The Jeep Is Dead; Long Live the Jeep

We bought our '96 Jeep Cherokee sport back in 2005. It was a fairly reliable vehicle for a few years, considering how old it was and the fact that it already had 120,000 miles (it's now just shy of the 200k mark) when we purchased it. Within the last few years the old Cherokee has degraded considerably. The a/c no longer worked, the front end had numerous issues which caused the whole vehicle to vibrate if you drove it over 50 mph. That vibration was the entire cause of the wheel that popped off a couple of years ago. It worked the nuts loose and voila, projectile wheel. We've limped the Jeep along for as long as we could. It made it through several moves to different states. It's donned Utah license plates, Colorado, and now South Dakota. She's been a loyal old gal that saw us through many adventures, but alas, all good things must come to an end eventually. The problems with the front end became too much to deal with and made the vehicle unsafe to drive. Every time we took it over 45 mph, it would shake so violently that it felt like all of the wheels would go flying off at any moment. We have to take the highway to get from Belle Fourche (pronounced Bell Foosh, since so many people ask me) to Spearfish so we broke down and bought a new vehicle before the Jeep could officially break down on us and effectively leave us stranded.

We looked at several vehicles and came to settle on another Jeep: a 2006 Liberty.

Natasha was very interested in her new ride.

We wanted another vehicle with four wheel drive because, after much consideration, it fits our lifestyle. We don't live in big cities where we commute for hours every day, so gas isn't that much of an issue. We also have a tendency to live in very snowy areas and in poor cities that cannot afford to plow the streets very often. Whenever we travel we also have a lot of stuff to haul (backpacking frames, tents, dog). So, despite the rising costs of petrol, we settled on another gas guzzler because we use it.

The new Jeep feels like a luxury to us. It may not seem fancy to a lot of people, but to us it is. It's all a matter of perspective. We've been driving a vehicle that doesn't have air conditioning for about four years. You get used to it, but it's not pleasant. Most of the time it wasn't an issue because we lived in areas where it didn't get very hot in the summer. Since we moved to South Dakota I have seen 90 degree temperatures for the first time in years...and driving the old Cherokee around in it was terrible. When we moved from Colorado to South Dakota last year, I felt so sorry for Natasha. It was August and the heat was oppressive. I kept pouring water on her fur to help keep her cool during the ride. She survived, thankfully, but I know she appreciates the a/c just as much as we do, and probably even more.

The car is also quieter. The Cherokee's frame had been twisted somehow and the doors didn't seal properly. Driving at high speeds was incredibly loud and Peter and I would have to shout to talk to each other. Listening to music was out of the question. The passenger side had a draft that came in through the floor somewhere and your feet would freeze in the winter time. You could also feel every single little bump in the road as you drove it, too.

The new Jeep has a few bells and whistles that are nice. It has leather seats which will make cleaning up dog hair much easier. We also ordered a barrier to keep the pooch in the back so that she doesn't claw up the interior with her feet. She won't be very happy about that, but she's going to have to get used to it. It has electric locks and windows, but though they are more convenient, they are more prone to breaking in my opinion. I've already broken one of the windows, too, requiring Peter to order a replacement part for the internal mechanism that lifts and lowers the window. However, the locks in the old Jeep were so worn out that if you locked the doors, there was no guarantee you would be able to unlock them. It's a good thing it was a piece of crap that no one wanted because we never locked it. All of the meters in this Jeep work properly, too. The oil and temperature gage in the Cherokee were busted. So, yeah...an upgrade was definitely needed, though we were enjoying the fact that we didn't have any car payments.

Yes, the Cherokee was a miserable experience to drive. But it was ours, and we had made some awfully fond memories in it. It was time to let go, though.

So, the old gal is parked in our garage, awaiting a day when Peter feels the desire to tinker. He wants to get it fixed up and use it as a serious off-road vehicle (one you don't mind getting banged up) and an emergency back-up in case anything should happen to the new vehicle. She may rise again some day, but until then we're going to enjoy the new Jeep. New adventures are waiting!

Not Taking This Lying Down

I realize it has been a long time since I have blogged. I think it is because I haven't really felt the desire or inspiration to write. I do feel slightly narcissistic talking about myself, but I realize that this is one way that friends and family like to keep in touch, so I will try and maintain it from time to time.

Today's post is unfortunately going to be a gripe because I have something I need to get off my chest, and writing it down may aid my catharsis.

Memorial Day, Peter and I returned from Buffalo, WY where we had spent the weekend with our lovely friends, Nick and Kelly Norris. I checked my mail and found I had two letters from Black Hills State where I am currently working on my undergraduate degree in Communication Art with a minor in photography. The first letter I opened was a flowery congratulatory letter informing me that I had made the dean's list for the 4.0 I earned the spring 2012 semester. They told me I should be proud, and I was indeed proud. The second letter I opened was a letter from student financial aid services informing me that my eligibility for future financial aid had been terminated because, according to their Financial Aid Satisfactory Academic Progress policy, I am not making progress academically.

Uh, come again?

I spoke with the financial aid office and asked why a student who is on the Dean's List and has a cumulative GPA of 3.5 is having their financial aid revoked. They informed me that it is because I have not completed 67% of the total credit hours that I have attempted during the lifetime of my college career.

Lifetime? Really?!


This merits a little bit of explanation. Back in 2002 I attended college at Utah State University for the first time. I had put hardly any effort into school up to that point; I basically coasted through high school and walked away with a 3.0. When I got to college I figured it would be much the same. I had no study skills or really any preparation for college whatsoever, and I'll admit that I was attending USU not because I had a career in mind but because I needed to make a break from my life as it had been up to that point. Only problem was that I was trying to run away from me, but I quickly found that no matter where I went, there I was. I lost motivation and stopped attending classes and I bombed out. I attempted to go back the following semester but I expected different results while doing the same thing; the very definition of insanity right? I returned home and tried to reevaluate my life. A few months later I met a wonderful and understanding man who I fell in love with and ultimately married. I spent the next seven years of my life working and helping him fulfill his dreams. Along our journey, I developed a desire to go back to school, and with Peter's encouragement I did.

