Beware the Bloody Bard of Bears

This weekend, for all practical purposes, officially marks the end of summer. It is the last major weekend of travel and adventure before Thanksgiving.  The weekend will be little different in terms of what I do as I am working Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, but the number of people I am interacting with in the visitor center is dramatically higher than what it has been recently due to all the extra visitors. So my holiday weekend is being spent serving the American public.

That is not to say that I have not experienced my share of adventure in the last few days. Just last night when I left to ride my bike home from the visitor center the road was shrouded in fog and it was challenging to see much of the way ahead. Whenever I am riding back and forth I look about the trees to see what animals might happen to be in the vicinity. This action most commonly results in sightings of deer, turkeys, or nothing. But last night things were different. As I looked down an access road off the main road I realized I was looking at the snout of an adult male black bear protruding from the trees through the foggy mist. I stopped to watch until he backed up into the trees and disappeared. The rise in excitement that I felt from this experience quickly changed as I made the turn onto the road leading to my house due to the dramatic appearance of a second bear (a bit smaller than the first) standing in the middle of the road looking up at me in great surprise. It made for quite the ride home!

If I were to identify a single word to describe the remainder of this past week apart from bear sightings it would have to be “bloody.” That word would more precisely be applied to Wednesday last, a day marked by distinctly bloody experiences.

At the repeated behest of the Red Cross Alison and I decided to attempt the adventure of donating platelets to be used to treat young children and cancer patients. I have donated whole blood on sixteen previous occasions, but had never donated platelets. It is an entirely different experience.
Alison was unable to donate platelets (but did donate whole blood instead) because they could not identify a good vain in each of her arms, for they require both of one’s arms to donate platelets, one out of which your blood will be sucked, and a second where your blood will be sent back into your body. It was a long and rather uncomfortable experience to sit essentially immobilized (as both of your arms have needles in them and should remain motionless) for two full hours watching  while the majority of your blood is sucked out of your body and then fed into a machine and spun around through a series or tubes  before being returned to you once more less an ever increasing number of platelets which are instead sent to a bag hanging overhead.

I thought that the experience would be easier to recover from than a donation of whole blood since very little blood would actually be lost in the process. I could not have been more wrong. I was so impacted that in the cantina afterwards Alison had to hold a can of juice up to my mouth so that I might drink as I was incapable of taking such action myself with either arm.

I have never experienced anything like the draining of life that was donating platelets. Apparently the human body completely recovers from such a loss within seven days, so I could donate again every week indefinitely. Judging by the lack of life and energy that I am continuing to feel at this moment, that is not going to be happening.  Apparently my body does not react well to the loss of platelets!
The theme of blood continued later that day when Alison and I acquired free tickets to and then attended a splendid production of William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. The actors did a fine job and the performance was both stellar and memorable, especially since we were seated in the second row and felt as though we were nearly on the stage ourselves.

If you are not familiar with the story of Julius Caesar you would, first of all, do well to remedy that failing, and secondly do well to know that a great many people die a violent death. This particular production did not skimp on the fake blood and by the end of the scene in which Caesar was fatally stabbed the white robes of not only Caesar, but also all eight bearers of the knife and Marc Antony were splattered with blood. It was quite a spectacle.Since Wednesday I have had to be especially careful not to injure myself as the blood would flow freely out of my body as a result of the recent diaspora of platelets. I have restricted myself to an electric razor, fearing the results of an unwary nick of a regular one and made a point to attempt to avoid situations in which I might have to wrestle a bear or fight a cougar.

Unlike Caesar my loss of blood (or parts contained therein) will most likely not result in my demise nor change the course of world history. Nor is it likely that anyone (much less Shakespeare since he himself is rather deceased at present) will either write or perform a play about the subject. So I suppose I will have to stick with bear spotting and explaining to people why it is worth planning a trip more than two hours ahead of time so that there is actually a possibility of finding a room or campsite available upon arrival to a national park on Labor Day weekend.

