Be Prepared....

.... One of those time old sayings from the lore of the Boy Scouts. Always a good thing to keep in mind . Especially when your 2500lb floating bar is stocked with 450 beers and some whiskey somewhere, somewhere too close. I can say for certain this is not one of those Main Salmon debacles where you get stuck under a paco pad for 3 hours or eat steak and potatoes with both hands and sleep face down outside of the tent in the sand. Nope. Just different. Just mind expanding. And extremely rough on the skin....

Lava Falls, Feb 2012. Shapeless, Surging and Suhweet!

Fatness on the Little Colorado

Found the Whiskey @ Upset Hotel

The Day before the day before I broke my oar in flatwater

In the cave of forgettable names

Somewhere on top, just the way Sean Connery would describe it

Being Smushed....

....By the reality that I shouldn't be on the surface, but back in the canyon. Anywho, upon arrival to the top, reentry was really diffcult and things seemed off, weird, and kinda new. I also had some new character levels, some of which resurfaced simply due to a river trip. And hair, lots of hair.


I dont know how to explain much about the Grand Canyon other than you should go for yourself. The Feb trip was so far the best one. Warmer winter weather in the 50s and 60s, low water with slightly more technical rapids with rocks, and significantly less people than the summer launch times. This time I was able to make the entire trip, all 220+ miles of it, making me at about 1.5 trips on the GC. Good news. All I can do now is hope and apply for every years permit for the rest of my life. I can do that.

I wouldnt say that the canyons whitewater is the best on the planet, but i would say that the combination of the water, canyon, nature, isolation, friends, and overall duration make it what has come to known as a truly unique piece of awesome. Then theres the magic.... The magic of the unknown, time reflecting walls, and voices singing in the night. Beautiful, long gone voices. Some sung by the river itself, some by the boats tussling in the eddy current, some by people of a previous time. The stories.


Its funny bc on this trip I didnt do much but look at the water. Infact, thats ALL I did. It made sweet love to my ruffled interior. I melted more and more everyday. Jenny mentioned how the human body binds the tools we use to itself as an appendage, as to better use it and feel its function. I most certainly had become the boat, or it me, for the entire trip except for Lava, where I had the absolute ugliest line on the planet, which is also the only place where its better to have a clean line. I blame it on the swimmer....yup. Not my fault.

6 Beers a day. Dont forget the whiskey. Speaking of.... dont forget the box wine!


Note: I came back and bought a 24 pack of pbr. At the time it seemed heavy, like real heavy, but the price was the same and so on.... Not til I got home and had one in my hand did I realize they now come as tallboys! Amazing!

Good Grief....

Danny Macaskill: Industrial Revolutions from Cut Media on Vimeo.

What I'm Listening to....

Randomette....

A New Place....

So on the way to the next seismic job, I decided enroute to change up the interstate for some scenery, duh. I turned at the Banks Lowman Hwy and brushed up the river and through to Jackson. Amazing, amazing drive!


Welcome to Wyo and everybody waves at ya when your driving, I love it!


And found some of the weirdest pump jacks I have ever seen.....

Shit here is Wack, yo....


Yes, this is a late post from the summer trip to Lusk.... an interesting little bit of cowpoke and extreme folf, jeep under-carriage fires, crap beer.

Speaking of thats a funny story. After discussing that driving a jeep in the grass it collects all such grass in the skid plate protecting the catalytic converter, a bad place. So 3 times I had to stop and put fires out, pull grass out, put fires out, pull grass out, and stop at some local church to borrow their sprinkler incognito to put out my jeep. I cant believe nobody saw that.... too bad bc it was hilarious....

hehe....

Because I Can....

Out with the Old and in with the Insulation....

Officially moved out of the sweet but extremely frigid cabin in Donnelly and into an awkward but awesome cabin in McCall that has an actual R value. Infact part of the deal was that I could put a stove in, as it already had the chimney box installed some 40 years previous, and I had a monster wood pile built up insuring that I would never freeze my nipples off again (courtesy the new chainsaw). Infact this new joint is a friggen hot box about an hour after the stove is lit. I think theres a song that references how hot it is via removal of articles of clothing.... so yeah, its that hot.

With the arrival of mom comes great organization and now the inside looks amazing. I mean theres actual room to walk around! And it comes with my own personal forest in the back. Zambi loves it.


As well I commute to work on the 426....


The wood pile grows by the weekend.... this is only about 20% or less of the harvest....


And I find myself with another tv to shoot....

One Week....

Back in Texas, in a town that previously had a lake, I continued to work and find many interesting oddities and such.

Like the baby deer whose mother died of dehydration.


The enormous windmills


And a reminder that someone somewhere is still playing Shogun online, and cheating at it too!

