Bud Light Lime, Because Regular Bud Light Is Bad For My Baby...

snax on snax

Wake up in the morning thinking about why you're glad to be awake. Move and stretch. Go to bed exhausted every night. Don't be afraid of your own sweat. Be nice to strangers and the favor will be returned. Don't be afraid of hospitality and be hospitable when you can and you will always be well fed. Follow what you dream about, what stirs you late at night. Always be prepared for rain. Hike. A lot. Don't waste time. Fix what you break. There's nothing to make you appreciate a roof and coffee like sleeping and hiking in the pouring rain for days. Have a laughing fit at least once a day. If there's a porch swing, you better damn well swing on it. There is ALWAYS time to pet baby goats. Food tastes way better when you've carried it on your back for miles. Write letters. Write lists. Even if your work is what you love, do something that isn't work in your spare time. Listen to your peers. Listen to your boss. Listen to old timers with good stories. Listen to bugs. Listen to people that have done it before. Listen to your body. Listen to the birds. Listen. Listen. Listen.
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Happy Birthday America!

HEY!
Im in a hurry so this post I am just going to dump some photos and let them do the story tellin'. Off to a 12 day run starting at 1pm today. We're going to play in a creek and build fords on a trail for a few days and I can't wait. It's getting hot here! To summarize the last run- I took chainsaw training with 6 other work crew individuals. I cut down trees for 4 days and then was reunited with my work crew. it rained. so much. and hailed. I caught the philmont foot fungus but not the philmont bubble guts. fair trade if you ask me. Work crew Sierra had a family outing to Denver for the 4th of July and saw the Rockies play the Dodgers. America!

they feed us well.

Welcome to the YOLOTRILL fort

one of the turd floaters we hiked thru. wet canvas pants are a bad idea. just don't.

 

Maddie and Laura are coming to visit me mid August and I can't wait :)

Giraffe Moonlighting

The last two weeks have very possibly been the craziest of my life. When work is normal my crew, Work Crew Sierra, works in the South country and hikes all of the trails to see what needs maintenance. Mostly we have a rough idea of things that need to be worked on and otherwise just fix sign posts, p-to-b's, sections of trail that are washed out or have fallen logs on them, and campsites that have any issues. We climb a lot of mountains. My crew calls me Mom. (It's oddly endearing) We were gifted a most excellent shack to post up at when we have the opportunity to be at PJ, the campsite that houses our tool cache. I need to take a picture of the shack! The first night at PJ we slept on the porch and listened to country and had a camp feast potluck of deep dish pizza and fajitas with our neighbors. (They live in a cabin equipped with a gas stove and most importantly the ability to make hot chocolate.) Most of the time we camp out at different sites and come back to PJ when we need more food or different tools. We don't have to wake up at 4:15 now that training is over. ::does a dance::

Shooting a Civil War replica gun at Black Mountain during a lunch break in the back country

Mt Phillips

Big Red Mountain

Not pictured: the 6 person cuddle puddle that happens when we all cram inside to sleep

Black Mountain

I took this picture especially for Wiggles

Work wasn't normal for very long because our work crew jumped into a phone booth, emerged wearing underwear on our heads (that's what I hear really cool super heroes do), and quickly became evac help for a fire that broke out just south of the park. We ran up to an interpretive homesteading camp to see if they needed any help and ended up herding a bunch of baby goats, their moms, and 2 mules several miles down a trail to be driven out in a trailer. This feat earned us the title of 'work crew Noah's Ark' for a few days around base camp. Seriously guys. baby goats are probably one of the most adorable things.

The next few days after that were a blur. to summarize in small phrases: a search and rescue that had a happy ending, lightning storms, a visit to base camp and a visit away from base camp that might or might not have involved a beer or two, experiencing true grief and loss in the form of a missing pair of wool socks, and then a short relocation to a central country camp to help the conservationists with the huge influx of troops that were relocated from the south country. It was a weird change of pace to be working directly with the scouts, but neat to see what the park is really about and who it's maintained for. I ended up being relocated to a camp with some people that I get along really well with so the three days there were a ton of fun, a lot of camp spaghetti which ended up being unexpectedly delicious, and a lot of really cool conversations about art with a friend in my work crew that is a sculpture major.