A Most Memorable Week

This has been quite a week for unusual weather related events in the Mid Atlantic. Unless you have been living under a rock I can hardly imagine you going through this last week without hearing some mention of Hurricane Irene and her terrible rampage of destruction across the Eastern seaboard. As it turns out the reality for most people in the path of the hurricane ended up being rather milder than what had been forecast (though there are certainly particular areas that were much more dramatically impacted). Such was the case for both Alison and myself. Even so, it was quite an interesting period of time in which to be in the area!

Even before Irene made landfall strange and unusual occurrences were taking place in Northern Virginia. Last Tuesday Alison and I were sitting on the couch in her home discussing some verses in Ephesians and what they revealed about God's plan and design for the world when suddenly the room began to shake. It first seemed as though someone was very heavily ascending the outside stairs leading to the front door and then as though a rather large truck were passing by on the street outside. This sensation ceased after a few seconds but before we even had a chance to say anything about it, it started again, only much stronger and more forcefully. Soon the entire house was shaking to the point where we began to fear that pieces of the ceiling were going to fall on top of us. I was just thinking that we had better move and try to at least get under the table when it stopped as quickly as it had begun.

My first thought was that it had been an earthquake, but I dismissed this thought as impossible considering where we were. That thought as quickly followed by the realization that what my experienced may well have been a shock wave emanating from an explosive attack on the US Capitol, less than a mile down the road. I quickly went to the front door where I could ascertain that the capitol was, in fact, still there, and that there was no visible damage anywhere within view.

It did, of course, turn out that what we had felt was, in fact, an earthquake despite us residing on the wrong coast. We escaped unscathed as did Alison's house, apart from several new cracks and a thin layer of plaster dust deposited upon her bed. Several other structures of note in the city were not so lucky. Amongst those was the Washington Monument, which was severely cracked near the top and lost significant pieces of both mortar and stone throughout the monument.

I returned to Shenandoah just in time to weather the effects of Irene, which really turned out to primarily be a large rainstorm for us, largely indistinguishable from other large storms except for the duration (this was significantly longer than others).

These events certainly would have been enough to make for a notable and interesting week, but the week was made more significant for Alison and I because it also marked the anniversary of the official beginning of our dating relationship a year ago. On Thursday I hiked the trail where we first kissed and I later proposed one year after the former took place. On Friday she surprised me by arriving at the visitor center just before I got off of work, having driven out to the park to spend the evening with me.

Sandwiched in between the aforementioned natural disturbances, these joyous moments officially cemented this as a most memorable week indeed!

Delving Under the Apparent Surface

It is oft stated that looks can be deceiving. Things are frequently described as containing more than meets the eye.  It is unmistakably true that there is nearly always more to be seen if one is willing to delve beneath the apparent surface as it is presented before one’s eyes.  It is equally true that in engaging in such a quest one can find great beauty, once the outer façade is peeled away. It is no less true that, in equal measure, one can also unearth completely unexpected and downright strange apparitions.

In my position as a park ranger it is not infrequently the case that conversations with visitors will fall into the latter category. People are strange. There is really no way around that simple truth. People are strange and do remarkably senseless things. Books could be filled with accounts of such things but I feel compelled to share only a few that I have borne witness to here in the park in recent days.
Last week a man came to the park with a hiking group out of Maryland. No one else in the group knew him or knew anything about them. And yet he came. The group began hiking along the Appalachian Trail in an area of the park where the only trail intersection for miles in either direction is with a trail heading to the summit of the park’s highest peak, this group’s first destination for the day. When the group arrived at said summit they realized that one of their number was not with them, none other than the aforementioned individual. Upon further reflection the other 15 people realized that not one of them could positively state that they had seen this man once they had disembarked from the vehicles at the trailhead. They had absolutely no idea where he was.

This moment marked the beginning of what became a four day search, culminating when our intrepid adventurer was discovered sitting in the middle of a creek, soaked through and having clearly been in the water for some time, nearly at the boundary of the park in an area with no trails anywhere nearby. How he got there or why he possibly ended up on such a course remains a mystery. Sometimes there is simply no answer to such questions.

