I'm back!

Wow, I didn't mean to not blog for almost 2 years. So, same blog, but new adventures.

In a nutshell...

I completed Peace Corps and went to Mozambique for a week!

Then I came home, saw lots of family, and enjoyed the holidays in the states.

Babs and I went to Williamsburg right before New Years.

Then I became interim youth director at my church, and got to hang out with lots of fun teens for most of 2015.

After I finished that job, I took a roadtrip down to Tennessee and Atlanta, to see friends and family.

I also went with friends to Frank Beamer's last football game at UVA.

We got a LOT of snow in January of this year. 

I also started being more of a bird nerd and photographing birds.

Karen and I and a few hundred thousand of our closest friends went to see the cherry blossoms on the national mall.

I went to the National Zoo a few times this spring, and PANDAS!

My church went on a mission trip to Charleston, SC and I got to help lay some floors.

I visited Bryce Canyon National Park and Zion (pictured) National Park with friends.

I also went white water rafting down the grand canyon again. 

And now I have a job! I'm a project coordinator for a public health project in Malawi with a cool public health/international development company in Maryland.

So, more adventures coming, and I'll back-blog on some of these and other things from the past 2 years as well. 

Grand Canyon, Part 7

Day 6 started a little earlier than normal as we were trying to get on the river by 7- I think we only missed it by like 10-15 minutes. This is a good picture of a duffel line, how we loaded and unloaded the boats each day.
An hour or so later (moving fast we were) we stopped at Matkatimiba to hike the canyon. Karma 4 took the upper route and I went the lower climbing route, our lols (little old ladys, they called themselves that!) decided to stay behind. I was proud of myself for getting through the lower route without needing any assistance except a final pull at the end (which Mark gave to everyone. Last time 6 years ago I had Christian pulling me up in a spot and Bruce shoving me from behind at the same time. Apparently although I’m heavier, I’m a little better at climbing).


At the top we walked around a little and then made a butt dam. This requires sitting cheek to cheek with hands stuffed between you, damming up the water behind us (small stream) for about 10-15 minutes. It was kind of hilarious. I commented to the guides that they weren’t joining us in the dam, and they were like, uh, we’re supervising. We all stood up at once and the water went Whoosh! And it was cool.
A few minutes later we headed back along the upper route.

Around 10:30am we got to Havasu and actually got to park at the mouth instead of in the rapid, so we didn’t have to disembark with our life jackets on.
We grabbed our sandwiches and hiked to the pools, maybe a ½ mile? (So says the guides. We learned to believe everything they said unless it involved hiking.) It took about a half an hour.
We plunked our stuff down at the pools and ate lunch, and then swam, napped, and frolicked. We had a good long time there, so after I ate I went through this passageway to farther up the canyon and talked with Art a little bit and took some pictures.

I found the rock we jumped off of last time and almost pulled a Randy trying to figure out how deep it was underneath, if I could still jump. Being that one of the boatmen knew what I was talking about and didn’t say not to, I figured it was ok, and eventually jumped- the current at Havasu is very strong. Another lizard! (There were LOTS)
We eventually went back to the pools where our group was and took some pictures and waded around.
The guides passed out in their favorite place up on a ledge as always.

We made our way back and then rafted for several hours, a good 25 miles with not much white water, through the Muav gorge. We saw a lot of sheep!
One of the reasons that the last day is so long, almost a fourth of the trip’s miles, is that there are almost no campsites in the gorge, so once you are in it, you have to keep going. Karma 4 and I were nodding off on the side boards sometimes, it was so warm and with the hum of the motor, it just makes you want to nap.

We hit lava falls mid-afternoon. It was a better ride than I remembered, and I got a few pictures of the other raft going through as well.
We got to ride the sidetubes backwards on the last rapid which is always fun :)

We camped below mile 185 rapid, very close to the helopad we were going to in the morning. The beach was very wide and shallow, you could walk out halfway into the river and the water wasn't even up to my knees. Before dinner, which was porkchops, the boatmen took the sidetubes off the rafts so they would go faster in the morning.
I watched Scott do it with the help of Frank Philpot and Brett, and so I kept offering to help Mark, who was trying to do it by himself (while Park cooked almost everything I think). He kept saying it was easier to do it by himself, but he did let me deflate the tubes, and then Mike helped him roll them while mom and Jan and I stood on them- this was a precarious situation with both of them leaning on me and me afraid we were all going to fall in the river and get hurt. But it worked out and Mark gave all of us beers for helping.

After dinner we gathered our chairs in a circle and got some instructions about the next day.
Our awesome guides, Parke, Scott, and Mark.

Then we had a talent show/sharing time. Lots of people shared how much they loved the canyon and the trip, Matthew sang a song, and Ross told his poem, the Philpotts both mentioned how much they missed Randy, and Jeffrey did some backvflips. Then another group camped about 1/2 mile from us came over (we had dropped ice to them in the morning) and did 2 funny skits/songs for us to say thanks for the ice- the guys were in hula skirts and wigs, it was really funny. The best part was the guides did a skit for us called Little Big Man, involving Parke pounding about 7 beers and getting splashed with 'rapids' (buckets of water from Scott and Brett) and cracking eggs on his head, with Mark as his arms. Parke said he just jumped in the river when he was done, and that the worst part was that the last beer was actually a root beer, which was gross to chug.

I hung out with Monica, Elizabeth, Brett, and a few others for a little while on the beach, not wanting the night to end. I eventually moved my sleeping bag to about three feet from the water's edge and stared at the stars for a while before drifting off. Around 3am I realized the water was closer (it went down as the sun went down, due to less water being let out of glen canyon dam, and then back up overnight) to my sleeping bag and had to move so I wouldn't be wet in the morning.

