Home is Where You Hang Your Chacos

After a full six months of internet silence, I've decided to fire up the blog once more. Here's the condensed version: after another season teaching snowboarding at Whitefish Mountain Resort, at Big Mountain, in Whitefish, Montana, I spent two weeks in Oregon with my boyfriend Nathan and our friends Jason and Abby: snowboarding, touring Portland, and enjoying the coast. (You can check out those photos here if you so desire).

Safely back in Montana, I'm now shacked up in West Glacier to try my hand at raft guiding. Nathan has been kind enough to lend me his 12' 1958 Siesta camper for the summer. It's got a propane stove, electric lights, and the most awesome moose-print cushions you've ever seen. Montana Raft, my current employers, have a camp ground available to employees and there are all sorts of set-ups out here: traditional campers, old buses, 20-person tents, not to mention ingenious tarp shelters and a steadily growing herd of dogs.

Here's my new home, complete with camo tarp

We'll see how the house plants fare. I may let them out to roam when it gets warmer.
The kitchen is cozy but functional, and I'm so excited to have a gas stove

My sister made that beautiful blanket on the bed for a college art class

Now that I've renewed my Wilderness First Responder and been on the river a couple times, the next hurdle will be Swift Water Rescue. The weather is calling for temperatures in the 80s, which is a good thing since there's gong to be a lot of time spent in 35 degree water. Yeeha!

Halloween in November

The last time I knocked on a door while wearing a costume I was 12 years old and they were giving me candy. There's usually something wrong if you're 24 and running around at night doing the same thing. But Tuesday night, that's exactly what I was doing, complete with a full body bear suit. Granted, I wasn't exactly in my right mind, due to a marathon journey from southern Vietnam through Bangkok and back to Portland. As such I hadn't really slept in three days, and even now my brain is still somewhere over Hong Kong.

That is still no excuse for standing on my own doorstep dressed like Smokey's little brother. Eventually my dad answered the doorbell and I lumbered in, peering through the mesh eye holes and trying to string together coherent sentences in a disguised voice. My mother sized up this costumed intruder in gleeful disbelief. As Bernie the Bear launched into his singing telegram, serenading my mother with a version of "Happy Birthday", she happened to glance down at the dancing feet. The suit didn't quite cover my toes and my mother somehow recognized them, as only a mother can. I removed the mask at the end of my song and squeezed my mom as she leaped into my arms, screaming with joy for a good 10 minutes, rendered ecstatically speechless by the appearance of her wandering daughter, garbed in a bear suit, showing up a week early, and on her birthday no less.

Thanks to my dad's amazing brainstorm I made a quality entrance back to the United States, and that means that yes, I'm back. I'll respond to emails, answer the phone to share stories, and probably show up on your doorstep if you're in the Portland area. It has been an amazing adventure to say the least. I'm still getting used to wandering down the grocery aisles full of strange and familiar products, and I have to keep reminding myself that I'm not in Asia any more as I drive around town.

Thank you all for reading my rants of the last six months - it's been a fun experiment. If you want to hear more I can deliver it all in person. For those of you in Montana, I'll see you soon. For those of you elsewhere, best of luck on wherever your adventures take you.

I Survived Saigon

I'm a couple hours away from successfully exiting this teeming city, but it's not Saigon itself that will kill you, it's the getting there part. I left my guesthouse on Phu Quoc Island at 6:30 Sunday morning. One of the young women running the guesthouse came out in her pajamas, saddled up her motor bike, and gave me a lift down the bumpy red dirt road into town. There I was loaded onto a mini-bus with several other passengers for the 20 km drive down to the boat pier at the island's southern tip.

The ferry ride began with some Ben and Jerry cartoons, with techno music thumping on the sound system. Then we got to watch not only "The Gods Must Be Crazy" but "The Gods Must Be Crazy, Part II", dubbed and subtitled in Vietnamese. The seas were rough enough that the attendants were handing out plastic bags but thankfully I didn't see, or hear, anyone using them.

At the pier in Rach Gia, back on the mainland, it was a short scooter ride to the bus station, which turned out to be a small kiosk tucked between two local eateries. I partook in the common hobby of sitting on the sidewalk in a low plastic chair, sipping strong coffee, and watching the traffic fly by. The rest of the men sitting around greatly enjoyed my tattoo and spent a good while staring and giggling. People came by selling sun glasses, lottery tickets, fresh fruit, and we kept waiting.

20 minutes after the appointed time the mini-van rolled up. The puppy in its carrier was stowed under the back seat with the bags of potatoes, passengers were assigned seats, and luggage was pile in whatever voids were left to be filled. The sliding door required some strong persuasion to stay shut, and threatened to fly off throughout the journey. Every single road seemed to be under construction, trucks came flying past a hair's breath away, and there were motor scooters zipping any and every direction they liked. Men emerged dripping from setting fishing nets in the murky roadside ponds and canals. Rain showers came and went. All in all, a typical Vietnamese road trip.

Even after navigating the impending Saigon traffic to the Mien Thay bus station, the journey wasn't over yet. That station happens to be a good 10 km from the city center, and the moto taxis enjoy levelling exorbitant rates to get you there. Somehow, though, I managed to sneak aboard a city bus that eventually stopped somewhere familiar, and got away with a 25 cent ride. A short hike and some enquiries later, by 8:00 I had a windowless cell in which to spend the night and a butt entirely numb from the twelve hour journey. It's more stubborness than endurance that's gotten me this far.

In other news, my dad's been at it again. If you're interested, or just wasting time online, you can flip through all my adventures with Nathan in Thailand by clicking here, or you can see what I got up to in Vietnam before my mother arrived by clicking here. I preface this with the statement that these photos have not been edited beyond their orientation, so proceed at your own risk.