A taste of Washington

Howdy everyone.

Work at Full Circle Farm - Largest CSA (Community
Supported Agriculture) farm in North America

I just got back into town after a 12-day trip in the Seattle area.  Seattle is the biggest city in the northwest and it is a relatively new city in terms of how long it has been a big city.  The timber boom that started in the 50's and the .com boom that the city gradually morphed into after timber reduction in the 80's has kept the city growing at good rates.  It has Microsoft, Amazon, and Boeing to keep it booming and it has a fresh feeling to it.  About half of the days this time of year are accompanied by rain but the days of blue skies are tough to compare in any other American city.  To the west, over the sound, you are able to see the snow-capped mountains of the Olympic Peninsula and take in the peaks from the top of the many hills in Seattle. To the southeast you will see the biggest mountain in the Cascade Mountain range, Mt. Rainier.  It is over 14,000' tall and it is a girthy snow-covered volcano that sticks out like a giant.

Picture I took while canoeing in Trout Lake.  That is Mt.
Adams which I am lucky enough to stare at every day.

The close proximity of nature to the city is one of the biggest draws and it is part of the city's culture to get out and appreciate the nearby nature that surrounds them.  A sunny day on the weekend will draw the entire city out to the mountains to rock climb, hike, bike and every other activity you can imagine.  I don't know why I'm promoting the city but it was just refreshing to see that everyone is eager to be active and it shows because so many Seattleans will contribute their time to volunteer to a lot of the non-profits that are affiliated with my AmeriCorps program.  They use the land for their recreational benefit and in return they donate their time to improving the trails and nature around them.

Part of my job as Intern Leader is to visit all of the 25 Environmental Interns that are placed around all of Washington and Oregon.  I planned out during this trip to the Northwest part of Washington to visit all nine of the interns in that region.  Here is a synopsis of those 9 visits.

Hitting a 2' foot jump down a huge hill!  Sweeeeeet!

Visit 1 with Rianne who works at the National Wildlife Federation - We went to a vegetarian thai restaurant in Seattle and then we walked downtown to the Folklife Festival that takes place in the Seattle Center just below the Space Needle.  There is folk music by crazy vagabonds, magicians, reggae, Capoeira, contra dancing and you get to see the craziest people in the country.  Seattle definitely has some crazy folk out here.  Very artistic and unique and it expands your thoughts on how people choose to live their life.  Not so much the direction I'm taking but it is a good way to learn.

Visit 2 with Alex who works at Stewardship Partners - We drove out to Full Circle Farm (picture above) and we pulled blackberry bushes that are in a trail they are building for interpretive purposes.  The trail will be used to bring students out and tell them the history of the farm, area they live in, and fun facts about the nature that surrounds them.

Mowing the lawn of a housing project that houses citizens
that are recovering drug addicts for minimal rent and helps
them in the transition back into society.

Visit 3 with Brian who works for the Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance - We went mountain biking and it was ridiculous!  I have never gone that fast on a bike and I was able to do some sweet jumps and crazy ramps and I'm super surprised I didn't fall at all.  I must be a natural!  I got to play in two coed soccer games that same night and ripped it up playing some ball.  My ankle is getting stronger!

Visit 4 & 5 with Kailyn and Alison - I went up to Lake Stevens just north of Seattle and Kailyn and I walked around the lake and the downtown area and talked about the environmental teachings that she does with local schools.  Alison and I had coffee at a French restaurant in downtown Seattle and I had the second best cup of coffee of my life.  The best cup of coffee was the day before at a diner in the University district in Seattle.  I am currently addicted to a couple cups of coffee a day because the northwest has such great coffee brews.  They also have incredible microbrews in every city so I'm sure you could guess that I'm also addicted to the beer out here.

Our AmeriCorps rock climbing crew.  Climbed my first
crack!  This was back on Friday the 13th.  Good crew.

Visit 6 with Stella who works at the U.S. Forest Service - Stella just got accepted into the Peace Corps so she is heading out to Western Africa this next spring so we basically talked about that for a couple of hours of coffee.  My job is to make sure that everyone is doing well and that their work/life balance is healthy and if something isn't going great then I will help come up with possible solutions to make their AmeriCorps experience more beneficial and align with their expectations and goals.