Our team was reunited at base camp for our days off, so a work crew day at the hot springs was mandated for day one of our 3 day vacation. The next day a group of us decided to hike Mt Wheeler, which somehow slowly evolved into "lets leave tonight and hike it at midnight so we can watch the sun rise from the top." After getting very lost just trying to find the right town to start the hike in, and then getting more lost trying to find the trail head in the middle of the night, we started at about 3:30 am and made it up to a ridgeline deliriously tired and goofy and watched the sunrise from that vantage point and took a very cold nap. We made the summit early in the morning and hung out for a while to enjoy the view from the tallest peak in New Mexico. At the top we met a kid from Oklahoma traveling around and hiking the area by himself for a while. We also met a couple in their 60's that had thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail 4 years ago. I bogged them down with questions about the AT and hiking with their dog and pretty much decided that I want to be them when I grow up. Hiking up so early ended up being a great idea because we missed the rush to the summit of about 15 other groups of hikers that decided to climb Wheeler that day. It was nice to talk to other hikers and pet all of their dogs (everyone had dogs!) but it was even nicer to be headed down when they were headed up so we didn't end up in any trail traffic.

view from Mt Wheeler

Snow on Wheeler!

Today I've been at base camp with a handful of other conservation employees to be taught how to use chainsaws. Im not going to lie, I'm kind of stoked to cut down a tree. Chainsaws are fun as hell, as i discovered today practicing on a stump nailed to a piece of plywood. I'm going to try and write more letters on this next run, so be expecting some snail mail if I got your address before I left. :)  or if i didn't, feel free to send it to me. I've been practicing my coloring book and doodling skills and I must say you will probably all want to hang anything I mail you over the mantle if not have it tattooed somewhere on your person.





As the sun sets the
sky dims and illuminates
in shadows and shapes
of spruce needles
which look like black frost
patterns on bruised glass
matte and colored with
the sound of chatter and
the clinking silverware of
the stream. the earth
becomes a study of shapes
and sounds and
how much sitting in a cafe
feels like sitting by a
stream in a valley-
squint your eyes and
see the trembling aspen fingers
of lovers or the
stoic pine stance of
students,
the jittered chipmunk rush of entrepreneurs
the wild rose smell of tea
and the earth dirt smell of coffee.
when we're sitting 'round with
no fire we sound like humans
on a porch and smell like
sweat and tobacco-
with flames we are wolves
ember hearted and howling

I loved you, Guinevere

         My hands are sore and covered in blisters, my feet are sore, I have crazy bruises all over my legs, and I'm fairly certain that if anyone saw my arms they would think I was mauled by something very angry. That being said, my trek was awesome! It was a grueling and intense 6 days of building trails, digging holes for posts and for poops, hiking, and building sweet rock walls with the entire conservation department, not just work crew. 

         The first four days consisted of waking up at 4:15 am to our foreman singing at the top of his lungs or meowing like a cat. It's freezing cold at 4:15 am. We all stayed in tents in a meadow. A morning is as follows: Get dressed super fast, walk half a mile down to a camp with a kitchen where we eat pastries and bagels and drink coffee. Run up to the stockade where our tool cache is, which is a big log fort tree house basically. Then we hike up the trail and pick our spots and start working on whatever task for the day we have. Lunch consists of squeeze cheese or honey peanut butter and crackers and lots of energy bars. Dinner is cooked for us down at the camp we have breakfast at. We eat those poor guys out of house and home. I've been eating upwards of 5 to 6 thousand calories a day, and drink about 5 or 6 liters of water a day. 

I wish I helped build this.