Among the many people I interact with in the visitor center every once in a while one stands out as particularly unique. Such was the case earlier this week when a boy or around twelve years old obnoxiously and repeatedly interrupted his father as he was attempting to make a purchase at the register in order to entertain all those within hearing with his imitation of a whale. After the fourth or fifth time he engaged in this action his father finally inquired what he was doing, whereupon the boy informed him with an air of great disdain that he was clearly imitating a whale. When he was asked why he was doing such a thing the boy replied, as if it should clearly be obvious without need of telling, that he was imitating the whales which so frequently graced the meadow which he gesticulated toward out the window. Sometimes it is better to not even try to understand.
And yet, in equal measure to such encounters there are also moments that make one’s heart swell with emotion, hope, and respect and sometimes an entirely unforeseen pattern lying beneath the visible surface.

In this last week three such moments stand out in particular relief. The first began with a woman asking me how she might find the Dean cemetery (one of several old family cemeteries’ that are still maintained and used within the park). As I began to describe the location her husband approached insisting that he knew the way. I inquired how he was so sure and he responded by telling me that his grandfather used to own Dean Mountain, that he was himself a Dean, and that his own grave and that of his wife were already laid out in the cemetery. They were at the park to visit their own tombstone.
Just today a young woman approached the desk to ask for a recommendation for a hike, not be any means an unusual occurrence. What quickly marked her as more interesting than the average visitor were the questions she began to ask, questions that revealed not only an experienced hiker, but also  a distinct familiarity with the Park Service. It turns out that she worked for five years as an interpreter at Delaware Water Gap until she finally gave up on perpetually failing to acquire a permanent position in interpretation and took a job last year working at the main NPS headquarters in DC through the SCEP program as a student pursuing her masters degree. I found her situation immensely intriguing as it bore so many similarities to my own. Especially as this very program (which provides continuous employment in a directly related field while one is in school in particular fields of study and results in conversion to a permanent position once the degree is attained) is one that I am pursuing in hopes of doing the very same thing, except that I would go back to working as a ranger on the mall.

I went in to the mall to return the volunteer uniform I had used last winter and to check on the staffing situation as the MLK Memorial is opening this next week. When I inquired about positions being available I was told that nothing could be done until a budget is approved for this next year. But then one of my former supervisors asked if I had ever considered the aforementioned program. I had not. As it happens, I have already been accepted into a program that would qualify for the program and have only to let the school know that I want to reopen my application for consideration for the spring semester to hopefully be enrolled as a student once again. Of course there is no guarantee and this too is dependent upon the budget, which means that best case scenario I won’t know anything until October (if congress actually decides to bother to pass a budget on time this year as opposed to doing so in April), but it is still more reason to hope than I have had in quite a while. Sometimes delving beneath the surface and veering from the well trodden path opens up previously unforeseen possibilities.

A few months ago I acquired a dining room table for free off of craigslist. The surface of this table was badly damaged and looked very uneven and battered, but in looking closer I discerned that it was constructed of good quality wood and that with patience and a caring hand it could be restored to a beautiful and functional dining centerpiece.

Last week Alison and I engaged ourselves in an attempt to do precisely that, to restore this battered and trashy looking table to a symbol of beauty lying beneath the surface. It was a much more challenging project than anticipated and required a great deal of sanding to remove the previous surface and to find bare wood, but we succeeded. And after reconfiguring and reattaching the legs and sanding, staining, and resealing the table we now have a beautiful table, made so through our shared labor of love.

The final moment with which I will close this account occurred yesterday, once again at the desk of the visitor center. A young couple when purchasing several items at the register produced a Grand Canyon Association card. This immediately caught my eye, but I was made even curiouser when I noted that the card was acquired only a few weeks before. I couldn’t help but inquire about the story of how they had found themselves at the Canyon only a few weeks previously (at the north rim as it turns out, as they have deliberately sought the most beautiful, even if more remote, corners of our nation) and now stood in front of me in Shenandoah.