Visit 7 with Brenda who works for the North Olympic Land Trust - She lives in the town of Sequim, WA which is out on the Olympic Peninsula.  The Olympics are a magical place located between Seattle and the Pacific Ocean.  It is mostly rain forest and mountains that has rivers and lakes galore.  I drove over there this past Wednesday and we went out for oysters while we looked at Canada in the distance.  You have to keep your eye on the Canadians at all times.  You just never know.  We drove out to Forks, WA (yes, the location of the Twilight series) the next day to do some trail work and help out with some trail projects.  I can hopefully get those pictures from my other memory card and get them up here as soon as possible.

I thought I would give everyone an update on the length
of my red beard.

Visit 8 with Anna who works for the Mountains to Greenway Trust - This company is huge and they protect an insane amount of land and keep up the trails for the public.  It was National Trails Day so we did trail work for 6 hours out at Little Si, which turns out to be an insanely popular hike for the Seattle folk.  Had a great time working with another AmeriCorps NCCC program based out of Sacramento, CA.

Visit 9 with Julie who works at the North Cascades Institute - I drove up to Bellingham, WA which is where Western Washington University is located and it is one of the coolest towns I have ever been to in America.  It is probably right around 100,000 but the entire population is into the outdoors and they are surround by the San Juan Islands to the west and Mt. Baker to the North.  Everyone bikes around and I jumped off a 40' cliff into a pool of water which was like a half mile from Julie's place.  That is just an example of what their city parks are like...they have 40' waterfalls!  It was Julie's birthday so we played bocce, drank mojitos, ate shish kabobs, and then went square dancing.  The North Cascades Institute partners with Western Washington University for a Non-Profit Management masters program that is one of the best outdoor non-profit programs in the country and I have some interest in getting my Masters there.  Who knows?

To sum it up I think I may have one of the sweetest jobs around.  I knew that I would be able to do these visits coming out west again but I had no idea that I would be visiting some of the most inspiring peers that I have ever met.  Each one does great work out in their regions and we all have the bond of community service and improving community-based environmental programs.  We like to joke about the miniscule amount of money we make but on the flip-side we can brag about the great programs that we are able to implement and the wonderful people and volunteers that we are able to spend our work days with.

I miss ya'll back in Wisco.  Shoot me a phone call if you ever want to catch up.

Luke Davis

On to the water

My cozy cabin hidden back in the woods.

         A long time since the last time I have touched base with everyone.  I blame the environment I am in because it has been demanding my time in a good way.  April was rainy.  There’s no way around it but it does rain its fair share out here.  You become strangely comfortable in the steady light rain that touches down in many of the spring days.  I’ve been resting and re-habing my left ankle so the rain is beneficial because it reduces the temptation to do high impact sports that I usually participate in.

An example of why I can’t get enough of the northwest was how the final day of the Master’s golf tourney finished up.  It’s a confusing way to start but let me finish.  I was snuggled up on my friend Amanda’s futon while she and her boyfriend went down to Panama for three weeks.  The month of April was a month of house sitting while enjoying privacy and solitude each night I was there.  That excludes the cats and dogs I had to care for.  It is a cabin a little bit further west on the Well’s property.  Jim and Sally actually used to live in it back in the 80’s when there was no electricity.  Rustic propane lamps line the walls inside the cabin.  It was a calm and secluded cabin to spend a few weeks.

The view of my class III from my hike the next weekend.

         I was cozy in front of my wood-burning heater enjoying a lazy day when I got a text to go kayaking down the Klickitat River.  Lazy day no more.

I came out to the “adventure shed,” I like to call it, to meet Jim and Dan to get the rafts ready for our river run.  Jim and Dan have both kayaked more than I ever will in my life and were kick ass to take me along on a kayak journey.  We took brand new Cascadia inflatable kayaks along with us and after we packed up the trailer we ventured to the put in.  Kayak lingo was being spit on the ride there and I was learning a lot of the kayaking safety ways but I was just ready to get out there and paddle.

There's the class III again.