Of other coolness was surveying at a mine back here in Idaho, where you had to wash your hands before eating bc the rocks were saturated with mercury. And cutting multiple blowdown trees out of our way so we could get home before dark. Always bring a chainsaw!

WTFOMG....

If I ever had a good reason to go home, this would be it. 3 Feet long....

Dead Horse Point.....

Doing the Seismic Dubstep is a 230 step process, with step number 14 involving beer everytime. Which can then make step number one, waking up, really hard to do.


Luckily on this job specifically, the views be numerous, and I havent seen a dead cow even once!

We bumble around and occasionally come across something neat, like this GIANT windmill on a super short support. And some of these occasions require climbing, and or step number 14.

Lately I've been mapping a lot via the new little Jeep. Not that there's any downside to this, the upside is I get to go 4 Wheeling all day every day. I try and rally up sand dunes and fail, slow crawl the slickrock climbs, really slow crawl the rough and tumbly, and drift the dry creek beds. Thanks to the jeep bc I dont think Jezebel fits in all these places. Ive even tried buying my own from mister B-nuts, to no avail.

Im still amazed at how adding 31's to a 4 banger stock jeep and you can suddenly go everywhere, instantly!

And then we come to a full day of rafting the daily stretch of the colorado riverjust above Moab. I think there were supposed to be 6 or so rapids in what seemed like 60 miles. I saw two. But the beer was flowing like the salmon of capistrana and the laughter be plenty, and the weather permitted excellent conditions. But the trip went fast as the river is over bank full and just screaming down the brown interstate of crispy moistness. And we got "the duck" to go on his first rafting trip ever. And that same non swimmer jumped in twice. BA!!

I lol'd...

Utah....

I can officially say I enjoy getting paid to do what everyone else is paying to do. 10 Miles outside of Moab, inbetween Arches and Canyonlands national parks, we wander around in Jeeps and on foot. The scenery is awesome, the geology is awesome, the 4 wheeling is awesome, the weather awesome, the beer extremely lacking, and the parts occasionally breaking....

I may extrapolate, but likelihood is quite low....

Did I mention aliens have been here?

Back with a Brand New Edition....

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Pics from the Field....

Encounters with stuff in Ok....


Most of the time things Die in Ok:

Sometimes things Live in Ok:

But most certainly things Rust in Ok:

So Far....

So far to go, yet sometimes it feels like moving backwards. After the total loss of the Apocalypse I was pretty sure everything was fucked. Yet something was right, something unexplainable. Unimaginable. Wrong turns made right. Left turns still go left.

The Apocalypse had come and gone in a instant. Us passengers left extraordinarily unscathed. In one side out the other.

After a couple calls to State Farm (bad ass) we had everything fingered out. Some mind numbing research on the internets confirms that the sister truck exists. Maybe older, perhaps younger. Certainly not the same age. Either way she was found in Denver. Her name is Jezebel.

Crazily enough, with the loss of the Apacalypse I was able to pick up Jezebel AND pay off my medical debts. Amazing, I know. Older, wiser, still alive....

Meanwhile I ventured North, all the way, to pay a little homage to an old camper of mine and the friends in Montucky. It had to go. It also had a name, but I forget things. I had a friend who was interested in a free project leaky camper but after seeing it there was no way I was gonna pawn that pile of total fog shit on him so I set out for a another way. Disposal? They only take four foot sections. Nope. Bonfire? Too windy today, but the kids would love it! Frustrated, with chicken fingers in hand I harrass the cashier at the grocery if I could get a discount if I gave her a camper. She hollers something like "FREE CAMPER" and the next cashier over spins around "REALLY?". She calls her hubby and the previously named camper gets a ride on the smallest trailer of all time and is officially out of Ern-man's field. I feel relieved.

Finally make it back to ID, unload, hang a sweet American flag on the pole (horrible liberals are indeed ok) beer it up, cut some trees, burn some slash, have a birthday, and make a list. Theres absolutely no snow. Im flabbergasted....and await the next trial (trail) in a series that seems like its never gonna end. But I had some SWEET cinematic dreams....

Music of Note: Death Cab for Cutie, Sunny Day Real Estate

Sweet New Dodge Ram 3500 for Sale....

I have a 97 Dodge 4x4 for sale. Its in near new condition, worth way more than the blue book lists. It has 14 wheels available. No leaks of any kind. Rolls like a dream.

Apparently when they say not to swerve, they mean it. Thank the mysteriousnesses out there everywhere that everyone wasnt hurt. GPS is untouched on the dash and the passenger door opens better now than it did after it had a run in with that cow. If theres any specific parts you want just drop a comment.....