Springtime in the Desert

Hey guys, I've really been enjoying everyone's posts, makes us all feel a bit closer. So here's my contribution, and you better appreciate it cuz it took me forever. -ss

The Biologist in action! The frontlines of the conservation effort! Sorry, but this photo makes me want to write an article for the sierra club or something. Amanda finally got my lazy ass outta bed in the wee hours of the morning to see what she does for a living now. It was pretty cool, I must admit. I even got to see some of the elusive pronghorns. And yes Steve, they did look tasty :) But they were too far away to get a picture. It was a great day, we went out afterwards looking for bighorn sheep, but alas, to no avail. We will try again though, and dammit, I'm gonna find a gila monster in this enormous desert if its the last thing I do!

Last weekend we went for a 9 mile hike in the White Tank Mountains, about 30 minutes from our house. It was awesome, but man I was feeling it the next day! Here's some highlights.

Cactus Nest

Ocotillo Cactus in bloom.

Check out how green the desert is. All that rain really livened things up.

Towards the end of our hike. Like my caballero hat? I know you want one :)

We've been camping the last couple night in the Tonto national forest. It was nice to get outta town. We also went for a beautiful hike yesterday but unfortunately the camera batteries died so we didn't get any pics of that one. Here's what we did get though.

This was the view from our campsite. It looks this nice cuz Amanda purposefully aimed away from all the trash stuck in the trees out there. This portion of the Salt River is popular with rafters, fishermen and kids coming outta town to party. We had originally planned on camping at the Lost Dutchmen State Park, but it was full. Also found out that due to budget cuts Arizona will be closing 13 state parks in June, which is a bummer man. So we'll have to try and see as many as possible before that happens.



I like the colors in this cliff..

This is Saguaro Lake in the Tonto National Forest.








The Salt River below Saguaro lake.



Flowers...



More Flowers...

And a whole bunch more. Pretty cool to see the desert bloom.

Hiking Fun!

...and I'm back, and it hasn't been very long since I posted last! :) I sure do miss you all, and (as I already told Steve), I'm getting really excited about our upcoming visit! After looking further into it, the Mt. Hood hike appears perfectly manageable until mid-June, so it looks to be all coming together for a great June adventure for everyone! What is the AZ crew thinking at this point?

The weather here in the NW has been absolutely unusual... there's this weird yellow thing in the sky almost daily, and the ground has this odd solid consistency and lacks the normal puddles and worms. So, in the mindset of getting in shape, enjoying the weather, and making you all miss this place even more, I've gone on a few hikes in the last week. On the WA side of the river, I went to Rodney and Hardy Falls last friday. Then, on Monday, Kim, Mickinzie (her daughter), and I hiked up to Angel's Rest (on the OR side). On wednesday, Kim, Rose (my sis), and I did Multnomah and Wahkeena Falls, which was an awesome 5.4 mile loop. The pics are below...

Rodney and Hardy Falls








Angel's Rest










Multnomah and Wahkeena Falls









And, since I promised them, some great shots from the coast a month and a week ago...

one up on you:)

Alright, alright-i know you have seen our nachos before but these were a masterpiece:p

And i wanted to TRY to one up you before you posted pictures of your pulled pork-ooh, that sounds dirty-hee, hee but it made me laugh:)

this is what i like to refer to as a good morning:) Can't wait for you guys to come see it for yourselves! If you click on the photo you can tell that the Lil white speck is actually the moon!

This was a random shot i got of a crazy lightening storm we had last week.

here she is our cute little mama dove sitting in her ever so flimsy next right outside our front door:) i love her

Shyam has agreed to come out to work with me in the morning and i am so very pleased! we have been seeing small groups of pronghorn all over NTAC and hopefully i will be able to get him close enough for a view w/o binoculars!! We are then going to play around in the desert and i will hopefully be able to find some reptiles and even maybe see some bighorn sheep!! i will def post a blog about it:)

So, we have a dilemma...until i hire a new biologist we cannot buy plane tickets to PDX because i need to know for sure that we will have a biologist to cover my days off. This may put a kink in the plan if the ticket prices increase in price,which i see is happening already:( I have lined up interviews for next week and will keep my fingers crossed.

happy thoughts boys and have a great weekend, ac

My Trip to Raleigh

I got into Raleigh around noon on Friday and immediately went to the downtown area. There are free museums there and I wanted to see as much as possible on my two days off. Below is the War World II Memorial next to the Capitol Building.
This is the facade of the Capitol building. It was such a nice day, that I was surprised it wasn't blanketed in people. There was some interesting angles where modern skyscrapers tower over the romanesque building.

















A brass or copper life-size statue of some North Carolinian author or poet. I have no idea. To the right a shot of the History Museum, beautiful design.









It was the Megalodon exhibit at the Natural History museum. It was pretty cool, all about sharks, but there is no real fossils of sharks because of the whole cartilage thing.









Whale bones and a giant sloth, how cool is that. And of course, you gotta have the T-Rex and Sabertooth tiger fossils. Sweet.









On Saturday my buddy Paul and I made our way down south of Raleigh to a suburb called Holly Springs. We were looking for this brewery that had free brew tours, but we were not sure where the place was. After driving past a water tower and through an industrial park, we rounded a corner and found a line of people out the door and into the parking lot. There was no place to park, so we figured this was where the free beer was.









This is the logo of the brewery, and they are brewers of tasty liquids as they suggest. I like the Spring Boch personally. That's Paul to the right, sporting the vt gear and completely at home in the middle of a brewery.












That's me, beers in hand of course, wondering where the line to get more is. To the right is a shot of people just relaxing on the line where they bottle the beer. It was an awesome time and I can't wait to go back.


Think what you may, but a Growler Koozie is the most dedicated drinking container I've ever seen. I had no idea they even made them, let alone put a handle on them. All I know is that if I had one, that would be a good and bad thing. So kudos to Paul for rockin the growler koozie!

I had an awesome time in Raleigh, my only regret is that I didn't get to hang out with Kristie longer then I got to. Next time we're havin a beer and a smile together. Thanks for having me over, the house is friggin' sweet, and I ate all the breakfast burrito's.

Later on,
Steve