s Name in possible vain (If Jesus is to come back then it would be fitting if he started out as a single semen cell out of such a nut…) Then to make the situation stranger Mr. Blonde asks if he can touch it…  then escalates it by promptly exposing his own symmetrical smaller scrotum as if comparison was needed… 

Oddly enough the rest of the day passed without event.

Mountains, Marmots, Mooses and Moons

Friday after work and a quick shower I headed into Laramie where I restocked on some camping gear I had managed to loose over the last year.  I met Scott who owns Altitudes in Laramie.  Scott managed to gather and sell every piece of useful camping equipment I could think of down to the handiest of clasps that took me almost 2 years and 3 countries to find.  After a nice chat I stopped by the farmers market to pick up some Colorado peaches (infuse with tequila then make margarita :D) then stopped in Coal Creak for a beer and to look over my map to figure out where exactly I was going (of course later I would forgot said map in the car so I indeed had no idea where I was going) then headed out of town towards Centennial and the mountains beyond as the sun set out to meet me at the horizon.  I made it through Centennial and was near where I wanted to camp when I saw some cars pulled off the road then two huge bull moose who caused the traffic jam.  Pulling over and digging out my camera (packed in the middle of my pack, you would think I would learn) I got some cool pics of the two old boys then met a man who used to sell Caterpillar equipment to my grandpa’s old tractor/farm store in El Paso IL.  Small World. Taking off down the road I headed on to park my car in front of the 8ft snowdrift that blocked the road I had hoped would be open. 

I combined my water bottles and tossed my too-heavy pack (no sense being uncomfortable in camp!) on my back and headed off over snowdrift and hills just as the sun disappeared behind the towering ridge of Medicine Bow Peak.  A couple of miles in I ran out of daylight but managed to get some amazing reflection shots of the sun setting in the calm snow fed lakes.  I quick set up camp in the leeward cusp of some pine trees and dogwood willows near a clear mountain stream that soon disappeared into a 250ft snowdrift just to reappear in a glacier lake below.  After gathering some firewood I grabbed my camera and tripod and headed down to the lake where I found an elevated peninsula that afforded me beautiful views of the sun setting on my right and the moon raising behind a reflected thunderhead to my left.

I have seen some amazingly beautiful things in my life, but nothing like the Wyoming sky that night.  The more I live in cities surrounded by people and besieged by civilization the more adamant of an agnostic I become, but nights like that night, alone out in the mountains surrounded by nature at its finest shake and weaken my heathenistic convictions. 

After taking the photo I had waited 4 years to take I retired to camp where I enjoyed the sound and smell of a pine wood campfire while a small meteor shower gave me a hundred chances to wish for a better life. 

The next morning I woke and waited for the sun to warm my tent and night chilled toes.  A quick pot of water set to boil made breakfast of oatmeal and coffee while a marmot ate his own floral breakfast not 8ft away.  Once I had my fill of oatmeal I took my book and coffee (heaps of personality in and of its own) to where I could enjoy the sun’s warmth while gazing down on the aforementioned glacier lake below (odd to enjoy warm weather and get a tan not 20 ft from a massive snow drift)

Not ten pages in I hear a clang and turn to see George (the marmot) scampering from camp with his tail vertically swooshing with every odd step.  I go back to find that the little bugger ignored my left over oatmeal (I guess instant oatmeal could be an acquired taste..) and had chosen to eat my wooden spoon instead!  (How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood you ask?  Well I would now know for a fact that woodchucks do indeed chuck wood and can chuck said wood in alarming rates would be that the said wood would be wooden spoons) Insulted that George (who apparently has not evolved beyond a rodents culinary convictions) would rather eat my utensils than my food I went back to reading.