Returning to school wasn't easy, especially since I was deeply ashamed of my college career so far. USU, however, had a program that allowed returning students, who had been absent for more than five years, a chance to wipe the slate clean, so to speak. If I completed a semester of 12 credits or more with a 3.0 or higher GPA, they would remove all of the failed grades from my transcript. Well, I shouldn't say remove exactly, they were still there, but they would no longer affect my current GPA. That semester I earned a 3.5. The second semester I earned a 3.8. My college career was back on track and life was looking good.

And then we moved to Colorado.

So, I put school on hold for two more years until we moved to South Dakota and I applied to Black Hills State. I took 15 credits last semester and walked away with a 4.0.

And now I am being punished for something that happened 10 years ago when I was still a child in many ways. I thought I had redeemed myself, but apparently BHSU isn't about to let me forget my shame.

I can't help but wonder why they are having an issue with this now that I have clearly proven to them that I am a good student? They should be begging me to stay! I suspect that because of the current state of the economy, they are looking for any reason not to give out financial aid.

The financial aid center, who was little to no help, is insisting that I appeal their decision. I have completed their form and sent it in. The fact of the matter is that without financial aid, I cannot afford to go to school at this time. If middle-of-nowhere BHSU, with it's high and mighty standards does not approve my appeal, rest assured I will finish my degree. Just not with them. They can take their poor retention/graduation rate and shove it.

Moving to South Dakota: Part III

So, as you all saw from my last post, we found a house.

We're only renting for now, but the price was right, and we have a yard for Natasha. Plus it's a house! No more sharing walls with college students who like to have wild parties or blast loud music late at night on weekdays.

The house is in the town of Belle Fourche (pronounced bell foosh) which is about ten miles north of Spearfish. We had hoped to find a place in Spearfish, but no one there seemed to be willing to rent to people who have a dog. We'd eventually like to move down to Spearfish, but for now we at least have a place to call home.

The house is a very little house that was first built in 1913. There are only two bedrooms and they're both so small that our bed takes up the entire width of the room we use as our bedroom. The roof is also a little odd. You can tell that the kitchen and the two bedrooms are additions to the house because you can see where the original the roof is and where they slapped the new roof on. It slants significantly so that the southern walls of the bedrooms and kitchen are about ten feet tall, but the northern end of the walls or only about five feet and change. I actually haven't measured it, but I've hit my head on the northern side of the ceiling several times so I know it's shorter than my 5'11". It's annoying, but we can deal with it. This house is certainly not our dream home, but we're accustomed to dealing with less than ideal housing situations.

The town of Belle Fourche itself is a tiny town with a population of about 5,000 people. Gunnison had the same population, but it wasn't nearly as sleepy as Belle Fourche. Gunnison, like Spearfish, is a college town but because of the college there, the town has a young and active community. The downtown area or main street had cute little shops and a few restaurants, but as I walk down what is called "downtown" in Belle Fourche, I can't help but be amazed that any of the businesses are still in business. I rarely see anyone in any of the shops, even on a Saturday. Of course, the shops are nothing to call home about. There's really nothing to do around here. We end up driving down to Spearfish every weekend to go grocery shopping, see a movie, or go out to dinner. Another downside of living in Belle Fourche is that the railroad intersects the town, and trains decide, quite frequently, to park right in the middle of town. Considering the town itself is not very big, if a train decides to stop in the middle of town, it cuts off all of the roads that run north and south. We live on the north side of the tracks, and we've been stuck waiting for a train to move several times. It's incredibly frustrating, but we found out there is a road that actually goes under the railroad tracks. That has been a real lifesaver when it comes to Peter getting to work on time.

There are a few things that I like about Belle Fourche. It seems like a relatively safe town. Most of the people are friendly, and I bet I could leave my garage door wide open and all my stuff in there wouldn't "walk off". There are also a lot of old houses with that turn-of-the-century charm that you just can't find in modern housing developments. I like old houses. I've always dreamed of buying an old house and fixing it up. That of course takes a lot of hard work and a lot more money, but I think it would be really...fun? Maybe I shouldn't say fun, because I know if I actually tried to fix up an old house I'd probably get so frustrated at times that I'd want to torch it. Maybe one day when I win the lottery I'll buy an old house and hire contractors to fix it up for me. For now, I like walking through the old neighborhoods and dream.

The nice thing about finding this house was that we were able to move in immediately. The moving company who had packed up our apartment was actually in Spearfish doing another move, so we were able to get our belongings sooner than we thought. In fact, they hadn't even had a chance to take our stuff to storage yet, and it was all still on the truck. When they made the delivery, they offered to unpack everything since it was part of the moving deal, but I took one look at all the boxes and my lack of closets and cupboards and realized I had no idea where I was going to put everything. So, I told them no thanks, and sent them on home. We have some storage issues in the house, despite the fact that it has a basement and a garage. There are no cabinets in the bathroom so I had to come up with creative ideas for storage in there, plus there was little storage in the kitchen which required more creativity. So, Peter and I were left with the task of figuring it all out. By now, we have everything under control, but there are a lot of things I'd like to do to this house to make it more hospitable. I don't want to go too crazy, though, considering this isn't really my house.

One thing we unfortunately learned after moving in, is that there are leaks in the roof. When it rains significantly the roof in the bedroom and the kitchen leak. That's a big problem. We would be happy to stay here for a while if the roof wasn't an issue, but we'll see what the landlord does about it the problem. If it becomes an issue we will move when the lease is up in six months. I'm crossing my fingers that we won't have to.

