Heather's World

New Pictures

2008-11-25T18:39:00.001-06:00

About half of the wedding photos are available so far. You can see them at:

http://carissawinland.zenfolio.com/p693679463

Weeeeeee!

Pictures!

2008-11-14T18:03:00.000-06:00

Tada! I posted some pictures of our honeymoon on my Picasa site. http://picasaweb.google.com/heather.martin/Honeymoon

On Our Honeymoon

2008-11-07T14:45:00.000-06:00

I'm now married!

2008-10-27T08:19:00.000-05:00

The wedding was this Saturday. I didn't take many pictures - I was kind of busy - but there are a few on my Picasa site.
http://picasaweb.google.com/heather.martin

More will trickle in as people send them. Our photographer is in the middle of a school semester, so we won't get the official ones until the end of the year or so.

My Bachelorette Party

2008-10-18T21:03:00.002-05:00

My new sister-in-law, lea.

Me, welding in Chacos.

Avi cutting some metal

My friend Sara threw me the coolest bachelorette party ever! As you can guess from the pictures, we learned how to weld. I'll be going back sometime soon to finish up the project I started, a large angle iron kitchen table.

My new project

2008-10-06T21:24:00.001-05:00

Yay! I have a new project!

I'm going to take apart my 1971 Chevy step side pickup, sand everything, prime and paint it.

I have some left over Massaranduba boards from work that I'm going to finish and use as my new bed wood.

Eventually I'll reupholster the front bench seat. And give the engine a tune up....

My day

2008-09-17T19:59:00.000-05:00

This morning I got to work even earlier than usual. This is looking out from the house we're building, over the lake below.

Looking through the deck railing...

This week we've been house, dog and car sitting for Luke's parents. I went to pick them up after work, and took their car out for a bath along the way. Automatic car washes are cool! I don't remember ever going through one before.

Luke and sketch

2008-09-16T18:41:00.001-05:00

My last camera died, so I dug up Luke's old point and shoot. I'd like to start taking and posting more pictures, like in the old days.

This one is Luke and Sketch, reading in bed.

Taxes

2008-08-08T18:47:00.000-05:00

Oh for fucks sake. I finally got around to calculating my hourly wage after taking out taxes. I only get to keep 67% of what I gross an hour.

I'm now even more angry than usual about not having universal health care....because if I calculate my health insurance premiums on the 10k deductible policy I'm currently carrying into my hourly wage, it's even more depressing. If I fall off a ladder, I'm screwed any way you look at it.

I'm technically self employed, at least as far as the IRS knows. I work for a company that gives us 1099's, not 1040s. Yet we're all told what time to show up, when to leave, and we're generally expected to behave as employees. Yet we have to carry our own contractor insurance, pay self employment taxes, etc.

The boss is renting a boat for 3 hours this Thursday as an employee appreciation event. There will be water skiing and beer. We were told to bring 10 bucks a person to cover said boat and beer. At the appreciation event. I feel appreciated.....

Wedding stuff

2008-08-03T21:30:00.000-05:00

We spent this weekend addressing and stuffing envelopes for the wedding. Luke actually got a blister from so much writing .... he has a pretty huge family! I only have 10 relatives and a mom. It'll be nice to aquire some more.

Awww jeez...

2008-07-13T06:40:00.002-05:00

I knew it was going to happen, but I wish it would have taken longer than 2 1/2 months! I lost my engagement ring already....

I had put it down on a big boulder while I went swimming in the lake below where I work. When I went to pick up my clothes, I forgot my ring was on top of them, and the ring went flying - right into a large crevasse between the rocks. D'oh! I couldn't see it down there, nor was my arm long enough to reach it down there even if I could.

At least the ring was kind of cheap. I specifically picked out one that I wouldn't mind loosing too much, because I knew it was going to happen eventually. Maybe I should just paint one on so I never loose it....

Rowing

2008-07-11T05:56:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I had my 2nd rowing lesson. We've been practising on the rowing machines to get our form down, and yesterday they actually let us loose on the water.

I was the zippiest one there, so they let me take an extra lap around the lake while everybody else was floundering. Two of the people got stuck in the trees on the opposite shore and had to have a kayak sent over to rescue them. One guy flipped over and bailed. I almost was run over by a quad boat, and in turn almost ran over one of the other girls in the class. Fun!

Next week we'll probably all be cleared to take the boats out on our own whenever we want. Look out, Town Lake!