Soon after I did my dishes, washing and whittling the chew marks from my wooden recently woodchucked spoon till it resembled more of a stick than the spoon I had known.  I then grabbed my camera and headed out for a hike towards Telephone Lake where Mom and I used to camp when I was growing up.  For the middle of July and wearing shorts and a t-shirt I was amazed at how much snow was left in the mountains.  Each valley had its own drift, some up to 20ft deep with cavernous holes dropped out of them where the under laying stream weakened the underlying snow.  After half a dozen miles with frequent stops to dig snow out of my socks I made it to the peak above Telephone Lake.  Telephone Lake fed the stream where my mom taught me to fish over two decades ago.  15 years ago I brought my best friend, Joseph, up there to fish and we camped next to a tiny glacier lake that has a small open valley off one side and a jagged rock cliff on the other (with a cheeky little weasel living in an abandoned silver mine, but that’s a different story) A few years ago I revisited it with my great friend Jeff from Philly so he could see first hand the mountains I always talked about.

Fearing the distant clouds I slid/skied down (sledding in July anyone?)  and headed over the miles back to camp where I sat and enjoyed my book before the inevitable rain.  After a bit George came out of the undergrowth to say hello and I decided to make supper before the rain hit.  In a jiffy a pot of chili (not freeze dried- one of the many luxuries of a heavy pack) was bubbling away over the campfire.  Nose to the wind George came closer and closer and after I flung some beans out to him he came in even more.  Thinking of redeeming my culinary ego from the morn I put a bit of chili on my freshly whittled spoon and held it out towards him.  Sure enough George cautiously came up and ate off the spoon that yours truly was holding.  Impressed with my culinary achievement of taming the wild beast (added to the list of converting two vegetarians and getting a date with a particularly pretty yet picky lady a few years back) my exaltation was cut short by George grabbing the spoon and trying to make off with it yet again.  I decided that a culinary masterpiece must be prepared with all details considered and congratulated myself on preparing mine with apparently the most delicious spoon west of the Mississippi instead of one with less tasty timber.

Soon thereof the aforementioned clouds rolled in and started to rain so I retired with my book to my tent where I enjoyed the gentle tap tappity tap tap of the rain as I faded off to sleep. 

The next day afforded me the same routine (how awesome is it that drinking delicious coffee while reading a good book above a beautiful mountain lake is a routine?!) then I gathered up my fishing gear and headed off after the stream of my childhood.  I was amazed to find that its beauty and my trout catching abilities have not faded over the years and soon had a brook trout arching through the sky to land in the snow drift behind me.  Now proper (as in old empire british proper) trout fishing requires one to tie the proper fly, match that fly to the current insect hatch, then cast that fly on a light line on an 8ft handmade bamboo fly rod to land gracefully without the barest disturbance in front of a trout which then accepts the fly as an acceptable food source and a picturesque battle begins with arched rod and leaping trout.  Proper mountain trout fishing on the other hand requires one to crawl up on a turbulent stream on your hands and knees and drop in a worm on a hook (maybe with the smallest of split shots if deeper waters) into the narrow stream missing the dogwood willows while staying low enough not to spook the eagle-eyed trout (who do indeed have one eye turned to keep an eye for eagles who also find trout quite tasty)  If you avoid detection and entanglement then you watch your line for the barest hint of hesitation that signals a trout has taken your bait.  At this point there is no picturesque battle with arched rod, no gargantuan fish stories about leaping trout and line screaming off the reel into the clear water.  There is only the singularly heave that ungracefully launches the graceful fish out of the stream in the most uncivilized and improper manner. 

After catching about a dozen brookies, one from the inside of a snowdrift even, I headed back to camp where I enjoyed a hamburger since I released them all.  A few years back I lived off trout for a summer, which curbed my appetite for consuming them if not the thrill of catching them. 

As lunch cooked I packed up and said goodbye to George who came running to see what I was cooking.  I wasn’t about to question his herbavorism with hamburger so I shooed him away, shouldered my somehow not-much-lighter pack and headed back to reality.  It was a good weekend.