So, there you have it. Peter and I are now residents of South Dakota. I'm giving the place a year before I form a solid opinion of the place. A lot changes in a years time. I hated Gunnison when we first moved there, but I think that was because it was the furthest I had ever moved from my friends and family and the separation gave me a mild case of depression. By the time we moved again, Gunnison had become home and I miss it. Hopefully I will feel the same about the Black Hills by this time next year. For better or for worse, South Dakota is now home and I'm determined to make the best of it.

Moving to South Dakota: Part II

4:00 a.m. is not a fun time to wake up.  It should be outlawed.  Unfortunately, we wanted to be in Spearfish, SD at a reasonable hour and we were looking at a twelve hour drive if you include stops for food and gas.  Somewhere around 11:00 p.m., when Peter and I were still lying wide awake in bed, we debated just getting up and driving through the night.  Peter was all for it, but I convinced him that as wide awake as we felt then, we wouldn't feel that way in a few hours and that it would be hazardous (I remember vividly how sick and tired I felt the day of our last move and I didn't want to drive under conditions like that again).  Though, I guess it was kind of sixes considering how tired we would be any ways if we couldn't sleep.  So, we tried to sleep and eventually we both drifted off.  We woke up bright and early, before even what the sun thought was a decent hour, and we were out of our apartment by 5:00 a.m.  We said our quick goodbyes to the place that had been home for a year, and with tears in my eyes we climbed into the filled-to-the-brim Jeep that contained a week's supply of clothing, our computers, and everything else that couldn't go in the moving truck.  There was barely enough room for poor little Natasha to curl up on her bed.

That is one unhappy pupple.

We drove off and left Gunnison behind us.

We didn't look back.

Mostly because it was too dark to see anything behind us.

We had driven an hour before the sun rose and we could finally see more than what was illuminated by the headlights.  It was nice because by that time we were on 285 near Buena Vista and we had a clear view of the Collegiate Peaks as we drove north towards Denver.  I have been very fortunate to live in some very beautiful places over the years, and though the town of Gunnison itself is mostly sagebrush country, it is just a short drive away from some beautiful places.  If you've never seen the Collegiates, you should.  They're breathtaking.

We drove on through Denver, and only stopped for some food when we had gotten to Fort Collins.  We were just a few miles from the border of Colorado and Wyoming, and we weren't looking forward to the next leg of our journey.  We'd driven for five hours and we still had seven ahead of us during the hottest time of the day.  The A/C in our Jeep has been broken for years, but it hasn't really bothered us because we've lived in relatively cool places.  Logan got into the 90s but we always lived in the woods up at higher elevations during the summer, and it was a hot day in the peak of summer in Gunnison if the temperature got over 80.  I never saw 90 there, but eastern Wyoming and South Dakota are a different story.  We had to drive through nearly 100 degree weather with no air conditioning.  I was really worried for Natasha's safety.  People have sweat glands, so Peter and I could cope as long as we stayed hydrated, but dogs do not.  Plus, she's an arctic breed, and though they can tolerate heat, they're not the best breed for it.  They're more suited to, say, Gunnison temps.  She was a trooper though, and she spent most of her time sleeping.  Sometimes in very odd positions.

Periodically she'd wake up and give us sad puppy dog eyes that clearly communicated that she was miserable.  I constantly gave her water to help prevent heatstroke and even sprayed her fur down with a water bottle to help keep her cool.  I felt horrible every time we stopped for a break and she resisted getting back in the car.  I felt the same way.  Peter and I were both hot and tired, but we drove on through some of the most boring terrain I have ever seen in my entire life.  The only place more boring to drive through is Nevada.  There was nothing but horizon as far as the eye could see, and I'm used to being surrounded by mountains.  I love mountains.  They're a comfort to me.  They're familiar.

Prairie is not.

Prairie is foreign to me.

Finally, around 4:00 p.m. we found trees.  Lots of them.  We'd finally reached the western edge of the Black Hills.  We drove another hour through the Black Hills National Forest and Spearfish Canyon and by 5:00 we were checking into our hotel.  It was such a relief to collapse onto a bed in an air conditioned room.  It was a surreal feeling to be back in Spearfish in the same hotel where we had spent one of the most miserable weekends of my entire life, but I was optimistic that things would go better this time.  For better or for worse we were there to stay this time.  After unpacking a little and grabbing a bite to eat, we pulled it in after us and got some much needed sleep.  The next few days were going to be very busy as we hunted down a place to live.

I wasn't looking forward to that.

It's hard enough to find the right place to live, but when you have a dog and you're looking for a place to rent...it's nearly impossible.  At least it is in Spearfish.  Gunnison was different.  It wasn't hard to find a place to rent that allowed pets.  The whole town had a very dog-friendly vibe to it...and dogs were everywhere.  It's probably the reason why there were three vet clinics in a town that only has a population of 5,000 people.  Peter and I were determined though to find a place for all three of us to live.  There was no way we were giving up Natasha.  We had put a lot of time, effort, and love into her and the thought of being parted from her made us both sick to our stomachs.  Plus, I think Peter knew that if his job and this move forced me to give up my dog, the dog he had gotten to help me cope with moving farther and farther away from everything and everyone that I loved (not to mention to help me forgive him for forgetting my birthday that year), he would have one very angry and resentful wife on his hands.  Needless to say, Peter had a lot of motivation to find dog-friendly housing.

So, the next day we searched through ads and made many phone calls.  Some were returned, most were not.  There were very few people who were willing to rent to people who had a dog.  I remember one afternoon Peter and I drove around aimlessly looking for posted signs for apartments or houses to rent.  We both felt helpless and hopeless as we contemplated the possibility of being employed but homeless.  I joked darkly with Peter that at least we owned our car.