I'll hopefully be getting a lot of rowing in (Sculling, really) this summer. Two of the guys from work are rowing at the same dock. I'm hoping for a little friendly competition ... go go gadget legs...!

New Stuff

2008-07-06T13:58:00.000-05:00

I guess I've been slacking in the blog department, yet again! Mom keeps pestering me to update, and I keep telling her nothing's new. :-)

I did get engaged a month ago. We're planning an October wedding here in Austin.

I also just joined a CSA. It's a farm 5 miles from here that's only in its 3rd year, yet has 300 members! We got our first box of produce yesterday. Lots of yummy tomatoes, eggplants, okra, squash, cucumbers, basil and onions.

My own garden isn't looking so hot. It needs lots more organic matter...I need to go out looking for horse manure. Trimming the overhanging tree out back would help a lot too.

I'm still working as a carpenter on the same house I wrote about previously. We're installing masaranduba siding, and taking forever.... the siding should be done in another 6 weeks or so. Hopefully there will be some scraps left so I can re-wood my truck bed.

Mom is in the hospital

2008-05-18T17:22:00.001-05:00

I tried to break into mom's blog, but the password she gave me doesn't work. She's too loopy to figure out what it really is, so I'm posting the news over here on my blog instead. Hopefully all you people who read her life will wander over here and figure it out.

Mom has been admitted to the hospital in Lakeland. She's been having strokes. The doctors don't know anything other than that yet. I'll post updates if there are any. She asks that you all pray for her.

Fiesta Parade

2008-04-27T11:22:00.000-05:00

Last night Luke and I went to San Antonio with his parents to see the Fiesta Flambeau Parade. http://www.fiesta-sa.org/

Crazy!

New Pics

2008-04-05T14:16:00.000-05:00

These were taken by Rebecca Sikes... Her website at http://www.flickr.com/photos/rsikesphotography/

My new Truck

2008-04-04T19:00:00.001-05:00

So, I bought a truck last weekend.... It's adorable! It's a 1971 Chevy c10 stepside, with an oak strip bed and curvy wheelwells, just like I've always wanted.

It's almost entirely stock, including the original 250 inline 6 engine. Most of the parts are new/rebuilt. There are only two spots of rust I need to worry about, and the entire panel one of them is on can be replaced for $17.99.

I replaced an exhaust flange gasket the other day. It cost $2.18 and fit all Chevy/GMC models from 1937-1987.

The only thing wrong with it that I know of is the throwout bearing in the clutch. While I'm under there with the transmission and driveshaft dropped to fix it, I'll just replace the whole clutch. (It'll need it sooner rather than later). A complete clutch kit cost $155. The shop down the road had two of them in stock.

My van was a big hit with women and small children. Now that I have this truck, I'm a huge hit with the men, especially guys who are old enough to have driven a 70's era truck back in the day.

I'm going to paint and reupholster, and redo the wood in the bed. I'm hoping for enough leftover massaranduba from the jobsite to use for the bed. Nothing like Brazilian hardwood to make it look pretty. :-)

Climbing

2008-02-13T19:59:00.000-06:00

It's been gorgeous lately, with lots of good rock climbing opportunities! This weekend is supposed to just be totally yucky though, with highs in the 30's. What are we going to do for fun and excitement?

2008-02-09T08:22:00.000-06:00

I only have my closet left to do, then the floor is finished! Then it's time to paint and attach baseboards.... :-)

While taking a break from the flooring, I found an interesting blog: http://www.foodiefarmgirl.blogspot.com

Climbing

2008-01-30T14:02:00.000-06:00

We went rock climbing at a local ranch this weekend, and poked around this interesting cave.

I managed to get up a 5.10D rated climb, my hardest yet. Woo!

This picture is from our hallway. I've been busy installing bamboo flooring throughout the entire house...

What I did on the weekend

2008-01-07T06:29:00.000-06:00

Port Aransas

2007-11-24T23:40:00.001-06:00

A recent still life we stumbled upon...

My job

2007-11-15T19:49:00.000-06:00

My jobsite.

Raising the structural insulated panel (SIP) walls into place on the 2nd story.

Making adjustments to the wall before stapling it into place.

