Almost ready
Now Playing: Genesis: 'Inside and Out'
Topic: Travel
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23:25 Sunday, 05 February, 2006
Endwell, NY


Well, I'm as ready as I'm going to get tonight. I'm getting up early to catch the kids at the bus-stop and say good-bye, then come back here to pack the car. That could take a little while, but I've got time. I really wish I could have packed the car today, but it was dark long after I was to that point, and I'd spent the previous two days doing my taxes ($1000 back), so I had no choice. That's O.K., though; unless something goes wrong tomorrow, I should be ready in plenty of time, and that's all that matters. :)


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Not as ready as I'd hoped
Now Playing: Genesis: 'Watcher of the Skies'
Topic: Travel
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00:28 Thursday, 24 February, 2005
Endwell, NY


Man, I don't feel ready to leave tomorrow. Today, really. In fact, in 14 hours. That's the idea, anyway. My car was in the shop for the past two and a half days, and that kinda threw off my plans. Actually, I'd originally wanted to leave today (I mean, yesterday: We-23). Th-24 was the back-up date. So I guess it's good that I left myself that cushion, but I figured I'd at least have the car packed by now. But, no. I came from picking up my car and was gone all evening until an hour ago. And now I'm sleepy, and have a lot of work to do tomorrow.


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Going to Utah this summer
Now Playing: Crosby, Stills, & Nash: 'Music is Love'
Topic: Travel
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16:30 Thursday, 17 February, 2005
Endwell, NY


Hi everybody!

It's that time of year again, when Fidget runs off to somewhere new. This time I'm going to be a server at a restaurant in Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, which is on Lake Powell in Utah. Lake Powell is really a reservoir on the Colorado River, and is formed by the Glen Canyon Dam just up-stream from the Grand Canyon. So there are Rocky Mountains all around, but down where I will be it's all desert.

Being a desert, it's going to be rather warm, and this means they have a longer tourist season, extending from March until the end of October. In fact, they stay open year-round, though on a smaller scale in the winter. So this could theoretically be a permanent-forever job, if I wanted it to be. We'll see. At any rate, they're expecting me to stay until at least the 31st of October, so that's what I'm planning on at this point.

I'm starting my drive next week, either on We-23 or Th-24-Feb. I'll be driving down to North Carolina first, to visit my brother in Durham, and then across to Colorado to visit Gypsy in Denver. Taking this southerly route will keep me away from any of the snowy messiness that happens along the Great Lakes, making for a safer drive. It also happens to take me through three states which are new to me, so I'm excited about that.


I've gotten a new, national, cell-phone plan with Cingular, so I can talk to people with Cingular or AT&T cell-phones any time of day now, without it costing me any minutes or anything. So if anyone feels like chatting while I'm spending so many hours alone driving in the car, let me know. :) I only use my hands-free ear-phone thing, so it's safe, don't worry.

I've also put all of my old travel e-mails on my web-site, so you can read them there if you never got them or whatever. It's one of those on-line journals, so there's all sorts of other interesting stuff to read there. My trip to Alaska this summer was from May through October, so that's where there are travels to read about. You can also scroll down to 2002 where I wrote a lot about traveling in China, if you never got to hear those stories. In addition, I have lots of pictures on-line, and you can e-mail me so I can give you access to them.


?Fidget


www.AngelFire.com/comics/fidget



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Happy Winter!
Now Playing: Pink Floyd: Obscured by Clouds
Topic: Travel
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00:00 Tuesday, 15 February, 2005
Endwell, NY


I'm setting this to post in the future so no-one reads it before getting the letter I'm sending it in.



Monday, 31 January, 2005

Happy Winter!