The whole experience of trying to find a place to rent that allowed dogs helped me to learn a few things.  One is to always keep your cool and not let your frustration through when dealing with landlords.  Be gracious and respectful when they say, "Absolutely no pets.  Period."  You don't wont to give them any more reason to not rent to people with pets.  I quickly learned that mentioning I had a dog over the phone or leaving a message on an answering machine resulted in zero call backs, so I tried a different tactic: see the place first, talk to the landlord, let them meet us and get a feel for what kind of people we were, and then mention we had a dog.  This worked a little better.  Sometimes people still say no, but they seem to contemplate it more.  I think it's harder to say no right to people's face.  Maybe it's unfair to put people in that kind of position, but all I can say is that it works because...

We found a place to live...and yes, Natasha was staying with us.

To be concluded with Moving to South Dakota: Part III

Moving to South Dakota: Part I

Three weeks ago, Peter and I left Gunnison, CO, the place we called home for only a year.  Leaving Gunnison turned out to be harder than I thought it would.  I guess the place grew on me, despite the frigid winter.  There are a lot of good people in Gunnison who I will truly miss, mostly my coworkers at the Forest Service and Tomichi Pet Care Center.  It was tough to say goodbye...but I didn't have much time to dwell on it then.  We had movers coming, and there was a lot of work to do.
Because the USA Pro Cycling Challenge was coming through Gunnison the very next day and the major road out of Gunnison was going to be closed, we had to get the movers in and out in one day.  They told us they would be at our apartment before noon on Monday the 22nd, but they really didn't show up until about 2:00.  We put Natasha in boarding for the day so that she wouldn't be underfoot, which was a good decision since she's nervous around strangers, and it was nice to not have to worry about her.  I had to give the guys credit, though, it took them only five hours to pack up everything in our two-bedroom apartment.  It was weird to just stand around and direct total strangers who were handling all of my stuff.  I'd spent the day before packing up everything I didn't want them touching and that we planned on taking with us in the car.  The biggest trick for the movers wasn't the packing, but getting the truck into the parking lot.  I didn't know the movers were coming in a giant semi!

I really felt bad about blocking in my neighbors' cars.

It was difficult for the driver to make the turn off the street and around the first apartment building.  The movers had to go door to door and ask my neighbors if they could move their vehicles out of the way.  It was a little embarrassing, but they managed to make it.  Our stuff didn't even fill 1/4 of this truck.  Apparently when you hire a moving company they make several stops.  They'll go to one home, pack it up, then put up a divider in the truck, then go to the next home, pack it up, rinse and repeat.  Then they either take your stuff to storage or deliver it directly to your new home depending on what your request.  We still hadn't found a new place to live, so our stuff was going to storage.  After the movers had packed up all of our earthly possessions, we had a farewell dinner to go to.  The Gunnison timber department took us out to dinner at the Ol' Miner Steakhouse and gave us a beautiful framed photograph of The Castles by a local photographer, Allan Ivy.  It was strange to go home that night to any empty apartment.  Natasha wasn't even there to greet us.  It was kind of sad.  We had a very busy day the next day, so we set up the air mattress since our bed was now in a semi heading towards Colorado Springs.

The now empty apartment.

The next day I got Natasha out of hock and then the cleaning commenced.  We were hoping to catch the cyclists coming through town since it was kind of a big deal, but we were so busy that we didn't have a chance.  We spent the entire day cleaning and packing up the liquid items that the movers were not allowed to pack since our stuff was going into storage.  By the time we were done you could hardly tell that anyone had lived there.  It was like erasing any evidence of our short stay in Gunnison, but again we didn't have much time to dwell on it, because once we were done cleaning and packing we called it a day and crawled into bed...we had a long drive ahead of us the next day.

Stay tuned for Moving to South Dakota: Part 2

Last Hurrah in Colorado

So, most of you know that we recently moved to South Dakota, but before I get into that adventure, I need to write about our last "hurrah" in Colorado.  At the beginning of August, our dear friends from Tucson, AZ decided they needed to beat the heat down south, so they came to visit us for a week in cool Gunnison.  They wanted an "outdoor" experience, and although Peter and I rubbed our hands together mischievously at the thought, we decided to take it a little easy on them and we rented a Forest Service cabin instead of forcing them on a backpacking death march.  We had a great time showing them the beautiful scenery of Colorado, and I think by the end of the week they were sad to go back to Arizona.  I know we were sad to see them go.  This vacation came right after our terrible house-hunting trip to Spearfish, and it was exactly what I needed to relax and feel better.

Jack & Jaime 

Sophie, Jack and Jaime's dog and Natasha's new best friend.

The first thing we did when they arrived was...sleep in.  Peter and I were exhausted.  We had just gotten back from Spearfish the day before and we needed to recuperate, so we all spent the night at our little apartment in Gunnison and then we headed out to the cabin the next day.

The little FS cabin

We hiked around in the general vicinity, looked at some nearby native American archaeological sites and then drove out to Sargent's Mesa where Peter had worked on a timber sale the previous summer.  Apparently at Sargent's Park on Sargent's Mesa there is a war memorial.  Why it's there in the middle of nowhere is beyond me, but it was interesting to see at any rate.

Sargents Park

War memorial

Peter also remembered that there were some grate chanterelle patches in the area.  We didn't find very many because it was a bit early in the season, but we managed to find enough to go in our dinner that evening.  Natasha loved looking for mushrooms and she apparently has a taste for chanterelles.  She kept digging them up and eating them before we could collect them!

Chanterelles

Jack also tried his hand at chopping wood for the first time in his life.  He thought it was a lot of fun, but I'm sure if he had to do it every day, he wouldn't enjoy it quite as much.

Jack chopping wood

The next day we went up to Crested Butte.  It truly is a beautiful little picturesque town up in the mountains.  I wouldn't want to live there due to the fact that there is a certain...attitude among many of the locals, and the fact that real estate prices are way overinflated, but it's fun to visit.