The story that emerged was one of dedication, devotion, perseverance, and inspiration for me in the situation I currently find myself in. They were from Australia, had been married two years previously, and had both long desired to visit the United States but had never been able to do so. So when they got married they covenanted together that they would live as simply as possible, saving all the money they could for as long as it took to allow them to visit the United States. It took them two years. When I saw them they were but a few days away from completing a trip two days shy of three months (so they wouldn’t have to get any special visas) that had taken them across the length of breadth of this nation, with visits to many of the national parks that lie between California and Maine.  On the surface they were but another young couple buying postcards at the visitor center, but in delving beneath the apparent surface I discovered that they were the physical embodiment of a dream made into a reality through dedication and sacrifice.

Yes people are strange. But they are also beautiful. One never knows what one will find when one travels beneath the surface.

Budgeting for the Future

We once again find ourselves on the edge of a precipice, awaiting a possible plunge over the edge into an abyss wrought by the escalating debt of our nation. And once again these matters of budget in Washington have the potential to profoundly affect my life.

I know I can stay here at Shenandoah into November, but after that there is a big question mark. And most parks are very hesitant to look toward hiring anyone as they do not know what kind of budget cuts are going to be imposed. That leaves me in a pretty tough spot.

The same can be said for Alison as she too faces a notable lack of hiring across the government for the same reasons. It is making it increasingly difficult to attempt to make any plans for our marriage and our future together.

Even so, there are many reasons to be thankful and numerous blessings prevailing in our lives.
Chief amongst them at present is that, although the governmental outlook is rather dismal, Alison is starting in her new position at a local Starbucks tomorrow. So at present we are both employed in some capacity. That is indeed reason to be thankful!

I also continue to be amazed that I am being paid to live here in Shenandoah. Although it has been quite hot recently, it is notably cooler up in the mountains than down in the DC swamp and the berries continue to be ripe. Last weekend Alison made delectable muffins with fresh mountain blueberries that I had picked in the meadow here in the park. Yum!

On Thursday morning I hiked out to a nearby peak called "Cat Knob." The name proved to be entirely appropriate as it was along this trail that I spotted my first confirmed bobcat here in the park as it ran through the trees when it sensed my approach.

God is continuing to provide for our needs as we move forward in faith that he has brought us together and brought us to this place according to his purposes. I believe that a way will open, though I cannot see it as I look forward at this time. Even so, it would still be really nice if congress could do what they are paid to do and stop making it so difficult for people like us to survive!

Setting Forth on a Journey

You never know who you are going to meet or what you might find when you set out on a journey. That is the thing about journeys. They are defined by the unknown, by mysteries and surprises. If you knew what was going to happen it wouldn’t be much of a journey at all. Perhaps that is why the notion of a journey appeals to me so much. Some journeys are epic in scale and others are much smaller. In the midst of the greater journey of life I enjoyed some unique smaller ones here in the park in the last couple of days.

Alison got a job nannying this week which meant that she could not come out to visit me and it made no sense for me to go into DC to visit her since she would be busy for more than 10 hours a day.  So that meant I had the much needed opportunity to both rest and catch up on things here after nearly a month of largely being absent. It also meant that I could do some longer and more demanding hikes here in the park. I decided to do the former today and the latter both Monday and Tuesday.

On Monday I hiked a six mile loop that included the most demanding ascent that I have undertaken in the park. It was ridiculous. One ranger has dubbed it the “Stairway to Heaven” because it seems as though the steps carved out of the steep face of the mountain ascend indefinitely all the way out of the earth’s atmosphere. It feels like that climbing up them too!

So there I was climbing and climbing up these steps when I saw someone coming down toward me at a much greater rate of speed. As he passed he stopped to say hello and in the conversation that followed I learned that I was talking to him in the midst of his third trip up and back down the mountain that day and that he intended to do a fourth. I was struggling to make it up once and he was going both directions  four times consecutively?!?!?