The entire conservation crew is awesome. we built a mile of trail and 5 rock walls in four days. I ended up in a crew with the 5 guys that I get along really well with, so I have a feeling that it will be a good summer. I just hope I can keep up. I'm the only girl on work crew because the one other girl quit, which means when people introduce me they go "This is Amanda, she's the only girl on

work crew and she's a bad-ass!" This is terrifying because I haven't actually gone out on a job yet, so I have a lot to live up to. I did well in training which earned me this little notoriety, but I have a feeling that it was just a small taste of what is to come. Being the only girl on work crew also means that I spend 9 days at a time out with a bunch of bros, so when I come back to base camp I immediately seek out my female cons friends and do lady things. (most of them are 'ists', which stands for 'conservationists'. they teach kids about different things out in the back country.) WC is notoriously stinky and crazy and fun and crass so during parents week we aren't allowed on base camp, or so I've been told. 

The Great Wall of Philmont

I was testing out what it would be like to be a poop before the toilet went on top of the hole we dug for camp poos

The toilets that go on top of these holes are called "pilot to bombers" because its a two seater and they face away from each other. Not pictured is my crew trying to put the toilet on me before I could get out of the hole. I escaped in the nick of time.

The trail we were building was a new path to the point that we took our staff picture at last week, which is the little peak? protrusion? below called the Tooth of Time. Aptly named because it looks like a tooth! The original trail up it is a very intense steep climb through a boulder-filled canyon which is awesome but not ideal for some younger crews or folks new to hiking.

The Tooth of Time

I can't get enough of the views here. A storm was a-brewin!

The good thing about waking up so early is seeing the sunrise over the mesa.

We came back down to base camp from training/trail building a few days ago and have have a wonderful and much appreciated 3 days off. Yesterday a group of us visited Taos, which is a cool little hippie town. It makes me feel like I've got a little piece of Austin near me. We visited this awesome hot spring in a canyon and just soaked for several hours because we're all sore from training. Afterwards pizza ensued.

Nature's hot tub

Mad props to the kid that drew this and gave it to the pizza joint we ate at.

A co-worker of mine said something kind of profound while we were driving back from Taos. It made quote of the day, which I am still attempting to keep a log of.

"Look at our world, guys. It's beautiful."

**lip synchs to boyscout songs**

Hey friends!
      I guess I just posted 3 or 4 days ago but I'm about to go incognito for a while out in the wild so I wanted to share the rest of my adventure getting here because it was pretty swell. No pictures this time because google is out to get me so we need to work out our differences before I can post more photog. Even though this is supposed to be like... a picture blog. Thanks google.
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       After I left Santa Fe I just kind of drove north to see what would happen and ended up passing through Taos instead of camping there because I couldn't figure out how to get where I originally wanted to go without a high risk of wasting a lot of time and gas. I had been driving in the dark for a while trying to find a camp ground and decided to pull over on the side of the road to look at my map. This ancient old man walked up to my car and tapped on my window and I was expecting the worst because I was feeling a little frustrated about not being able to find a place but we got to talking and he told me his wife worked at Philmont 65 years ago and let me crash at his tiny beautiful little privately owned campsite for free for the night. People can be swell. I slept by a creek and it was incredibly relaxing. The moon seems so friggin big and ghostly when it's full and there isn't much light pollution. it was awesome!
     The next morning I got an early start and pulled over in Eagle's Nest for breakfast at a little biker diner. This couple from the panhandle who were on a motorcycle tour saw me waiting around for a table and invited me and this other solo fellow to sit with them. They were also incredibly nice and full of neat bike stories. Something about the mountains makes people so friendly ^_^
      I didn't have any bureaucracy issues with work when I got here which is amazing given the amount of paperwork I've had to mail in over the last few months. A lot could be said about what goes in to one day here and the layout of the ranch and all of the weird little idiosyncrasies I've been trying to hurriedly catch on to. It's difficult to attach the right stories and conversations to the right faces at the end of the day because there are so many! Almost everyone here has been here before as a scout or venture crew or employee but there are a few of us that haven't, and there are a few people that are happy to get me up to speed quickly. I feel like a little kid running around and asking a million questions. Things at Philmont: Cottonwoods, aspen, douglas fir, ponderosa pine,  ultimate frisbee, (I just watch.) pool, ice cream trips to cimarron, lots of walking around and lounging on lawns after training, lots of training, not a lot of hygiene, lots of gossip, vegetarian options at dinner!, breakfast at 6:30am, work pants that make me look like MC Hammer diesel edition, and lots of scout songs that I don't know the words to. Tomorrow morning is our first overnight with the entire Conservation dept. we're going to take a staff picture on top of a peak in the park. how hardcore! There is only me and one other girl on the work crew. I'm really hoping we end up on the same team (they are as of yet undecided) so as to offset what will otherwise be a very sausage filled summer. I'm feeling a little homesick but I better get over it because it's only day 3 :p

