Storming the Castle!

So, one of the many perks of being a park ranger is that you get to do sweet things that the everyday visitor doesn't get to do while visiting your site. This one happened to be going up into Montezuma's Castle with the three park archeologists and get a personal tour around this cliff dwelling that was built around 1000 A.D. and inhabited until 1400 A.D. Needless to say, it was awesome!!! So, enjoy the photo tour of what it would have been like to be a Sinagua indian living here 600 years ago.

We have to climb ladders like the ancients would have in order to get up there. It's pretty high. I can't imagine trying to carry all the supplies to build let alone just carry water and food up and down several times a day!


I'm inside one of the cooking rooms. The archeologists are sitting and taking in the view.

So many of these doorways were for people much smaller than me. This is the roof of one of the rooms and they chopped these huge trees for supports with rock axes that are more blunt than anything we would consider an axe. That these huge beams are up here is a building miracle!


(on the left) This is looking down from the 5th floor of the Castle. (on the right) This is looking at one of the doorways we came in initially.

ROAD TRIP!!!!

Here are a few pictures from the road trip Mom and I are taking to Camp Verde. Enjoy!

Omaha by night from the amazing room Justin got us. Love ya Justin!

Mom and I eating lunch at a rest stop in Nebraska. It was cold!

After sleeping well at Amy's, we took the long way over to Frisco to meet Whitney for Bfast.

We saw some backcountry skiers/snowboarders and I was looking longingly at the snow with envy.

Sarah, this one's for you!

Mom and I at Arches National Park.

So, we decided since we're in cowboy country that we both needed cowboy hats that would also protect our white Wisconsin skin from the sun. Yehaw!

Don't be fooled!

Dress that I made for the wedding.

Mom and me.

Sweet mushrooms on the trail.

Me by the Wisconsin River.


Bobcat prints near the river.

So, I was catching up on things and realized that I apparently didn't have much to say in March. Hmm.. either that or I was really busy with things that I didn't write down. March always does that to me. I'm always like "yeah, it's March and my birthday" at the beginning and then I'm like "it's not April yet is it?" Just crazy.
Not too much happened. I went traveling to Ely for a weekend to visit my buddy Brad. I just got back from a friend's wedding in souther Missouri. It's amazing to me how much people freak out down there about snow! They make rocky mountain and west coast drivers seem like kamakazi drivers in the snow. That and it's a completely different culture down there. It was a learning experience, but still fun. My mom drove down with me and it was an enjoyable time spent together.
So, just when I get back to Wisconsin and get all comfortable, that's when I get a call from my dream job place- The National Park Service- and start planning to go to Arizona during the summer. I must be nuts! Do you know how hot it gets down there in the summer?! Really Hot! My dad sort of joked/ sort of was serious about getting me a $100 gift card to Walgreens so that I'd have enough sunscreen to get me through the 6 months I'm there! There's truth to that though, I'm totally going to fry! Bring on the freckles baby! Whoooo!
In all seriousness though, I'm stoked! I'm excited to be back working for an organization that I believe in and working at some really sweet locations and able to do some fun things. First on the agenda is to summit Humphrey's Peak before monsoon season kicks in. That's the tallest peak in Arizona just north of Flagstaff. Again, really excited! So yeah, there are good things happening these days in my life. I can't complain. I could use a really good full body massage though! Happy trails and go out adventuring to you all!

Life on the River

I never thought that I would be back here. I am though and surprisingly enough, I am loving every minute of it! I have however forgotten how boistrous 5th graders are. I can't remember when I heard so much chatter! They all sound like magpies to me: loud and louder. I am having fun though. I have been teaching a little bit for a couple of groups this past week, but we really start getting going this coming week with a bunch of school and scout groups coming up. It looks like it will be fun, but extremely busy.
Training was great, and my co-workers are great. They all have very distinct personalities which makes me happy. And so far, we all get along very well because of all of our differences. Always a good thing when there is teamwork going on. I think though that it will take a little while for us to get to that "performing" stage of group dynamics. I have a feeling that it will come soon, but only after some more group work and activities working together. That's just the way things go sometimes.
But, I have been going on some great adventures and explorations of the area around the Wisconsin River and exploring the sandstone dells along it. Really picturesque and I had some friends fooled that it was Utah they were looking at and not Wisconsin. So enjoy them and I'll post more as the adventures grow...

Me in sandstone cave.

Define Love

What is love? We hear about it movies, books, music, stories, and so on. We hear about love, but I am confident that were I to ask a complete stranger on the street what love is, and they would be taken off guard. Partially because you are asking them and mostly because they don't know.