I went on to learn that he was conditioning himself  because at the end of the month he was going to hike to the summit of the highest peaks in Wyoming, Idaho, and Nevada.  He had also recently returned from climbing Everest.

Quite an interesting person to run into out on the trails! Oh, and did I mention he was in his 60s?!?!
Yesterday I decided to tackle a demanding loop in the Northern section of the park that travels up to a summit and down to a beautiful stream, which the trail follows for more than 5 miles as it works its way back up the canyon. It is a hike I have wanted to do for a while, but the loop is 14 miles so it is not exactly possible after getting off of work!

I decided to add a bit extra to the hike and actually did a 17 mile circuit, all of which on trails I had never been on before. I saw two bears and four people in that 17 miles. I also saw two rattlesnakes. I have not seen a rattlesnake in this park before, but within ¼ mile I came across two, or rather the two guys in front of me did about two minutes before I arrived. They were still trying to figure out what to do about the first snake when I arrived and came across the second with me trailing about 200 yards behind. In both cases the snakes were right next to the trail, coiled and ready to strike. With a little encouragement both the snakes elected to move further away, thus allowing us to pass safely. But in either case it would have been very easy to step right on the snake if one was not paying attention! I sure was glad they were in front of me!

But it wasn’t the snakes or the bears or even the distance that was most unique about the hike, it was the berries. I started that hike about 1200 feet lower than the elevation of Big Meadows where I live. That meant that the berries were much riper there than they are here. And since it is perfectly acceptable to consume berries one finds in the park I proceeded to do exactly that.

It began with blueberries, which I picked and ate as I traveled down the mountain to the stream. I was happy with that and figured that would be it for the day, but as I came back up the other side I discovered that the blackberries there were beginning to ripen. So I enjoyed several handfuls of tasty blackberries. I came out to the drive about ½ a mile from where I was parked and could have just walked down the road to my truck, but I knew there was a trail about 1/10 of a mile on the other side of the road and decided to take that instead. It was well I did for on that trail I discovered Raspberry bushes, also with many berries ripe for the picking.

In fact when I first paused and moved toward them I suddenly heard grunting and a great deal of rustling in the bushes about ten feet away and realized that I had unwittingly disturbed a bear who was in the midst of enjoying the berries himself!

So in the space of a single hike I found and enjoyed blue, black, and raspberries, all straight of the bushes as fresh and tasty as one could desire.

You never know who you are going to meet or what you might find when you set out on a journey.

The Blessings of Blueberries

I am blessed indeed to have this job. I have been keenly reminded of that fact over the past few days. I am living in an amazingly beautiful place and getting paid to help people appreciate the wonder around them. That is a pretty good gig!

In addition to the general value of working here at Shenandoah these last few days have contained some extra special reminders.

Normally when I arrive at work in the morning there are several other rangers engaged in various activities necessary to begin the day. Yesterday when I walked into the Visitor Center I was the only one in the building which meant I quickly became responsible for doing everything required to open at 8:30 (a task nearly impossible to accomplish in 15 minutes). While that could have been a bit stressful, any such feelings were mitigated by the sight of two adorable fawns curled up in the grass right outside the main viewing windows of the visitor center.

I watched those fawns for a while, but that was not to be my last experience with fawns. I saw another pair of twins driving back from work yesterday and then saw yet another pair and a group of triplets while hiking today. Fawns everywhere!

I also continue to be amazed at what I get paid to do here. This morning I once again got paid to hike several miles along a beautiful trail, something I get to do with some regularity.  But perhaps the best circumstance in my time here thus far happened Thursday morning when I got paid to go out in the meadow and gather wild mountain blueberries with another ranger while enjoying a spectacular spring-like day.

Our lives are filled with blessings if we take the time to see them!