When you get to the top of a mountain keep climbing!

So many things have happened in the last two weeks. Never a dull moment with my friends. Saying goodbye to everyone was difficult and sad, but my adventure has started and I can't help but feel amazing about that. I hope that I don't end up feeling disappointed that my co-workers aren't my art-night quartet or Austin or San Antonio friends. Then again, maybe I will stay out of trouble if they aren't as cool as you guys. My partner in crime Stephanie is also logging her adventures and doing more with less... she's got a one-way ticket to Europe with a backpack so follow her blog too. It's therewasnowheretogobut.blogspot.com.



 



 

I couldn't leave town without some crazy setback, so in true Amanda fashion I managed to accidentally kick a machete while I was goofing off in Cassidy's backyard a week ago. 6 stitches and a broken toe later....
I'm just happy to be off of crutches and walking semi-normally again.

Exhibit A: Pre-toe massacre shenanigans

mom giving me stitches on the kitchen table like the boss that she is

My friend Spike is really good at spinning flaming num-chucks. I wore a helmet on my head because I can't walk 10 feet without hurting myself... unfortunately no helmets on my feet. (It is probably terribly annoying that some of my pictures are sideways. I can't figure out how to get 'em upright... anyone know?)

The night before I left San Antonio Kayla and I decided to go see Taylor Swift kind of spur of the moment, so THERE I SAID IT! We saw Taylor Swift live and it was awesome. Come at me, bro. I couldn't think of any other way to spend my last week with my friends except blowing up fireworks, climbing statues, kicking machetes, seeing Taylor, going for drives through the hill country, and just laying low and chatting until the wee hours.
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I got the ball rolling about 1:30pm on May 23rd. First stop- Guadalupe Mountains National Park. I hit some pretty bad rain two hours away from the park but it cleared up right before I pulled in, thankfully. putting up a tent in the rain is absolutely no fun. The sunset pulling in was unreal. A crazy huge red sun was setting on my left and El Capitan, the ancient once-was reef, was jutting out in the distance to mark where I was headed. I couldn't stop pulling over to take pictures. So many colors.








 Laura inadvertently saved the day with the snack bag she gave me before I left. I found a bag of ramen in it and used my nifty little hand made aluminum alcohol stove to heat up some water outside of my tent, otherwise I would have been on the cheez-it diet last night. I had great plans to play guitar and write all night but pretty much ate, reviewed some medical protocol in my WFA book, and passed out. I've become a little obsessed with reviewing what to do in any kind of crazy emergency situation. I don't know why, because I just stare in horror at the pictures in my books and gag a lot. I wish I could have stayed in the Guad Mtns a little bit longer. They are truly beautiful. Unfortunately, just a little informational mile long hike was all I could take on the busted paw this morning before I hit the dusty trail. 

I'm fairly certain I drove through purgatory this afternoon.

Don't ever drive through mid-NM for the scenery.

Probably the most boring 4 hours of my life. I'm in Santa Fe now, hoping to find somewheres to camp in one of the national forests surrounding me after I soak in the city for a little bit. My first day in Philmont is tomorrow morning. All I can hope for is friendly people and a clear head.

Let me know what is going on in your lives, friends. :)