Well. I am finally in Michigan.
Over the last couple weeks I have been traveling, camping, hiking, exploring some of the greatest national parks in the country. My great friend, Rachel Tinknell came out to Colorado and we set out on an epic adventure to Great Sand Dunes, Mesa Verde, Grand Canyon, Zion, Bryce, Lake Powell, Arches, and rounded it out with some white water rafting down the Colorado. It was an amazing trip, and when I'm functioning on more than 3 hours of sleep (after the quick 22 hour drive across the country), I will go into greater detail about the amazing sights!
For now... a couple highlights:
After a long day of driving Rachel and I finally arrived in some national forest just north of Durango... I threw the tent up in the dark, which wasn't a big deal but it was getting cold. We were completely exhausted and simply wanted to sleep. Raye as all ready to get inside the tent when she turned to me and asked where the sleeping bags were. I was a little perplexed because why should i have any idea where she put her sleeping bag in the car? She grabbed by little Sierra Designs and asked if this was one of them... still confused I said yeah that's mine... I began to put things together. She informed me that I was supposed to pack a sleeping bag for her. Of course I offered this to her on the phone in conversation and inconveniently forget this little detail after the fact. Good one Cath. So I gave her my sleeping bag, because it was my bad. I totally offered to grab her one from my roommates... whoops. Well, like I mentioned, it was getting pretty chilly, but I'm thinking i'm tough, so I throw a nice fleece on and grab my down jacket just in case it gets any colder. Of course it's going to get colder. I curl into a ball and try to force my legs into a sleeve of the jacket. I pull the body of the jacket as high as possible and kind of tuck the 2nd arm around and under my butt. There was constant repositioning all night. Something was consistently cold on my body... why didn't I just grab more clothes from the car?
I locked the keys inside.
Yep. Good move number 2. I realized shortly after I went to bed that I had locked the keys in the car. When I told Rachel I did something quite stupid, she immediately knew. She was able to ignore it and realize that there wasn't anything to be done at that moment, and we'd address the situation tomorrow morning. Me being the ridiculous human I am began to hike out of the forest convinced I'd get cell coverage eventually (terrible idea), attempted to pry the doors open in the middle of the night (maybe if I just pull hard enough... ha), and contemplated throwing a rock through the window (not exactly a good solution). Eventually the morning arrived and my AAA hero Raymond rescued us around 9am. We loved Raymond. Loved. He brightened our day more than we could have even imagined. And we even got a toot toot from him on his way out.
More stories and pictures to come :)
Stay Tuned..
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Whirlwind of a Fourth
The past few weeks have been just crazy. Crazy sad, crazy busy, and crazy exhausting. I have always felt like my life was pretty ordinary and boring, and lately I have been feeling like it is just the opposite. I can't wait for things to settle down a bit and to just take a break, and feel like I can breathe once again... My days leading up to the Fourth of July and those following have been jam packed.
I have been getting these painful headaches as a lingering result of my concussion which thankfully have improved. And flying home was such a painful experience. I don't remember crying so much in a few short days as I have during this past week. Remembering the life of John Douglas LaDuke has been an emotional roller coaster. I loved seeing my cousins and family, but we were all mourning the loss of this amazing person. Seeing my parents and sister was fantastic, but we were there providing shoulders for each other to lean on.
Flying back to Denver has been non-stop since my arrival. On Saturday I basically came home and immediately packed up to head into the mountains to try to escape reality for a bit. Nature is always a pretty good idea for me when it comes to guaranteed happiness :) I headed up Guanella Pass and found great National Forest Land camping (aka, free, rustic, and phenomenal landscape). The highlight of the night was when two cars full of people pulled up and were motioning that that were going to camp right on our site and speaking Spanish amongst themselves... that was a close call. Luckily one of them had some sense to convince the group to keep on heading up the pass. On Sunday I summited my third 14er- Mount Bierstadt. It was super fun, and I got to meet the cutest 5 year old named Rowen! Sunday night I headed south to Mt. Princeton hot springs and camped in National Forest land by Buena Vista. This spot only had a yelper of a dog near our site!
On our way back to Denver I found out that a friend of mine, especially Jared's, overdosed this past weekend while camping with his girlfriend. She woke up Sunday morning to discover he wasn't breathing... Another life taken far, far too young. I am hurting for all of his family, especially his parents, and younger brother and sister. The four of them are in town now, and will soon be flying back to Michigan where a more expansive and formal ceremony will take place. I hope that his family will somehow be able to cope with this sudden and tragic loss.