  On to the water.  These IKs were maneuverable and a smooth ride down the river.  We chugged down the Klickitat canyon and stopping at some of the eddies (calm water)  to stop off and chat about what is next down the river.  It was peaceful and pleasant with just enough adrenaline to clear your mind and really soak in the oak covered canyon that engulfed us.  I would follow Dan’s line (route) through class I and class II rapids and gain confidence each section that we completed.  Jim and Dan are considering getting a permit for this section so they will be able to bring teenagers out for an afternoon and teach them the fundamentals of paddling a river.  So I guess you could say that I was the beginner guinea pig...I’ll be a guinea pig any day for this!

  The time has come for the grand finale of going through a stretch of class III rapids and see what I’m made out of.  Class III are the first level of rapids that really present any danger of flipping your boat or anything like that.  In the beginning I was considering taking out a little early and skipping the class III but I did well on the stretches previously so I decided to go for it.          I followed Dan as he took the line in from the left  and straightened out through the first part of the rapids.  There is a pretty big rock or current that is in the middle of the run where Dan took a route around it on the left but with my lack of control I hit that baby head on.  I was in control in the sense that I was able to hit the rapid straight on so the tip of my kayak flew up in the air but I held it together to make it through without flipping.  It felt great and I felt safe.  I felt accomplished and confident about another float down a river sometime.  

Some lenticular clouds.  View from my new place.

  So the point I wanted to make when I started this long overdue post was that any ordinary day of watching the Masters on TV can being pleasantly interrupted by a fellow neighbor wanting to go kayaking, hiking, mountain biking, swimming, or any of the other activities that surround the area I am in.  

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY MOM / GRANDMA BEEJ / GRANDMA BURKE!  

Luke Davis

Wilderness First Responder Course - Woofer

Justin and Kyle assessing crazy-eyed Nate

Oh hey.  Shout out to Luke Safranski and Melissa Booth for having their little son Landon and another shout out to Jenna and Cade Wakefield for shooting out Caleb Dan the next day!  Way to go all you life-givers :)

I have been slacking on the blogging so this is a saved post from way back when so I hope to keep more up to date on the blogging.

I was fortunate enough to take a Wilderness First Responder course with all of the 2011 Field Team Leaders back in late February.  I try to think back to what my initial thoughts were about the course but I'm sure I underestimated the knowledge intake and the importance of the skills that I would be taking in during this 9-day course.

The crew after making hypothermia wraps

We had two instructors, John and Maizie, came in from Austin, TX and Central WA to teach this course.  John was 6'4" and Maizie was 4'10".  This course had an added element and that was inches upon inches of falling snow every time we had to go outside for 9 days straight.

Attempting to sum up everything I learned in a blog entry is as difficult as it must have been to cram this much curriculum into a 9-day course.  What I mean is that we were briefed in anything from diabetes treatment to splinting and holding traction on a mid-leg femur fracture.  They put it as, "We have just enough knowledge to be dangerous."  The great aspect of this certification is that the wilderness is now a safer place because 16 more people are trained to help if anything bad were to happen to some one out in the backcountry.

I was lucky enough to get backboarded

Each morning we had breakfast at 7am and by 8am we were at our seats learning topics like spine injuries, chest wounds, trauma, leg and arm fractures, internal bleeding, etc.  We would break up these sit down sessions with scenarios.  These scenarios are 15-20 minutes of patients (other students) being outside acting out an injury that they endured in the wild.  Inside our partner and ourself (sometimes alone) would gather up a insulate mat, first aid bag, blanket and tarp and head outside to treat an injury.

Each injury would vary.  Sometimes the patient would be unresponsive with their airway clogged with candy in which case we had to open the airway to clear out the debris.  Others were bruised ribs with a chance of internal bleeding and to go along with that would have a spine injury where we had to stabilize the spine while we went through a Patient Assessment.

There was a day we did a MCI (Mass Casualty Incident) where 4 people had major and life-threatening injuries and they were spread out throughout the forest in which case we had to load them onto backboard and litters to carry them out of the wild.  At the time they were very traumatizing experiences but now I believe I would be more calm and clear-minded if a situation like this were to occur in real life.  These scenarios were very realistic because every patient was to act as real as possible.

Stabilized spine.  Bunny ears?  Come on...