Morning came at about 4- we packed everything up, had a continental breakfast, and loaded the rafts to the helopad. It was less than a mile downstream. We were the first group there, before 7am. The guides watered down the helopad so we wouldn't get sand blasted, and then we waited for choppers. They took our weight and weighed the bags and assigned up helicopters, and our whole group was out in an hour-ish.
We flew to the Bar-T ranch and had about 2 hours to kill before our little plane would fly us back to Vegas. Showers! Flush Toilets! Clean Clothes! Air Conditioning! As much as I didn't want to leave the canyon, it was nice having these things back. After a hard goodbye to most of our group who flew back to Marble Canyon Lodge, Mom and I and the Karmas and Jan flew to Vegas, and then eventually back home at like 8am the next day.

The Grand Canyon is my favorite place in the entire world.

Here is my 2010 River Family.

Grand Canyon, Part 6

Day 5 we were a little hung over, especially the other raft. I nick-named them the barf boat to which they responded, no, we are the beer boat!! And I was like yes, but 2 people got sick off the back of your raft this morning, so currently you're the barf boat :P

We went very briefly downstream and hiked to Elves Chasm.
Mom and Jan opted not to, Mom remembering better than me that there was a lot of bouldering involved. It will always be one of my favorite places. I climbed around the back and jumped off, but only once because the water was cold! First thing in the morning. And it remains very precarious to get up the back. Like I’ve done it the past 2 trips and Beth Purdy was still having to instruct me how to maneuver myself up. Jumping is not nearly as scary as climbing up the back :P

We hiked back to the boat and rafted another hour or two, and stopped at the Doll’s House. We climbed around and looked at dubendorf(?) rapid that was right ahead. I somehow remember it being more fun and easier to climb- possibly because I was chasing Randy and Bo around last time. Also I chose poorly in a climb and had to have Bruce coach me down a bit from a rock. Then I finally climbed through to the beach to pee and look at the rapid, and was trying to take pictures of lizards when I heard Mark and other calling me back to the raft. So I hightailed it back and we were on the river again.

A few minutes later we stopped at Stone creek and took the very short hike while the boatmen set up lunch on the beach.
This was probably the easiest hike, completely flat through a shallow creek to a pretty and slightly larger than we’d yet seen waterfall. It was warmer water and great to stand in and get group pictures J


I will say that the pictures of people look more recognizable when they are slightly in front of the waterfall instead of actually in it, but in it is way more fun :)

We hiked back and ate lunch, and I missed getting a picture of Karma 4 swimming out to the drag bag to retrieve a diet coke. A few more miles and we were at Deer Creek. Mom and the Karmas and Jan stayed at the bottom and hung out at the enormous waterfall, and about half of our group including myself hiked up to the patio. This is a steep hike that is a lot of fun, requiring hands a lot for balance. It’s a lot of hiking up, but there is a great view at the top of the river, and that’s not the end. Then you walk above a slot canyon that gets shallower as you go, until you can wade in it and sit in the shade at the patio.
It had changed a lot since last trip; a rockslide had taken out a bunch of trees that were nice to sit under. Mark, Elizabeth, and Brett or Ben took a nap and I walked over to where I knew Randy had his special piece of wood under a rock… in a boulder field. I should explain. Randy Brown was a friend from the previous two trips (I think he had been on seven total) that passed away from cancer about a year and a half ago. He had this piece of wood that he would engrave his trip dates on every time he went to deer creek. Elizabeth and I had talked about it at the beginning of the trip and thought about trying to find it. Since neither Elizabeth or I knew at all where it was, it was immediately obvious when I got to Deer creek that we would never find it. Which was okay. It was good being there just the same, and Randy would have wanted the wood to stay in it’s spot.

Purdy and Parke and a few others kept hiking to the throne room, which I had no desire to do – too hot, and I wanted to spend some time at the bottom too. So after a while I headed back with Bruce and Art, although I actually wound up going back with Kathy. On the way down we were passed by a 12 year old and his dad from another group, and the kid was like DAD! We should look for the chuck wallow, this is where we saw it on the way up! The dad tactfully tried to explain that the lizard had probably moved in the last 2 hours, bu we hadn’t gone far when low and behold, we startled probably the same chuck wallow who darted around the path as we stopped and stared, and he almost ran across my feet as he dashed for safety. You could almost see him sigh we relief when he decided he was far enough away from us, which actually wasn’t that far because I still managed to get a good picture of him without giving the poor guy another heart attack.

At the bottom I took some pictures of the waterfall and got Art to take one of me. If you stand in the spray, you can see a full circle rainbow around you in the powerful mist. This is one waterfall I had no desire to swim under- waaay too big.

>After enjoying the giant falls I headed back to the raft and found our group, and within 10-15 minutes we were on our way to a campsite literally a mile downstream.

This campsite, our fifth, was a large beach that was half covered by an overhanging cliff- Now you think this would have given us shelter from the sun, but no such luck.
It was called Pancho’s kitchen. I think it took like 2 hours for the sun to go down and our campsite to be in the shade. I forget if I washed my hair that night, having bathed the night before, but I did some laundry in the river and hung it nicely on sticks in the rocks in the ledge. We had Italian I think, (this is the guides cooking dinner)
and birthday cake since it was Pat’s birthday.

We were also told that the boatmen really liked our group and were going to try to get us to Matkatimiba the next day although it would be pushing it; we'd pack our lunches in the morning to save time. So it was a nice evening in camp, (I don't remember who ducktaped Matthew, but it was bound to happen at some point)- I slept on a little bit of an incline to get away from the snoring in our group, but it was so nice to see the stars and the bats as I went to sleep.