Elk Avenue, the main street in C.B.

Neat house on Elk Avenue that has Colorado
license plates all along one side.

We also drove a little ways north of Crested Butte up to a tiny ghost town called, Gothic.  I think it was once a mining town, like so many of the other towns in Colorado, that went bust and is now home to the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory.

View of the East River

The next day we went horseback riding up into the Fossil Ridge Wilderness.  I think it's been more than a decade since I've been on a horse, and Jaime is a major horse lover, so we thought it would be fun to treat the two of them to a beautiful ride in the wilderness.  It certainly was beautiful, and we even saw a Great Blue Heron, but after three hours in the saddle...we were all a little bit sore.

I was the last one in the line, so this was pretty
much my view the entire time.  Peter's horse
was rather flatulent, too.

The four of us having a jolly good time

Afterwards we drove down to the Currecanti National Recreation Area where you can see the eastern end of the Black Canyon.  It's quite the view!

View of the Black Canyon

We certainly all had a great time, and it was fun to visit new places or revisit others before we moved away.  There are parts of Colorado that truly are stunning.  Despite that fact, when I first moved to Gunnison, I was very depressed and unhappy with the area.  I was terribly lonely, but as I worked and started to make friends, somewhere over the course of a year it became home to me, and it was hard to leave...but that is a tale for another day.

Natasha and Sophie ready for their next adventure

Laura and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Weekend

At the end of July, Peter and I attempted to fly out to Spearfish, SD to look for a new place to live.  It unfortunately did not leave me with warm fuzzy feelings about Spearfish.  I should have known how things were going to go that weekend by how they started out on Friday the 29th.

Curse you Murphy and your stupid law!

Part of the Transfer of Station deal with the Forest Service is a trip to your new town to look for a place to live, all on the government's dime.  Sounds great, right?  Well, yeah, we thought so, too.  We left Friday morning by hopping onto a tiny little plane at the Gunnison Regional Airport.  The ride from Gunnison was nice.  Everything left on time and we made it to Denver in time to snag a little lunch before we had to make our connection to Rapid City.  Unfortunately our 30 minute delay turned into a five hour delay.  They changed gates on us three times and would not give us any explanation as to why.  I get it if there was a mechanical issue.  When flying, I want everything to be safe, but five hours of waiting with no explanation or apology was ridiculous, and we did file a complaint with United Airlines.

Peter looking very annoyed at the Denver airport.

"Do I really want to get on this thing?"

Eventually we boarded another tiny little plane and made it safe and sound in Rapid City which is an hour drive from Spearfish.  Unfortunately it was too late for Peter to meet up with his new boss, but at least our hotel was really nice.

The next day Peter and I spent the day looking at places to live.  The only problem is that everyone in Spearfish apparently hates dogs.  I have never been to a more dog unfriendly place in my life.  No one would even consider renting to people with a dog.  The only place that would allow a dog was clear down in Lead.  It's only about twenty-five minutes away but the drive is very gnarly with twisty turny roads through a canyon.  It would be very difficult to make that drive into work and school every day during the winter.  The town of Lead itself is very small and the roads are very steep.  The house we looked at was somewhat run down and it even slanted significantly.  If you placed a ball at the back of the house, it would roll all the way out the front door without any assistance.  It was almost comical.  After considering all of the pros and cons there were definitely too many cons.  So it was a no go.  By the end of the day I was emotionally drained.  I know it had only been one day of looking, but I was so discouraged and worried about my Natasha.  I was nearly in tears.  I have put a lot of work and love into her to be a good dog, and though she's nowhere near perfect she is still my dog and I am very attached to her.  There is no way I will give her up voluntarily, but I am terribly worried that I will be forced to.  I will exhaust all of my options before that ever happens, though.

The slanted house in Lead

Sunday, we got up early and headed back to Rapid City to catch our flight back to Denver.  Of course, we missed our exit to the airport, and the next exit wasn't for about twenty miles down the road.  By the time we got turned around we had only twenty minutes until our flight left.  We didn't know anything about check-ins prior to flight, so when we tried to pick up our boarding passes we found out that the airline had given them away!  We were furious!  We saw nowhere where this information was posted and we don't fly enough to know these little things.  We managed to get our tickets transferred to a later flight, but unfortunately we would miss our connection from Denver to Gunnison because it was the only flight that day.  We would be effectively stranded in Denver.  By this time I was in tears, feeling helpless and frustrated.  So as we sat in the Rapid City airport waiting for our flight to Denver, I got onto our laptop and found a rental company that would do a one way car rental so that we could drive home from Denver.  I was relieved that we were going to make it home that day.  All I wanted to do was sleep in my own bed and snuggle with my doggy.  But of course there would have to be one more problem, right?  Once we had boarded the plane someone was sitting in Peter's seat, we double checked Peter's ticket and the woman's ticket, and sure enough they had the exact same seat numbers.  I have to hand it to Peter.  He deals with stressful situations far better than I do.  He remained calm throughout everything.  I was freaking out again because I thought we were going to be stuck in Rapid City, but the flight attendants moved things around and found Peter a seat.  An hour later we finally took off and landed in Denver.  From there we got our rental car and drove four and a half hours back to Gunnison.  Exhausted and emotionally drained, I crawled into my own bed.  Sleep didn't come easily as I had much on my mind, and I was exhausted the next day at work.

I'm trying to look at Spearfish with optimism still, but our whole trip left me with a sour taste in my mouth.  The Forest Service will have to provide housing for us for at least a month, so hopefully during that time we will find a pet friendly place to live.  A month from now, I hope I will look back on this experience and laugh, but it's hard to be optimistic when you can't see what the future holds.  I just have to put my faith in God right now, and pray that things will work out for the best whatever they may be.  In my short experience in this life I have found that things always work out for the best, even if I can't always see that.  When Peter was laid off from his IT job five years ago, I thought it was the worst thing ever, but it set Peter down another path and into a career that he has thoroughly enjoyed.  A bad thing at the time turned into a positive thing down the road, and honestly the best thing ever.  I am hoping that Spearfish will be the same way.  I wrote on my Facebook page a few days ago that maybe I should move to Australia instead.  A friend told me not to bother because the flight there is even longer.