One night I was helping out with a tibula/fibula fracture and an hour into the splinting my instructors told me to have a seizure so the other two students with me had to act accordingly.  My seizure has apparently gone down in history as the most ridiculous seizure ever performed because I remained standing for 30 seconds before going to the ground.  My rescuers were laughing at me while I had a seizure and I giggled a little too.

All in all I passed the course on our final written exam and practical.  I still have a lot to learn as far as wilderness rescue but I have enough skills to possibly save a life and that helps ease my mind when being outdoors.

McCullough Dominates WI-IL-IA-NE-CO-WY-ID-OR-WA

This is the beginning of my return to Trout Lake, WA for my second AmeriCorps service.  I'm coming back as the Intern Program Leader and Outreach Coordinator and hope to pass on the life lessons and experiences that I was able to endure in 2009, onto the AmeriCorps class of 2011.  For all of you who are wondering who McCullough is, he is my 1998 Subaru Forester and this was his first journey out West.  We cruised steadily across the states and besides a slight burning up of oil he preformed flawlessly.

Sunset in Glenbeulah

Everything I need.  Gooood Maisie

The journey began in Glenbeulah and I distracted Maisie, my parent's dog, to sneak out the door and hit the road.  I made a quick stop in Chicago to see a friend and then escaped the nasty big city traffic for good.  How does 6 lanes of cars fit in 5 marked lanes of traffic?  Chicago rush hour is insane!  The compass is now set to West and it will stay that way for four more days.  A completely flat day of driving landed me in Lincoln, NE and I ended up staying in the same Motel 6 that I crashed in a couple years back.  Still has the sleazy lingerie shop next door.  Don't worry folks that isn't my cup of tea.

My next stop was the beautiful city of Denver, CO to visit my good ole' pal Patrick Brennan.  Irish and brilliantly crafted in this red-bearded good man.  Waiting for him to get out of work was the first time in months that I could comfortably walk around outside and not freeze.  I explored downtown Denver for 45 minutes and then Pat and I wandered back to his place to watch American Idol at the Milwaukee Art Museum.  We recognized the reggae singer that advanced to Hollywood because her band Urban Sol performs at the Up and Under on Brady St.  

No look camera shot.  Clouds were beautiful

Colorado is connected to Wyoming.  Wyoming is connected to Utah.  Utah is connected to Idaho.  (Sing it in the "connecting bones" childhood song)  Hitting the mountains of Wyoming made the brutal drive of 8 hours seem much more enjoyable.  Once I crossed the border of Wyoming the hills began to steepen and the snow became deeper on both sides of the road.  The size of the mountains crescendoed and it was a fresh sight to see the plateaus of Wyoming snow-covered.

Mountain drifts

 Side-mirror shot

 Into the Rockies

 Beautiful shades of blue

 Wyoming plateaus

Cruising through the gigantic peaks and ski slopes of Utah was mind blowing!  I now understand why the Olympics came to Salt Lake City because these mountains and ski resorts were like nothing I have ever seen.  I crashed in Salt Lake City for the night and prepared for my 11 hour drive to finish our westward journey the following day. 

Unfortunately I kept my camera buried deep in the back seat but Idaho and Eastern Oregon were fantastic as well.  Once I reached the Columbia River and the spectacular Gorge I was reassured why I came back to the Northwest.  The natural features of this part of the country are like no other and after almost 2200 miles it felt good to be surrounded by this scenery again.

Sunrise from my backyard

 Mt. Adams (Pahto)

 Lunchbreak photo

 I'll be climbing you in a few months...

 Sunset on Pahto

 View from Jim and Sally's front window

Back to Washington

My heart picks up it's pace,
Life begins to feel like a race.
Should I move here or there,
Anywhere out west, I don't care.
Money or passion?  It's tough to choose,
Close family relationships are what I may lose.
The girls out west will be a perfect fit,
That Wisco charm, they will never forget.
Life will get easier if I just move away,
Fresh ideas will be in every which way.
I need a new start before it's too late,
No clue on what may be my fate.
I feel most alive when I move and dream,
There are so many adventures, I will be a fiend.
They say to come back home and I probably will,
But for now, I just can't sit still.

LDW