P.S.  The great times did not end there, Monday on my way into town I ran into two cyclists towing single wheel trailers.  I stopped to ask how the trailers worked since I thought about that heavily on my own trip across and found out that they were touring as many breweries between Brooklyn NY and San Fran as they could.  Chip and Dave were their names and rarely have I met more extraordinary men let alone in the middle of nowhere Wyoming.  I sent them back to my place to camp and headed into town to take care of business then headed home as fast as I could with a 12 pack of beer.  Getting home I learned more about their trip and themselves as we drank beer and I cooked supper for them.  Two pounds of pasta  not counting the sauce that encompassed 1lb of sausage, an onion, couple zucchini and squash and 32oz of sauce left just a little bit of leftovers for them for lunch.  The beer ran out and we moved on to whiskey as stories were told.  Chip had traveled South America and Africa where he worked for a research team for a couple months.  Feeding my own fascination with Africa he told more stories about the amazing continent I hope to visit soon.  Dave, from Illinois, lived the last year in Sweden where he has been studying.  Both exceptional men in all aspects of life and I was so glad to have them for the night.  Riding self-sustained across the country is a pinnacle achievement for them in a long list of other accomplishments that makes them such a rare individual.  I gladly call them friends even after such a brief meeting.  BikeBrewAmerica.com is their website.  They have a donation page so feel free to buy them a beer J

Cooked breakfast for them before work.  Pound of bacon, 18 eggs and assorted veggies and it all was eaten :D  how I miss the metabolism!

Cold Wind

                

Well I finally have rejoined the “Productive” society our great nation holds so dear, and I must say its not too bad.  As much as I miss the freedom and friendships that was the last year it is nice knowing that I have a place to sleep and plenty to eat (that I don’t carry on my back).  Last Friday I picked up my first real paycheck in over a year, and it was a good day indeed. 

So far work has been incredibly interesting, both in my coworkers and in all I have learned.  If Wind is clean energy then I would sure hate to see dirty energy.  I have been working on some of the oldest turbines in North America (hence the world) and surprised to find that it is more mechanical (engines and gears) than electrical work.  Changing oil, greasing gears and general upkeep fills up most of the day and I am catching on quick.  On simple fixes I am sent up alone and my tutor only comes up with me on more significant faults (of which I am quickly learning) With all the climbing and working on old equipment comes heaps of safety procedures and paperwork though, which is harder to deal with than the turbines but they say the paychecks stop if the paperwork stops.  I found two things unexpected in working in wind energy: the first being how much oil and grease the turbines require and excrete and the second is how hard it actually is to climb.  After the last year I had thought myself to be in pretty good shape, but climbing, 120ft, 160ft even 220ft straight up a ladder at 8200ft above sea level proved to be far more an endeavor than I previously perceived.  That and with the added weight of a 40lb safety harness and the occasional 2.5 gallon jug of oil makes it quite the challenge, one my coworkers are glad to pass off to me as the new guy, and one I gladly accept as I do any chance I can (yes they think I am crazy)  

On to my coworkers…  I wont give any details but I must say they are a fine bunch of felons.  The stories are only surpassed by the bullet scars and prison tattoos.  (ok, I think I am kidding about the tattoos.) But all being said, they have treated and taught me well and I will gladly work with them hundreds feet above the ground and trust them not to endanger me in potentially dangerous situations.  I enjoy every day of work and it is the perfect transition from being gloriously unemployed to earning a paycheck.  It is interesting working from the ground up, and hearing my seniors complain about management (they are very jealous of the soft toilet paper in the “executive” shitter)  

A bit on that, senior management in America’s corporations..  Coming back stateside I was greeted by a set of bills that I had been promised would be taken care of.  Ranging from a letter from a collections agency on the behalf of Verizon when I had not received any bill, any email, any correspondence what so ever in the last year concerning one last bill AFTER they had refunded me money on my last bill to a (#(*#$& dentist who wouldn’t submit any paperwork to my old insurance company I had spent many hours on the phone trying to take care of it.  Needless to say it made me miss Australia where the corporations are actually run FOR the customer, instead of being run by policies and hidden fees.  America’s business has gone so far away from where it began that it has hidden its own identify from itself, refusing to recognize the gluttonous voracious being it has become.  Maybe the same could be said for the society that fed, supported and subsidized such companies too…

So anyways here I am back to being a working member of America’s working class.  Not sure I would ever come back to this.  It honestly came down to a flip of a coin.  But I believe I made the right choice.  I am far happier than my social standing dictates (living in a horse trailer 50 miles from anywhere) instead of working and traveling the world, a professional hobo of sorts.  Hard to say goodbye to that life, and maybe I never will, but I have traded gaining friends and character for the chance to work on something bigger than me and myself.  In my travels I have been amazed at America’s voracious consumerism and how we can create commodities of the most amazing and precious things in life, and how people cheapen their lives and self worth to have a 46” TV that only shows show’s about other peoples fictional pathetic lives.  We have traded our self-esteem for shiny things that distract us from our lack of, prioritizing the things we own over the things that we owe ourselves.  Granted this a broad generalization, a few sentences characterizing a society, but it hits the mark when looking at our whole society and its actions.