It's sad really that not many people do know what love is. True love, that is the essence of love is perfect, unconditional, and pure passion for another person. Humans are unable to show this kind of love to each other. We are imperfect and our lives are full of conditional circumstances.

Well, you may be wondering then what my point is then if no single person can offer perfect, unconditional, pure passionate love. My point is that only God can. Until a person realizes that they are imperfect and cannot offer another person what God has clearly given us, they will idolize a person. Then they will quickly learn that person cannot give them what they most desperately seek; unconditional love.

Now we think of passion as being physcial, hot, and heavy for another person. If you looked in a dictionary it would also mention sacrifice. Interesting. God is passionate because he sacrificed Himself in His perfect love for us because we are imperfect by nature. So, the next time you are looking for a good chick flick or a love story to fill a void, look no further. You'll find it every time in every page of the bible.

The potato and the cheese are saying goodbye

You probably are reading the title and are like "huh?" This cheesehead Wisconsin girl is going back to Wisconsin. I'm leaving Idaho for now, saying goodbye to the land of potatoes and cutthroat trout and going back to the dairy state. The only dairy state. California cheese and milk DO NOT taste the same as Wisconsin's and even Illinois' does.

Anyway, I got a job doing environmental education at a residential camp and retreat center only 30 minuntes from where I grew up. I'm stoked! I'll be moving back to the midwest right before christmas and then staying there until the end of May. After that, I don't know what will come, but I'll worry about it in April or something.

I have definately learned not to plan too far ahead of me after moving out here. Also I've learned to follow my instinct more and listen to what it's saying. The reason being that most of the time, it's right on about things and situations that will be good or negative. I say most of the time, because sometimes it doesn't do anything, but I figure that there was a lesson that I needed to learn if that happens and I try to learn from it.

So, now I have to figure out how to get my things back to Wisconsin and over 5 passes and the entire state of North Dakota without incident. Here's hoping it all goes well. It' might be another challenge. But, sleeping in Eleanor isn't so bad. In fact, it's quite nice and spacious for the most part. So, this will be my last entry from the potato state of Idaho. My time here was good, but I'm looking forward to moving onward to new things, or getting to know familiar things with new sight.

How Deep and Wide the Rivers Run.

Everyone is different. Born of different parents in a different economic status than their neighbor. Different religions. Different cultural background. Different colored eyes, hair and skin. Everyone is different and unique.
Every leaf on a tree is different. Every river that runs from its' headwaters to the sea is different. Every hair on a moose hide is different. Everything in nature has its differences.
The phases of the moon change. The seasons change. Our hair changes color and lengths. The tides change. Even the amount of rain in one area from year to year changes. Everything in our lives change. If that is a universal truth, then riddle me this: why are humans afraid of change?
Nothing in our lives stays the same and if it does, we believe our lives to be stagnant and unmoving or unmotivated. But, when big, eppic changes occur, we freak out! Change can be scary it's true. It's the unfamiliar that haunts us. The "what if" scenarios that keep us unmoving like water with no where to go. With no outlet, water becomes unclean and full of algae until the algae kills off all the other things in the water and takes up all the space so much that it even kills itself off. Do we want our lives and our nation to become like a stagnant pond slowly choking the life out of itself? I have no desire to see that happen.
People who were born in the last two centuries have not seen war or conflict on United States soil. We've been attacked surely, and those were hard situations and tragic ones as well. But they were short lived and soon forgotten within the woes and materialistic values that we have come to thrive on. We are soft and spoiled as a country. More so those of us whose ancesters were born here and the voices telling stories of hardship and attrocities of man have faded beyond the whisper to silence. They are faces without tales and so a part of us is lost because we would not listen because we felt we did not have the time.
Selfish of us really. Such a large part of being human is knowing what it is to not be human. It is when we do not know or understand what a monster is that we fail to understand that humans have been and still can be the monster that makes small children afraid at night. They should not fear that which could harm them that is fantasy, they should fear that which is real and has a face that is not grotesque but looks just like everyone elses.
Everyone is different. Yes, that is true and not. Every human has a monster within. It breathes with us, eats with us, and sleeps with us. Beware the day that it wakes within you. Learn that monster within so you know how to keep it slumbering. We are all capable of great evil or great good. Pray that you stay different. Pray that you stay true to you and allow nothing to take hold of you. Different is good. Variety is good and keeps up healthy and strong. Change is good. Do not fear different or change, but be like a river that changes its course. It had to change and it is a force to be reckoned with because of the way it is constantly changing.