Thank goodness for friends to put things into perspective.

Things will get better.

They always do.

What Is This? A Post? Gasp!

Hello, Blog, long time no see...er, write?  Any ways, I've been pretty quiet lately.  Mostly because I've been incredibly busy.  Working two jobs has actually been going pretty well.  It's not as stressful as I thought it would be, in fact, I've enjoyed working full-time again...however, I'm about to go from two jobs to zero jobs.

Last week Peter was offered a full time, permanent, year-round position with the Black Hills National Forest based in Spearfish, South Dakota.

South Dakota?!

Yeah, that's exactly what I thought when he first applied, too.

But I have good feelings about Spearfish.  Not only is it a pay increase for Peter, but the cost of living is less expensive there.  There is also a university to which I am planning on applying and hopefully attending.  Spearfish is twice the size of Gunnison and has more amenities, but it still lacks the serious mountains we have in Colorado and Utah.  I'll really miss those.  They have a few hills they call "mountains" but I don't buy it.

I got to tell my family this last weekend when both sets of parents and my sisters all came out for a visit (unbeknownst to them, their last).  When I told them Peter and I had an announcement, I think a few people were disappointed that our big news wasn't that we were having a baby.  I'll be glad when the day comes that I don't have to start every announcement with a disclaimer.

The only issue right now is that Peter's start date in Spearfish is August 29th (fast, I know), and our landlord wants us out by the 15th so that he can get a couple of college kids moved into our apartment before the semester starts on the 22nd at Western State College.  So, we have to figure out temporary housing until then...plus we have to find a place in Spearfish.  Ugh...moving is such a pain! And we would know.  This is our twelfth move in the (nearly) eight years we've been married.  Peter was once told that "to be successful in the Forest Service you must carry a briefcase in one hand and a suitcase in the other."  Boy, has that been proving to be an accurate statement!  Things are going to get pretty chaotic around here, but when are they not?  Hopefully this will be our last move for a while, and maybe we'll both absolutely love Spearfish and never want to leave.  It's hard to say what the future holds.  I certainly never thought I'd be living in South Dakota.

So, ready or not, Spearfish, here we come!

Weird...

Did anyone else lose blog posts after the "maintenance" Blogger was doing this week?  I blogged about the one-year anniversary of our move to Colorado and the post has completely disappeared.  I don't even remember everything I wrote about and I don't even feel like bothering to try and repost it.  Oh well.

Thanks, Blogger.  You fail.

On a side note, it looks like I'm going to be picking up a second job working for the Forest Service this summer.  It'll be nice to bring in a little more income especially since Peter has yet to find a new job...There are jobs out there, but the Forest Service can't fill them because they can't afford to.  I don't want to grumble too much about my incredible disappointment in the government and it's ability to govern itself, though.  I can't talk about the poor economy and lack of budget without bristling.  Any ways...I hope something comes up, but at least my additional job will help a little if he doesn't and we end up facing another winter without his income.  I dislike winter enough without that burden hanging over my head, but I digress.  I need to think more positively.  All will work out.  Until then I'm going to be working 6 days a week starting in June.  Yay.

Birthday Milestones, Incontinence, and Hairloss

I know I haven't blogged much recently, and some friends and family have asked me why, but to be honest the real reason is that...nothing has been going on.  Absolutely nothing.  We holed up for the winter (yeah...we don't really get out when it's -30) and mostly did a whole lot of nothing.  Peter was on furlough for about three months which wasn't much fun, lemme tell ya!  He was very happy when he got back to work two weeks ago, and the Forest Service promptly sent him off for about two weeks.  He was off in some little no-name town in southwestern Colorado supervising a tree planting, and then the next week he went off to Denver for his advanced cruising course which has something to do with setting up timber sales.  Why they call it "cruising" I have no idea but I keep picturing Peter driving around the woods with the windows rolled down with Bob Marley (or someone else equally chill) playing on the stereo.  I know this isn't what he actually does...he's really uh...doing something scientificy...that involves trees.  I really can't explain it well, you'd have to ask him.  Any ways, now that spring has sprung (not that you could tell because it's SNOWING) I hope to have fun outdoorsy adventures to blog about.

In other news, Peter turned the big 30 this week!  He got to spend his birthday riding around on ATVs and getting paid to do it.  Sometimes his job is pretty awesome...when he's actually working.  Speaking of his job, now that he has career status he's been busy looking for a new job.  Hopefully we'll be moving towards the end of the year.  I feel like we're both stagnating here in Gunnison, and it's definitely time to move on, though I will really miss some of the friends I have made here.

Because Peter is now an old man, you may think he is the one suffering from incontinence and hair loss...but no, it's not him.  That would be our dog.  Natasha has recently developed urinary incontinence which is really not fun.  Not fun at all.  She can hold her bladder like normal...unless she gets really excited, but when she gets tired she has a harder time controlling her little sphincter muscles and she starts to dribble which makes her lick herself clean and then she gets bladder infections.  It's all because of a hormone deficiency because she's spayed and isn't producing enough estrogen.  This type of incontinence usually happens to female dogs between the ages of 3 and 5.  Natasha will be 4 this year.  So, to treat it she has to be put on a hormone treatment.  Right now Peter and I are just trying to decide if we want to medicate her on a daily basis or twice a week.  There are pros and cons to both, but I won't bore you with it all.

