Snow Desert

I stopped for respite in the only shade on the mountain
for about 15 minutes until my marrow cooled from the boiling
point.

Man, you just gotta love the weather here on The Mountain. One thing is for sure The Mountain will never breed monotony. A week ago today, last Monday, May 4 it snowed and continued for three days straight. Then, this weekend was an absolutely stunning weekend with the sun blazing down on the white, pristine Mountain. I went hiking up to Alta Vista (5950ft) on Sunday. You would think I was hiking in the Saraha Desert it was so god damn hot! I actually almost turned around within minutes of starting b/c I was sweating to death. The sun was beating on me from the sky and reflecting off the snow. A dangerous combo. Of course, I was wearing sunscreen but still managed to get a funky looking burn down the front of my neck. AND, Today, I went for a 1/2 mile walk around the parking lot in a Blizzard! The wind was blowing so hard the snow was stinging my face. By the time I turned around, 10 minutes later, it had mellowed out to barely a flurry. So, basically, it is either snowing or blazing sun here at Mount Rainier. Gotta love it. No, really... Gotta LOVE it!!

Buried Alive

It was a really beautiful day today!

Funny story... I asked the head of maintenance at Inn when he thought I might get the boards off my window. My room is on the bottom floor of the inn. I have two windows that are currently sealed with ply-board. My room is like a cave. Even when the lights are on there seems to be an impenetrable darkness. I wake up at 7am each morning thinking it could easily be 2am or I wake up at 3am and bolt out of bed b/c I think it's 9am. Each morning I walk up the stairs to peak my head out the door to see if the sun is shining or if it is snowing because it seems that in the last two weeks it is one or the other. When the sun is shining (it's doubly bright b/c it's bouncing of the snow) I instantly raise my elbow over my eyes because the light penetrates my vampire like senses, causing me to squeal and scurry back to my room to adjust to the daylight hours. So, "Vern," I say (whose name I have changed for amenity sake), "Vern, when will the shutters come off my window?" After asking which side of the Inn my room is on, Vern chuckles, and in a sarcastic tone replies, "Mid-June if your lucky." Now, I have a secret hope that Maybe, just maybe he was kidding. I actually hadn't gone to the other side of the Inn to see for myself the snow situation. Here comes the crusher: Vern comes up to me yesterday and says, "So I took the bulldozer out behind the Inn to dig your room out. I'm diggin' and diggn' and finally I see the top part of your window. Then I look into the window and see that it's women's public bathroom." He laughs and laughs, "Your room is buried A WHOLE FLOOR beneath that room!!" At that point he says, "I said screw it! Sorry, you'll probably be buried 'til end of June." So, if you live in a two story house, just visualize the snow being up to the top of the windows on the second floor with your bedroom on the bottom floor. Basically, I'm buried alive.

The Tatoosh Range directly across from the Inn.

I think this will be my view mid-June.

I am standing in front of my room which is

two stories below.

My room is two floors down under the snow.

Will I ever see the light of day?

Pirates of the Caribbean

Okay, so I never actually saw a pirate while I was in the Caribbean but I had my picture taken with a fake just to make myself feel special. The cruise was pretty good. If I'm being honest, which I always am, I'm not much of a cruiser. Too many people in a confined space for my liking. I couldn't find one god damn unoccupied space on the whole ship. That being said, I really enjoyed the zip line in Belize. We zipped through the dense jungle canapy in a monsoon rain storm. That was pretty exciting. Mom and I went to the Chocchoban Mayan Ruins in Costa Maya, Mexico. No, I do not have the swine flu although I was a hypocondriac about it for the first 4 days after, feeling my forehead every three minutes to make sure I didn't have a fever. The last adventure we went on was swimming with the stingray. I got to feed them after my initial "eww, ichy" stage. I have to say while the evening shows were pretty cheesy, the formal dinners every evening were delightful. The food was divine and the service was top notch. Like they literally dipped my tea bag for me. I felt pretty swanky for a minute there. You can see my pics on my facebook page. If you're not my facebook friend then too bad for you. I'll get pics up on my blog eventually. It's just difficult when you live on a mountain with dial-up as your only connection to the techno world. I am psyched to be back at Rainier with the exception of the 10feet of snow. Today I went for a short little hike and did not see a soul. Just me and the mountain. That beats out a cruise any day as far as I'm concerned!!

Up, Up and Away!

My adventures begin tomorrow. I leave for a seven day cruise to the Western Caribbean on Saturday from Port Canaveral, FL to Cozumel, Belize, Costa Maya and finally Nassau, Bahamas. Then I'm off to Mount on April 26. Stay tuned for all the details.

My tattered mail :(

Kodie's Top Maine Dog photo op

Nature and the FEDs

You may assume from my post title that I will go on a tireless rant about the politics of environmentalism. Or course, if you can find a connection between the United States Postal Service and the many herds of deer I saw today all the political power to you. Kodz and I went on another adventurous walk today. On our way out the driveway I stopped to check the mail. The only piece of mail was a small, sealed plastic pouch with a tattered personal letter inside addressed to me. Inside the pouch was a standard, small white envelope mangled within an inch of it's life with shredded green paper bleeding through the wounded envelope. Outside the plastic pouch is a typed form letter beginning with big, bold, capital letters announcing; WE CARE, going on to emphasize their regret of the damage to my important mail, expressing their apologies and promising to strive toward improving their processing methods. BLAH, BLAH, BLAH. My question is...How, out of all the bills, catalogs, credit card offers, and coupon fliers, did the United States Postal Service manage to mangle one of the few personal letters I receive???? I think the answer somehow involves the chaos theory. Kodie and my other excitement during our walk was the number of deer we tracked today. We spotted a least ten deer tromping through the woods on our walk to see Mom at the high school. We live about 2 miles from the Penquis Valley High School where Mom teaches so we often make this a destination. On our walk back home we had a stare down with a second herd of about 17 deer. We stopped at a large marsh for semi-spontaneous doggy photo shoot. And, about a half mile later we saw another deer with it's whitetail swishing that bounded off into the woods with a second deer friend in the direction that would quickly rendezvous with other herd we saw. Fantastic!

A Plumber's Crack

It has been weeks since I have been motivated to write on my blog. I have come to realize that central Maine is sucking the creative life out of me. My repetitive daily life of nothingness is making me a creative drone. Kodie and I do go on many walks but the weather today is a dreary mess again. We have seen lots of animal life on our walks. There is a small horse farm just down the road. We have seen three deer and a pileated woodpecker (very pretty and cool). My imagination has become dim-witted. Sigh. I miss the hustle and bustle of the city. It is official. I am a city girl. I can't live in this alienated desert of woods. But, an old school chum's plumber's crack did put a smile on my face today, while he was fixing the washer.