I'm a month or two late for Christmas cards, but it's a miracle I got them out at all. I'm a trained procrastinator, and this is the first year I've successfully sent cards out. Every year I buy some, and then I never manage to do anything with them. So I had several years' worth of different cards to choose from here.
2004 had me starting out at my parents' house in Endwell, NY, working as a server at a Denny's restaurant. I worked late-night, meaning my shift was typically from 10pm until 6am, with some variation therein. This made for some odd sleeping schedules, but it was good money, and I loved being up at sunrise every morning. I spent a lot of time hiking when I wasn't working, and also planning for the summer. I was heading to Skagway, Alaska, on the recommendation of a friend I'd made on my way to Denali, AK, in 2002.
I started out my drive north by going south with my family to go to my brother's house-mate's wedding in Boone, NC. Soccer's been Hawk's best friend all his life, and has been a friend of the family, so we all wanted to go down for it, and decided to make a bigger trip out of it. So, after the wedding (which was beautiful), Mom, Dad, Hawk, JollyGreen, and I went to visit the Biltmore Mansion in Asheville, NC. We then drove through the Great Smoky Mountain National Park and went to Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, TN. From there we split paths, and I returned to the Smokies to back-pack a few days with my friend, Gypsy, who was down from CT job-hunting. I then drove up to Chicago to visit my friend and once-upon-a-time babysitter, Ribbit. There I picked up EagerBeaver, a good friend from home, to make the rest of the drive to Alaska with me. We toured the Loess Hills in Iowa, Badlands NP and the Black Hills NF in South Dakota, Devil's Tower and Yellowstone NP in Wyoming, climbed over the Rockies in Montana and the Idaho pan-handle, crossed Washington state to Seattle, and headed up through the Coast Mountains of British Columbia and the Yukon Territory to get to Skagway, AK. From there EagerBeaver had to fly back home to get ready for her mission trip in Santiago, Chile, and I started work as a kayak guide for the cruise-boat tourists.
It was an incredibly beautiful summer, and I loved working outside and with people. The job presented its own challenges, of course, as these were grown men and women who were not used to physical activity and had never done anything remotely like kayaking before, but it was immensely rewarding getting to expose these people to a pristine, alpine-tundra environment, something they'd never experienced before. We paddled around on a glacial lake in a high, mountain valley on the Canadian border, and I told them about the geology and nature around them, and about the Klondike gold rush that had stamped through that same valley from 1897 to 1900. When not working, I spent a lot of time hiking and hanging out with the friends I made at the church in town.
When all the businesses shut down for the season, I headed for my cousin's wedding in New Orleans, by a somewhat indirect route. I drove back down through the Yukon and British Columbia to Seattle, WA, and Portland, OR, and then to the coast, which I followed along Oregon and California to San Diego. From there I dipped briefly into Mexico before cutting across the bottoms of Arizona and New Mexico to drive straight across Texas to Louisiana. It was great seeing the whole family at the wedding, which was elaborately gorgeous. From New Orleans I headed north to visit a friend in Charlotte, NC, and stopped at the New River Gorge in West Virginia on my way to Grove City, PA (where I'd gone to college). There I stayed with Dawg & Mulderenvy a few days before finally making it home to my parents' house.
I decided to stay home for the holidays, and got a job working for UPS helping deliver packages during their busy season. It was a lot of fun, and I certainly wouldn't mind doing it again. However, their busy-ness was done by the end of December, which is an awkward time to find a seasonal job. So I searched around and applied everywhere, and was offered a serving position at the restaurant in Bullfrog Marina on Lake Powell in the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area in south-east Utah. Lake Powell is the reservoir formed by the Glen Canyon Dam, just up-stream from the Grand Canyon. It will be hot, dry, beautiful country. I start my drive out there around the 18th of February, and I'll probably be there until October or so.
I wrote more extensively about all of these trips and e-mailed them to people as I went, but if you didn't get them, I have them all up on my web-site now. It's one of those on-line journals, so there's all sorts of other interesting stuff to read there. The trip was from May through October, so that's where there are travels to read about. You can also scroll down to 2002 where I wrote a lot about traveling in China, if you never got to hear those stories. I also have lots of pictures on-line, and you can e-mail me so I can give you access to them.

Anyway, I hope this finds you well, and here's to a peaceful 2005.




Fidget
www.AngelFire.com/comics/fidget




In writing this letter, I had to cut some stuff out, but you can read it here:


It was an incredibly beautiful summer, and I loved working outside and with people. The job presented its own challenges, of course, as these were grown (and in many cases, over-grown) men and women who were not used to physical activity and had never done anything remotely like kayaking before, so they were a little scared of drowning and a little frustrated at their lack of coordination, and then had to listen to 'kids' half their age giving them advice. It was immensely rewarding getting to expose these people to a pristine, alpine-tundra environment, something they'd never experienced before, but some people never even noticed it because they were too busy trying to keep up with the group and not knowing how to deal with their own incapabilities. If the passengers would just allow themselves to admit that they were slower than others, we'd split the group and give them a personal tour at their own pace, allowing them the same amount of time to learn about and experience the nature around them but requiring a shorter distance for them to paddle, but many were too caught up in making it a competition and being determined not to be seen (by these people who don't even know them) as the slowest in the group.


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I need a new camera.
Topic: Travel
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13:26 Thursday, 03 February, 2005
Endwell, NY


I was flipping through my pictures from China and Denali last night, and I was amazed at the beauty of the pictures compared to my most recent pictures from Skagway. The difference, of course, is that I had a really nice camera stolen in China, and I've since been stuck with this junky non-focus, non-zoom 35mm that I was given for Christmas when I was like 12. I could easily have bought a new camera since China, but I don't want to spend my money on something that's a compromise; if I'm going to buy a camera, it's going to be the one I want: a digital SLR. They only made them affordable a year ago, and I haven't had the extra money to buy one yet. So I knew my pictures this past summer weren't great, but I hadn't looked at my older pictures in a while, and when I did I saw how much of a difference a good camera can really make. Like, I've got a few pictures from this summer which are of places I shot two years before with a better camera, but it looks like two separate places because of the difference in photo quality. It's amazing. I've got a few things I want to buy once I have money again, but the camera is looking more and more like a priority on that list....


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