As for the hair loss...it's spring and Natasha is blowing her winter coat.  I've been waiting for this to happen for the last few weeks as the weather started getting warmer.  I've read about it, but I've never dealt with it...and now that I have...I can tell you that it's pretty epic.  I was absentmindedly petting Natasha this evening when clumps of her hair started coming out.  So I pulled out our Furminator brush (by the way...I highly recommend it for anyone who has a dog that sheds) and after a short brushing session this is what we pulled out of her coat.

It's pretty much a small dog...and this is one reason why huskies are not for everyone.  For me, I find it amusing, and thankfully this only happens once a year (she does shed more noticeably in the fall too, but not quite as much).  So, Natasha's just one big ball of fun right now.

Now I just need to figure out what to do with all the fur.

Maybe I should take up knitting.

It's Cold in Gunnison...But We're Still Alive!

I rely on Facebook and blogs to keep tabs on friends and family, because I'm not much of a phone conversationalist (to be honest, I have a hard time understanding people over the phone).  Though, recently I haven't been very good at updating my own blog.  I guess I just don't have a lot to talk about right now...and I'm sure people are tired of hearing about my dog (I can't help it!  She's just so cute!).

So, to catch up...not a lot is different.  It's been four months since I last blogged.  I'm still working as a receptionist for Natasha's veterinarian...and Peter is, well...he's actually not working because he's on furlough, but he should start working again sometime in March.  We're gettin' by for now, though it's certainly tough without our main source of income.  Christmas was a lot of fun, but I wish we could have spent more time with family and friends.  Natasha was a little nervous, but she did really well considering she met a lot of new people including three really little ones.

I don't even remember what we did for New Years...I think I made dinner and we watched a movie...yup...we're officially boring.

So, let's see what else have we done...well, I went cross country skiing for the first time.  We drove up to Saratoga, WY and met some friends of ours there.  We stayed at a Forest Service cabin one night and soaked in some hot springs the next day.  It snowed the entire time we were at the cabin and it was so picturesque and beautiful.  Natasha had a BLAST!  I think next time I will get her a sled and a harness so that she can pull all my stuff in, that way I don't have to.  Here are a few pictures of our trip.


I love how the road signs are nearly buried because the snow is so deep.



Natasha hates her backpack, but she looks so cute in it!

We met Nick and Kelly the summer of 2009 when we were all working for the Evanston district of the Forest Service.  Nick and Kelly started dating that summer and it was fun to watch their relationship grow.  Now they're getting married this summer, and we couldn't be happier or more excited for them.  I'm so glad we still keep in touch and get together for fun adventures even though we live in different states.

That's pretty much all for us.  We're trying to get through the rest of winter, and I think we're pretty much past the coldest bits.  I have survived the winter in Gunnison, but it hasn't been easy.  Poor Natasha went weeks without getting walked because there was a serious risk of frostbite if we went outside for extended periods of time...-30 will do that to you.  Temperatures have been in the upper 20s and 30s this week and it has been an immense relief, but even though it's been one of the coldest winters I have ever experienced, I have seen the sun more often here than I ever did during the winter in Utah because we don't get the icky inversion that they do.  That has actually been pretty fantastic.

I hope you all are doing well and surviving the winter.  Hopefully the groundhog's prediction was correct and we'll have an early spring.  I sure hope we do!  I'm itching to get outside!

Thanksgiving

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving full of good company and excellent food. Mine was very quiet, but I enjoyed it. It was just me and Peter this year since we didn't have time to make the drive back home. I thought it would be fun to do something different for the holiday this year other than the traditional turkey, stuffing, green bean casserole, etc., but Peter didn't really like my idea, so I ended up making all of the usual suspects for a traditional Thanksgiving meal. Almost everything turned out pretty good considering I had normally made only one of these items at a time before to contribute to the Thanksgiving table; I'd never made them all at once. It was a good lesson in time management for me. The only thing that really didn't turn out was the stuffing. I did the "in bird" style, and the recipe I used asked for chicken or turkey stock for the stuffing, but even though I cooked the turkey fully, the stuffing turned to goo. There must have been too much moisture. Next time, I will omit the poultry stock. One of the best things about Thanksgiving this year was that I got to use my wedding china which rarely sees the late of day considering I don't entertain all that often.

All in all, I think I did a really good job, and I'm pretty proud of myself. Dinner was great and Peter and I enjoyed a nice quiet holiday together, though I did miss my family. I'll get to see them all for Christmas, though. The only downside, if you could call it a downside, is that we've been swimming in leftovers for days. I'm kind of getting sick of turkey sandwiches...so tonight I'm making turkey chili to use up the last of it.

As I mentioned in my last post I have a bunch of fall photos of the Gunnison area. Peter took most of them which is a change since most of the time I'm the one taking photos. Fall certainly didn't last long around here, but it was beautiful while it lasted.  They're mostly pictures of aspen because that's what we have in abundance around here, other than conifers, but they don't change colors...unless they're dying which is kind of depressing.  So please enjoy the sunny, golden colors.

Blog Neglect

So...yeah...November.  Where has the time gone?  I swear it was May last week and I just moved here.  Now summer is over...fall is practically over...but at least Peter's job isn't.  He finished his project up on Sergeant's Mesa about a month ago and I was looking forward to having him around a little more often, but the Montrose district was really struggling to finish their big project, so Gunnison shipped him off to help them out.  I'm really getting sick of the whole back and forth thing.  Peter and I have spent more time apart than we have together since we moved here, and when he is gone we have absolutely no communication whatsoever.  I feel like a single woman living on her own, most of the time.  Although we have done this kind of thing before, it hasn't been for this long.  It really sucks.  Hopefully he has only one more week of field work left and then he will be working out of the office for the rest of the winter (if we're lucky).  Thank goodness I have Natasha to keep me company.