Luke and Tommy

2007-10-22T20:10:00.000-05:00

Luke gives Tommy a little aid on a tough bouldering problem... :-)

2007-10-22T12:42:00.000-05:00

This is the climb (Called Motorboat) that ate my ankle on Saturday. This photo was taken by Merrick Ales, website at: http://www.merrickales.com/

I took today off of work to let my foot more fully recover. It's driving me up a wall to sit at home! I've been being a good patient though, keeping my foot elevated, my ankle wrapped up, and a steady stream of ibuprofen running through me.

Today would have been sucky to work anyway - a cold front blew in last night. It's in the low 50's, raining, and the wind is gusting to 40mph.

I'm excited to work tomorrow - I'll finally be able to wear pants!

Granite Gripper

2007-10-21T13:05:00.000-05:00

I came home from work one day to find that Luke had entered me into the Granite Gripper, a local climbing competition. The comp is at Enchanted Rock, a park about 1 1/2 hours from here.

We went out this Saturday to compete, and I had a blast! I was climbing with a 9 year old girl who had been climbing twice before. (I've only been climbing for three months, about one day a week.)

We did a few 5.9's and one 5.10, before I got my foot stuck in a crack and tweaked it a little too much. I ended hobbling out, one route shy of making the minimum number of routes required for the comp. The trip out took 1 1/2 hours, the trip in had only taken 30 minutes or so. OWIE!

The 9 year old did one more 5.9 route, and ended up with 2nd place in the women's beginner division. Yay! Though I was one route (about 10 points) shy of getting in my minimum routes required, I wsa only 2 points behind the 3rd place winner. Next year....

And so I'm spending this Sunday with my ankle wrapped up and elevated, sitting around at home. I just finished reading The Sex Lives Of Cannibals , and started reading World Without End. Hopefully my foot feels better by tomorrow, so I can go back to work.

My life this week

2007-10-07T10:46:00.001-05:00

I have a job as a carpenter again, woohooooo!!! My last day at the bakery was on Friday, and the first day at my new job was Monday. Today marks a week at my new job. I really love it. :-)

The rest of my life is going pretty swimmingly, too. I've been rock climbing/swimming/doing housey things on the weekends. The garden I planted out back is doing really well.

Luke and I have been painting the house lately. The bedroom is a deep blue, the hallways a chocolate brown, and the living room is a sage green. We haven't figured out what color to do the bathrooms yet...

Mormons

2007-10-01T17:51:00.000-05:00

Mormons...Exposed! In a good way, :-)

http://www.mormonsexposed.com/

What's new

2007-09-18T18:23:00.000-05:00

So, I gave my 2 week notice at the bakery today. I don't have a job lined up yet, but something should come down the pike soon.

Every week for a long time now, I kept telling myself that I'd quit next week, when I was in a better position to do so. Being in a better position hadn't happened yet, so I decided to jump now rather than wait for the perfect time that will never come.

I want to get back into carpentry again, preferably as the apprentice to some sweet but meticulous old guy who's been a carpenter for years and wants to impart all of his knowledge on a young whippersnapper like me.

If you know of this mythical guy, or any other interesting carpentry opportunities in the Austin, TX area, drop me a line at Heather.Martin@gmail.com

Labor Day

2007-09-06T14:33:00.000-05:00

Luke and I went to his parent's ranch for Labor day weekend. His mom took some pictures of us. Awwww, how cute!

Pics from the weekend

2007-08-19T20:05:00.000-05:00

Luke and I at Enchanted Rock

Sketch cooling off after a hike

Luke and Suerte

Luke and Suerte again

Roger and Sketch

Alternate reality

2007-08-15T19:59:00.000-05:00

So, I haven't been able to drive my van since 6-29, when I was run into by that idiot. I've been slowly fixing the things that need fixing as I earn the money, and wait for the police/insurance to get their act together.

Today I sawed off my exhaust system in preparation for bolting an entirely new one on. I'll get the new one in the mail later this week.

I've got the bolts soaking in PB Blaster, so hopefully I can finish taking everything off tomorrow.

I'm glad I have a surrogate mom here in Austin. It's been sad ever since my real one went off the deep end last year.

The worst part about it is that my mom experiences occasional moments of lucidity, where she tells me and other people that she realizes her behavior isn't the healthiest or smartest....and then the next phone call, she appears brainwashed again.

I actually hung up on her the other day. When I pointed out to her that she admits to herself and others that she realizes her behavior isn't the smartest or healthiest, her reponse was, "Well, I guess I shouldn't have been that honest." ...... And now she's running away from her problems, literally and figuratively, to "visit" MO.