And so I endeavor to re-establish myself for some good reasons in a society I left behind for all the right reasons and venture not to forget all the lessons I have learned over the last year.  I continue living on a meager existence (not much choice yet) but continue finding joy in the simple things in life.  Happiness does not cost money, and happiness does not come from other people.  If you really need more advice on being happy, you should really go read a Dr Seuss book.

All about enjoying the ride

Well I have made damn near a full circle, and for the third time in my life I call Wyoming home.  Granted right now home is a borrowed horse trailer (with luxurious living quarters) and it is a step up compared to my tent and most hostels.  I must say it is going to be interesting getting recivilized, working full time, having money, not carrying my worldly possessions on my back, and maybe even one day signing a year long lease on an apartment! (not sure I would survive that commitment right now..)  Wyoming is beautiful though, and I have been gone so long that I see it anew, like meeting an old friend, talking about old times but then able to go out and have new fun and adventures.  It is interesting to see how I have changed when so much here hasn’t.  My first day in the state had me helping vaccinate 300 head of yearling heifers then on the drive home I saw a small herd of elk as indifferent to my passing as the mountains themselves.   I look forward to relearning the trout holes in the streams and rivers of my childhood and seeing where the mountain paths take me as the man I am versus the boy I was. 

This Tuesday I reported in to work at a nearby wind farm, one who’s wind turbines I had chased cows and fixed fences underneath almost 15 years ago when I worked summers out at the ranch.  It is the perfect job for me, entry-level wind technician.  I will be the person that gets to climb 300ft up into the turbines to keep them greased and all the nuts and bolts tightened.  Over all this is the best way for me to learn about the wind industry and if I am a good fit for it.  At the very least it is nice to be closer to family and in the mountains I grew up in. 

I had a great job offer out on the east coast, near Philly, with a good friend who was a client of mine while I worked for Daktronics.  I even went so far as to head back to the east coast, to reconnect with friends there and to, I had thought, start a life with all the good things I left.  Once I got there though I quickly realized that I could not survive and be happy in the east coast society.  Everything I was happy to leave behind, the traffic and congestion, noise and sheer amount of people was once again starting to drive me crazy and I knew I had left for the right reasons, I was just not a person that could live on in a high-populated area without mountains and be happy.  So I spent the last of my money on a ticket west, said goodbye to my friends (again) and went to try to find a job either in Wyoming or Oregon, where I would be close to mountains and family and have the space to roam.  I ended up lucking out and getting a job offer in McFadden Wyoming last Thursday.  Which is good because that next Friday I was going to pack my things and drive to Portland where I was to try to find a bartending job and crash my best friends couch till I managed to get back on my feet and start a career in green energy.  And now I have a job, but it is 50 miles from town and rentals are hard to come by that far out.  Till I find a place (or give up and start commuting from town) I am living in a horse trailer 50 miles from the nearest single female with a full set of teeth, but where I have great fishing and hunting.  All about priorities.

It has been one hell of a year I must say.  Lots of good times, heaps of great times, and I can laugh at most the bad.  Considering all I have done and the friends I have made it has been worth it.  In the past year I have seen 13 different airports (many on multiple occasions!  The bartender at the margarita bar in DIA knows me by name) I have biked over 3000 miles, flown around 25000 miles, drove 5000 kilometers and went out to sea 12 different times.  I have dove to 36 meters under the sea and climbed 9548.98ft.  I have run out of money 4 different times (you don’t know stress till you are down to 50 cents in your bank account, 3 days of rent paid and only 2 days of food) and done it all on only $10,000 total.  Easily the greatest year of my life.  After all, Life is all about enjoying the ride.