Coping with 2 recent deaths at work is somewhat of an impossible task... Basically you don't have time for any thoughts at work outside of thinking about your students' needs, behaviors, goals, etc. Like I have mentioned before my classroom is meant to function on a 1 to 1 ratio of students to staff. When 2 staff are out with knee injuries, and 1 gets transferred to work in another classroom, the class becomes extremely unmanageable. So the past couple days have been really fun. Lots of restraints, lots of running around, lots of getting hit, yelled at, dealing with negative behaviors, and so on and so fourth. AHHHHDJAFK;WEAFKJ is basically what I was yelling all day in my head. Highlight: running between the fire alarm door and a different classroom trying to block my student from setting the alarm off and running into the other classroom to wreak havoc. Lets just say I have some battle wounds. Luckily my coworker rescued me shortly after only to stand outside with the student for 30 minutes in the pouring rain while waiting for the bus... without a jacket. Then the same coworker had to wait with another student for an extra hour because his bus broke down and they had no way to get home. What a day... and that is only the tip of the ice burg of what all occurred today. YIKES.
So... I'm hoping things settle down. Soon. My last day at work is on Friday, but I actually don't know if I'm ready...
Stay Tuned..
and PS... some pictures below from the weekend!
I have been getting these painful headaches as a lingering result of my concussion which thankfully have improved. And flying home was such a painful experience. I don't remember crying so much in a few short days as I have during this past week. Remembering the life of John Douglas LaDuke has been an emotional roller coaster. I loved seeing my cousins and family, but we were all mourning the loss of this amazing person. Seeing my parents and sister was fantastic, but we were there providing shoulders for each other to lean on.
Flying back to Denver has been non-stop since my arrival. On Saturday I basically came home and immediately packed up to head into the mountains to try to escape reality for a bit. Nature is always a pretty good idea for me when it comes to guaranteed happiness :) I headed up Guanella Pass and found great National Forest Land camping (aka, free, rustic, and phenomenal landscape). The highlight of the night was when two cars full of people pulled up and were motioning that that were going to camp right on our site and speaking Spanish amongst themselves... that was a close call. Luckily one of them had some sense to convince the group to keep on heading up the pass. On Sunday I summited my third 14er- Mount Bierstadt. It was super fun, and I got to meet the cutest 5 year old named Rowen! Sunday night I headed south to Mt. Princeton hot springs and camped in National Forest land by Buena Vista. This spot only had a yelper of a dog near our site!
On our way back to Denver I found out that a friend of mine, especially Jared's, overdosed this past weekend while camping with his girlfriend. She woke up Sunday morning to discover he wasn't breathing... Another life taken far, far too young. I am hurting for all of his family, especially his parents, and younger brother and sister. The four of them are in town now, and will soon be flying back to Michigan where a more expansive and formal ceremony will take place. I hope that his family will somehow be able to cope with this sudden and tragic loss.
Coping with 2 recent deaths at work is somewhat of an impossible task... Basically you don't have time for any thoughts at work outside of thinking about your students' needs, behaviors, goals, etc. Like I have mentioned before my classroom is meant to function on a 1 to 1 ratio of students to staff. When 2 staff are out with knee injuries, and 1 gets transferred to work in another classroom, the class becomes extremely unmanageable. So the past couple days have been really fun. Lots of restraints, lots of running around, lots of getting hit, yelled at, dealing with negative behaviors, and so on and so fourth. AHHHHDJAFK;WEAFKJ is basically what I was yelling all day in my head. Highlight: running between the fire alarm door and a different classroom trying to block my student from setting the alarm off and running into the other classroom to wreak havoc. Lets just say I have some battle wounds. Luckily my coworker rescued me shortly after only to stand outside with the student for 30 minutes in the pouring rain while waiting for the bus... without a jacket. Then the same coworker had to wait with another student for an extra hour because his bus broke down and they had no way to get home. What a day... and that is only the tip of the ice burg of what all occurred today. YIKES.
So... I'm hoping things settle down. Soon. My last day at work is on Friday, but I actually don't know if I'm ready...
Stay Tuned..
and PS... some pictures below from the weekend!
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