I read her blog today, and it sounds like she's traveling with Rhett again. Rhett is the man who treats her like crap, who doesn't do anything to help himself, and offers nothing to her except a chance for her to nurture her savior/matyr complex. And this is from her own blog. (http://journals.aol.com/wsm311/WendyUsuallyWanders/entries/2007/06/05/epiphany.../3951 )
http://journals.aol.com/wsm311/WendyUsuallyWanders/entries/2007/06/03/got-a-good-talking-to...../3948

This is a man that she alternately can't stand, and then considers marrying. Her bishop called her into his office and told her he thinks they should get married. And she's considered it. She'll pretty much do anything a church official tells her.

In the past, my mom has told me she wouldn't marry him if I would just become a Mormon. Way to go with the emotional black mail, mom.

There's nothing I can do to change her behavior. It would be a lot easier to deal if she would stay brainwashed and not experience those "AHA!" moments where she switches back into the mom I grew up with, and seems perfectly sensible.

She's hiding behind Mormonism as a way to sacrifice her own health/well being/interests under the umbrella of good christian behavior. It sucks.

But it would make great book material!

Oh, and this Possum guy is a creep. He applied (seriously) on my boyfriend application a long while back. Then he met mom in person, and was hitting on her. I've never met him, but with what he says and does on the internet, he oozes creepy user vibes. And mom has seen the light before, yet keeps going back to these men who are scum. Her blog on him: http://journals.aol.com/wsm311/WendyUsuallyWanders/entries/2007/06/21/tired-depressed-hopeful-and-and-pondering.../3965

Yuck.

New Pics

2007-08-12T20:57:00.001-05:00

We went rock climbing today. Yay! I think I'm officially addicted now. To the man and the rock...

Luke and Tommy

Fun on Saturday

2007-08-11T21:05:00.000-05:00

So, I haven't really written anything about my personal life in a really long time....One of these days I'll get around to writing about what has happened in the past year+ in more detail. It really was a fascinating time. It was good to take a break. Now I'm ready to go at it again.

Now back to the regularly scheduled blog.

Today we went out to lake Travis to do some water bouldering and floating. "We" was me, 3 friends, and Luke, the really sweet and adorable guy in the left hand photo. Luke is the man I've been dating for awhile.

More pictures to come...

OW!

2007-08-05T16:32:00.000-05:00

This weekend my hands and body took a beating. The top layer of skin on my fingertips is abraded, I have bruises and cuts all over my body, and my muscles are a bit sore. It feels wonderful!

It's all from going to Lake Travis this weekend with a few people and cliff jumping/rock climbing most of the day. Mmmmmmm, fun.

New Van Flooring

2007-07-31T14:02:00.000-05:00

Tada! For $47 at Cosco, I satiated my lifelong yearning for bamboo flooring. It's puuuuurty! Took me an hour to lay out/saw/secure everything down. I had one plank and a few inches in scraps left.

My van is still inoperable. The police report came out with a zillion mistakes, and I'm still tangling with them over fixing it. The insurance companies haven't done anything yet because of the police report, so I'm still vanless. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr! I miss my van...

I go out and tinker with it every day. I now need to figure out why my electrical system keeps shorting out. I think some wiring got squished in the accident.

9 Boys

2007-07-17T15:27:00.000-05:00

For the past two days, there have been 9 half-naked boys roaming about the house.

Wooo wooooo!

You can find out who they are at: http://www.myspace.com/thefuckinbuckaroos

Van news

2007-07-12T16:16:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I was driving my van out of the VW garage after an inspection, when the CV joint broke. Now we know exactly what part was making all that noise and needed fixing!

I have an appointment for Thursday. Still no word on insurance or the police report. I want my van back!

I used to gaze at it wistfully. Now it's at the garage and I don't get to see it. I was sleeping out in it at night, but it's back to the couch for me. Thank goodness for friends!

2007-06-29T20:10:00.000-05:00

Some idiot decided to jump his green light while I was making a protected left hand turn, and smashed into my right rear quarter panel. The impact ripped the engine off its mounts, causing it to drop. The muffler was partially torn off the car and the pipe separated from the actual muffler. And worst of all, the bastard scratched my pink paint job!

I tried to drive the car away from the scene of the accident after I was cleared to go, to discover the engine had dropped so much that it shuddered the whole car and sounded like something was going to explode. I limped around the corner to a friends house, went in the door, and collapsed into their chair. The tow truck guy took me to work and then dropped of my van at the fix-it place. Now I have to wait for a week until the police report comes out and the insurance companies start to duke things out. In the meantime, I'm homeless and vanless, since I'm set to move out on July 1st and was going to live in my van. Crap.