Life is the Sum Total of Moments Such as These

The theme of the value and significance of moments in our lives is one that has often made an appearance in these emails. This latest edition is proving to be no exception. It has been quite a while since I was last able to write and the intervening days from then to now have been filled to overflowing with memorable moments.

Between June 20 and July 20 I will have spent a total of five nights in my house in Shenandoah. Every other night I have found myself sleeping somewhere else in locations ranging from Washington, DC to Broomfield, CO. These last few weeks have been rather full to say the least!

Nearly a month ago theaters around the country began a three week special engagement in which they showed the extended editions of the Lord of the Rings on three consecutive Tuesday nights. Sadly Alison and I were unable to make it to either the second or the third films, but we did attend the first, watching all 3.5 hours of the extended edition of Lord of the Rings:The Fellowship of the Ring the only time it has every been shown on the big screen. It was pretty exciting, especially since I thought I would never get to watch Lord of the Rings in such a fashion again!

The night after the film we attended a Washington Nationals baseball game, bearing witness to them creaming the Cardinals 10-0. Although this is this is the only game I have been able to attend this season Alison has made it to four more since then!

The following Monday my Mom and Callie arrived in Shenandoah with Alison, joined by Kristen and Corey the following day, allowing us a couple of days of fun and exploration together in the park. The visit culminated with the official 75th Anniversary celebration of Shenandoah National Park on Saturday, June 25. Definitely a week filled with special moments, lots of hiking, and a plethora of blackberry deserts (Shakes, Ice Cream, Sunday, Cobbler, Ice Cream Pie, and Jam that was so good it was like desert)!

I flew out to Colorado the morning following the anniversary so that I could attend the wedding of one of Alison's childhood friends. The next morning Alison and I began driving her car east toward Washington, DC, beginning a three day adventure that resulted in her car finally being with her out on the East Coast (her parents had driven it from California to Colorado).

We couldn't simply drive across the country on the most direct path, but rather had to make a few diversions along the way. These diversions took us to quite a few exciting gems and resulted in us traveling through eleven states including two new ones for each of us. That brings our count for states visited together since Dec. 13 of 2010 to 28 (not bad for seven months!) and my personal count to 42 states in the last two years and 44 states total. We are getting fairly close to all 50!

Highlights along our journey included a brief stop for lunch and pictures in Ogalalla, Nebraska, a visit to a genuine Pony Express Station, a stop off at the Herbert Hoover National Historic Site in West Branch, Iowa, participation in the Taste of Chicago street festival, sticking our feet in the waters of Lake Michigan in Benton Harbor, MI, and a jaunt through Cuyahoga Valley National Park in Ohio. I would certainly have enjoyed more time in each location, but we did have to make it back to Shenandoah by Wednesday night so I could go to work the next morning!

The story continued a few days later when Alison and I successfully found a spot on the grass in front of the Washington Monument for a lovely view of the Independence Day Celebration on the National Mall.

We headed back out toward Shenandoah the following day because I had to be back to take care of cats and water plants. I have been house sitting for the acting Chief of Interpretation of Shenandoah since July 1 which means I have actually had to commute into work each day and also that I have had the opportunity to appreciate and experience the Shenandoah Valley a great deal more than I have before.

When I was picking up one of the items of furniture I attained for free when I first came to DC I also ended up with a raft, which I had never taken out of the box. We figured me living in the Shenandoah Valley was a great opportunity to give it a test, so Alison and I took it out on the Shenandoah River last Wednesday. It performed quite well and we enjoyed a splendid afternoon on the water.

It has been an adventurous and exciting last several weeks and it looks like the next few will continue in the same vein, at work as well as outside of it. I hiked a little over 10 miles in the park today, completing a circuit I had not succeeded in hiking thus far and moving further toward my goal of eventually hiking all 516 miles of trails in the park. I have written several times about my program on the Appalachian Trail which I have been able to actually give a few times in these last weeks, but this past Friday I decided to try something different just for fun and successfully gave my first bear talk at Shenandoah. It was great fun. Everybody loves to learn about bears!

Life is ever an adventure!