When Peter is home, I try to cook nicer dinners than normal.  Mostly because I've missed him, but partly because when he's gone we both don't eat very well.  Most of Peter's meals are simple fair that he can pack around with him in the woods and heat up in his Jetboil, and I hate cooking for just myself, so I eat a lot of cereal and sandwiches.  By the time the weekend rolls around we're both craving better food and elaborate meals have kind of become my new thing.  Peter jokes that when he cooks he uses only two or three dishes, but when I cook, I use every appliance in the kitchen.  It's kind of true.  The kitchen is usually a mess by the time I'm done with it, but I've been learning how to make some fun things.  One morning I made pumpkin french toast stuffed with blackberry-caramel mascarpone, and last night I made one of my favorite Indian dishes, chicken saag.  Natasha likes to hang out with me in the kitchen while I'm cooking (I think she's hoping that I will drop something), and one night as I was making French onion soup for dinner, she discovered my kitchen timer.  I had purchased a new one because my old one had stopped working and apparently she doesn't like the beeping of the new one.  She will whine and howl until you turn it off.  She does the same thing when our alarms go off in the morning, too.  We got some video of her reaction, but I have been struggling to upload it anywhere.  I guess my camera's video is in a format that doesn't play well with others.

All of my cooking will be put to the test this Thanksgiving.  It's the first time in my life that I won't be spending the holiday with family, and though I've helped make a turkey dinner before, I've never made everything myself.  I've debated whether I should cook a whole turkey or just cook a couple of Cornish hens.  I'm thinking of making other non-traditional Thanksgiving food or "variations on a theme", to use a musical term.  I better figure it out fast, though, since Thanksgiving is only a couple of weeks away.

Going back to Natasha (I know, I know...I talk about her a lot), her training is coming along very nicely. I think we've gotten past the basics and are moving on into the more advanced obedience training. I've been working extensively with her off-leash training and she's been doing very well. If she gets too far away from me on a trail, I tell her to "wait" and she promptly sits her little butt on the ground and waits for me to catch up to her. When I tell her to "come", she turns around and comes running back to me. She will sit and stay in one spot for a pretty fair amount of time, too, even if there are other people and dogs around.  She has her rebelious moments, but it's teaching me a lot about patience.  In addition to her training, she has also lost ten pounds and is quickly getting back on track to being sleek and trim.  She can still stand to lose five pounds or more (I'd really like to get her close to 50 lbs.), but I'm pretty proud of the progress she has made.

I know this post is mostly just me rambling, but I hope to put some pictures up here soon.  Peter took a ton of photos of the woods and mountains in the fall and I need to wade through them all and find the best ones to post.  I also hope to post some video of Natasha up here when I figure out how to convert the format.

Enjoy the last tid bits of fall as it seems winter is banging on the door!

September Already?

I haven't had anymore wheels go flying off my Jeep, so I haven't really had anything very exciting to blog about.  Life keeps moving along and I can't believe that fall is upon us.  It's weird not being back in Logan this time of year.

Natasha is coming along and has made great strides in the 2.5 months we've had her.  She's lost seven pounds and is about five pounds shy of her ideal weight.  She's very talkative and makes all kinds of funny noises.  She doesn't just bark or whine like dogs do; she has a whole vocabulary.  It's really quite hilarious.  She does this thing we call "the silent woof" where she just makes this very quiet "hooah" sound.  She typically does it when she wants our attention, but we're really closeby so she doesn't feel the need to do a full on bark.  One of these days when I come home from work, I need to have my video camera out because she'll follow me around and "talk" to me for several minutes like she's telling me all about her day.  Again, it's not barking; she makes noises that sound like, "Roo roo roo" and "wah wah wah wah".  It's hard to describe, which is why I need to record it, but it's very funny.

Natasha's training is coming along as well.  She will now sit and lay down on command without bribes or hand signals, and she's starting to understand the concept of stay.  When I take her for walks and I tell her to "wait", she will stop, look back at me, and then sit down.  We're also working on the recall command, and that too is only starting to sink in.  Peter and I love having her around, even though she's a lot of work.  She keeps us very entertained, and she does these silly little random things that we can't help but find incredibly endearing.

Natasha usually hangs out under my chair...

...or under Peter's.

I love these two

Natasha loves nomming on a good stick

My sweet girl after a long day of hiking

My job is going well, but some days I feel overwhelmed.  Working in a doctor's office is not easy.  Things get busy and I'm trying to check in patients and answer questions or concerns while every phone line is ringing off the hook.  It's days like those where I just have to take a deep calming breath and take it one step at a time.  It is rather fun to work with animals, though.  Even though most of the time they're coming in because they're sick.

Peter's job is winding down a little.  He's lost most of his crew to school, but I think he kind of enjoys working alone.  He's still gone all of the time, and I'll be glad when he's back at home again.  We've been told that he'll have work through most of winter which is good.  I like being able to pay rent and eat food.

We have had some fun little excursions this summer, like a trip to Moab with some friends of ours.  We kayaked a stretch of the Colorado River and we also went to Arches National Park, which is something I will never do again in the middle of the summer.  It was way too hot.

Peter and Nick

Kelly and Me

The four of us at Delicate Arch

Ute indian rock painting

Me, Nick, and Kelly at Landscape Arch

Last weekend for Labor Day, my parents came to visit and we had a lot of fun showing them around Gunnison and Crested Butte.  One of the things we tried to do was take a picnic on "Gunnison Beach" out on Blue Mesa Reservoir, but it was so windy that day that we were being pelted by sand.  Even Natasha, who is always excited to go outside, was content to stick nearby and use us as shields from the wind.

In other news, we had an opportunity present itself to us this last week that could change a lot of things around here (and no, I am not pregnant).  I can't quite talk about it yet, but some big changes could be happening soon...or not.  It's all up in the air at this point, and merely speculation.  I know that's terribly cryptic, but I'll post more about it when I know more as well.  That's pretty much it from us.  I hope you all enjoyed the summer because it's going to be cold and snowy before we know it!