2007-06-27T15:19:00.000-05:00

I went to a VW junkyard the other day. They had 10 acres of vehicles and a huge warehouse full of all sorts of goodies!

I'm packing up my VW today, getting ready to move out of my house. My lease runs out on the 1st, so I've decided to live in my van full time.

You know that magnet that has a horrified looking lady on it, and says "Oh my God, I turned into my mother!" ? I'm starting to identify. Now both mom and I are wandering around while living out of our vehicles. Mine's cooler though. :-)

Everywhere I go, little kids and grown adults all smile and shout, "I love your van!"

With my next paycheck, I need to fix my brakes and get some new shocks. I figured it was easier to concentrate on the cosmetic things before the mechanical stuff and living in it. I moved into the house I built before I was finished with it, and it was just a total pain. Never again!

Van happenings

2007-06-13T17:23:00.001-05:00

I haven't been doing much to the van, hence the lack of pictures of it. Here, have a picture of my new haircolor instead!

<-------------

Everybody and their mother has been complimenting me on the color, even old, persnickety people. I quite like the color myself, with the exception of the fact that now I kind of clash with my car....

Yesterday I made a duvet cover with the help of Pat, the woman who's been helping me with every other imaginable van thing. (She even bought the duvet fabric as a present. Awwww!) It's a tan fabric with pink gerbera daisies. It's perfect!

Yesterday we took my van for several spins, including one at 10pm to a donut shop that has hot donuts from 9pm to 6am. We bought 4 original glazed, 2 chocolate glazed, 2 chocolate cake, 1 doz. donut holes and a small milk, all for $3.80. Mmmm, sugar... I just don't get enough during the day at my bakery job.

Dyed my hair

2007-06-12T09:43:00.001-05:00

Now it's a dark Burgundy. :-)

I want one of these!

2007-06-08T10:53:00.000-05:00

A nifty stove and oven, so I can bake cookies and Thanksgiving turkeys on the road. Mmmmmm....

From Cabella's.

My vans' new name is...

2007-06-08T10:24:00.000-05:00

Pigathius Lee.

It's Miss Piggy's full name and is a play on Peggy Lee, whom I just discovered at the library and absolutely love.

Miss Piggy and I share the same sort of personality, my initials are HAM, and the van is a nice piggy pink. It fits. I also was given a pink pig keychain a few weeks ago, which brings it all together.

New VW upholstery

2007-06-04T15:35:00.000-05:00

This is part of the old bench seat seat cover. It's why there was a fuzzy blanket over the backseat when I bought my VW.

And this is what it looks like now... I made the pillow, too. Next - Curtains! Why stop now? I'm on a roll.

Today an adorable 5 year old told me she really liked my pink car. Kids seems to get a kick out of it. Whenever a car with a kid goes by me on the roads, they usually have their noses pressed to the glass and gawk at my car as they go by.

Naming the van and answering comments

2007-06-01T00:26:00.001-05:00

Whoops, I haven't published the comments in a while. I keep them on moderation so I can instantly delete any nasty comments, and savor the good ones before they hit the web.

This van is manual. It took me about a week to get used to the particulars of the clutch. When I took it to the VW shop for a check-up, the guy told me that every van is different. Sometimes he gets into a VW and can't find gears for the life of him.

I'm slowly working on redoing the interior. When I got the van, the upholstery was a yucky brown corduroy that was full of grit, sand and dog hair. It was worn out and badly in need of replacement. I'm replacing it with a heavy duty fabric with light blue, green and tan stripes. The light yellow on the back of the captains chairs is automotive antelope. It came from a friend who got the 3 antelope hides from a sheik's airplane upholstery job. It's the same friend who let me use her backyard and fancy spray gun for the paint job. She's amazing! She does decorative painting for a living, and wanted to try painting a car as a warm-up for painting her RV. I was only too glad to lend my van for the cause...

Eventually I'll get around to installing a wooden floor inside. I'd love to do bamboo or birch! For now, I need to save up money for the not so glamorous mechanical side of things. I'd like to get some new shocks (the current ones are a wee bit tired), and get new rear brake shoes/drums before they give out. I also need a good tune-up, and to get my fluids flushed sooner rather than later. All in all though, it's in pretty superb condition. Later down the road I want to give the underside a good bath and a scrub, then undercoat the heck out of it. It's relatively rust-free, and I'd like to keep it that way!

I promised a friend I'd name my van before she came back from a trip out of state. I have a week to figure out something fitting. Any suggestions? The last two cars were Toby the big red van, and Annie, the toyota 4-runner.

Pink Van

2007-05-31T21:41:00.000-05:00

Hmmm, I'll have to try taking a picture of the van in the sunset/rise sometime to bring out the pink. You can't really tell it's pink in this picture.

Here's a sample of it.

Pictures from this weekend

2007-05-31T00:29:00.000-05:00

It's been pouring all week. Today it stopped, so we built another plastic tent to spray my van in. (The plastic is to contain overspray, it's not good enough to keep the van bone dry in a downpour.)

.

The ever helpful Puka helps to tape the van

Taping off areas I don't want paint.

Random signage. For those who just can't make up their minds...

What I did this weekend

2007-05-21T14:19:00.000-05:00

I drove the van over to a friend's house, where we finished prepping it and built a plastic tent.

I buffed and wiped the sanding dust off my van with their dog...

Fancy spray gun!

We were out spraying until 9pm last night. The van is now a nice, shiny pink. We'll give it another coat sometime this week, in between rain showers. More pictures to come soon! And then...interior work.

There's a fabric store going out of business around the corner from me, so I bought 7 yards of really pretty fabric to redo my tattered seat and bed covers. Should be fun!

Transportation

2007-05-15T19:22:00.000-05:00

For the past two weeks, I've been driving my van instead of bicycling to work. I have to be at work at 5:30am most mornings...so it's been a nice change of pace to roll out of bed and be at work only a few minutes later. One evening I even slept in the parking lot, really cutting down on my commuting time.

Now that I have this van, gas prices actually mean something to me after 1 1/2 years. Holy cow! I'm not sure what sort of gas milage I get, as my odometer is broken. I think I've been getting about 18/gal.

I'm slowly sanding and priming away....I even picked out the final color yesterday. I'm planning on painting it on Saturday. Anybody know of a good empty lot or a field with lots of trees around it, with suitable room for spraying with a hvlp system? I can't spray in my neighborhood because the overspray travels and will stick to anything within 100 feet or so.

Pictures of Heather's van

2007-05-12T21:13:00.000-05:00

Working on the van

2007-05-11T23:56:00.000-05:00

I started out sanding just the rusty spots, intending to smooth outward from said spots and blend into the rest of the existing paint....

But I decided it was taking too long, and bought some industrial strength airplane paint stripper. Hasta la vista, existing paint job!

I quickly primed all of the bare metal to protect it from supposed upcoming rain that hasn't happened yet.

I need to figure out what color to paint this van. I'm leaning towards a light pink or green. Maybe a combo of the two? Hmmm....

Grafitti

2007-05-04T10:34:00.001-05:00

Random bathroom grafitti.

Random animals

2007-05-04T10:27:00.000-05:00

Horse with a hat in Marble Falls

Kittens in a park in Blanco.

New pictures

2007-05-03T14:22:00.000-05:00

I bought a new van! It's a 1985 VW Vanagon with the super duper pop up top. I just got it registered and insured two days ago, so last night I decided to take it on a camping trip.

I drove out west to Pedernales Falls SP and camped in the parking lot of their primitive sites. I had the entire place to myself.... just me, the trees, and the thunderous lightning storm that dumped 3 and 3/4 inches that night. I kept the top down and slept on the foldout bed instead. It was cool to lay on my back and look up through the skylight at the flashing lightning above.

Earlier that day, I had gone hiking around the park. It went from not raining and this light out...

... to this, in less than a minute.

Me again

2007-04-11T22:15:00.000-05:00

Hmmm, I got sidetracked. One of these days I'll get back into blogging with regularity.

Today was spent working, then lounging in the backyard with an armload of books.

A new picture of my new backyard. It's very spacious, with a high fence to keep me in and the neighbors out.

Condensed What I've Been Up To Post

2007-03-03T22:01:00.000-06:00

I think I'll revive my blog. It's been a long hiatus, eh?

I realized I missed posting. It was a great way for me to get words and pictures down and in a safe place. I'm notorious for trying to keep a paper journal of my life, then burning it because I don't want someone to read what I've written. When I read what I've written on the online blog though, it jogs my memory of what I did on those days but didn't write down. Mmmmmm.....

So anyway - it's been almost a year. What have I been up to?

Two weeks before I was to go on my PCT trip, I met someone fabulous. He was tall, dark, and handsome. We had everything in common. We spent those two weeks practically glued to each other. We went to Enchanted rock, Krause Springs, and hiked along the Greenbelt. We ate spicy asian food, pigged out on real Texas barbeque, and generally had a blast. Then I left him in Texas and caught a bus to San Diego, CA. (He drove me to the bus station at 3am)

I went to the Pacific Crest Trail Annual Day Zero Kickoff Party, and just met the most incredible people, saw several kickass slideshows, went to fun presentations, and even ran into Radar! (Nice hiker we met on the AT in 2003 when I was hiking from Key West to Virginia).

I started hiking from the Mexico border. Shortly into the trip I had misgivings. The PCT was something I had always wanted to do, ever since I was little. Heck, when I was 14 and ran away from home in Vermont, I ended up hitchhiking/taking a bus there and backpacking for 6 weeks while all of Vermont was in a frantic search for me/my dead body.

Well anyhoo, I started to regret leaving this fabulous Mr. X in Austin. I had never met anyone I had shared so much in common with, somebody I could just BE with, whether tubing down the San Marcos river or reading the paper with over breakfast tacos.

So I decided to hell with the PCT, I wanted to see what would happen with this guy. The PCT wasn't going anywhere. (Well, it does...with reroutes and everything, but it's still basically the same thing :-) I hitchiked from more-or-less San Diego, back to his doorstep in Austin, TX. It took me 4 rides and 30 hours. At a CA rest stop, I even ran into one of the people I had run into out there when I had passed through earlier that year on my FL to CA bicycle trip. How cool is THAT?

So, back in Texas. I ended up moving to a really wicked cool trailer park, but only lived there for <2 months before Mr. X and I decided to move to Utah for nifty jobs. We loaded up his car with my bicycle on top, and moved out there. We lived in Loa and Moab. It was a land of many Mormons and no breakfast tacos.

The jobs sucked. The compay made promises it didn't keep. And we both missed Austin....so we took a deep breath and moved back. Sort of. He had to go to a job-related conference way up north, so I waved goodbye as he drove off into the sunset with the car, and I headed south with my bicycle fully loaded, intending to move back to TX via bicycling through the 4 corners area, onward.

I made it a couple hundred miles before the snow got to me. Stupid snow...So I did what I do best-made some on the fly decision making involving Greyhound bus lines. I dropped by the station at 7am, and was told the only bus leaving left at 10:30. The only bike shop was a couple miles away, and opened at 10. To go on the bus, my bicycle needed to be safely disasembled and ensconced in a bike box, a box that could only be obtained at the bike store.

I trekked down to the store and pressed my nose to the glass, waiting for the store to open. Got the box (for free!) bought a pedal wrench to dissasemble my bike, and tried to hurridly ride back to the station while holding on to the box. HAH! No such luck. Impossible to ride and hold a big box into the wind while fighting traffic. So I politely pounced on a man with a truck who pulled into the parking lot and asked sweetly if he could give me a ride to the station. I got there with 10 minutes to go. I zipped into the office, gave the guy my credit card and started the ticket buying process while I quickly broke down my bike, stuffed it and some of my pannier contents in the box, duct taped the whole works, and had it ready to slide in the cargo compartment with 3 minutes to spare.

Then 3 days of driving across the boring expanse of middle America. I made a slight detour, blowing by Texas and going to FL to visit my mom. The Orlando station had me doing the process in reverse - dragging my bike box through the terminal, unwrapping my present, and assembling my bicycle to the amusement of onlookers. I then hopped on and rode it out to the parking lot, where my mother was waiting. Zeke the dog and Aleka the cat seemed unfazed...Zeke is used to picking me up alongside the road in strange places anyway from all my hiking trips, and Aleka is just a ditz. "OH, Heather? I didn't even notice you were gone. Say, do you have any Grey poupon? Or perhaps some high grade catnip?"

Mom and I went to Disney World to use up the last week remaining on our annual parks passes. We talked. We Ate. We bonded. We had Thanksgiving dinner. And the next day Mom and the pets dropped me off alongside the road for another adventure.

I rode my bicycle to Texas, again.

It involved a lot of coastal Florida bicycling. I (illegally) slept on a highrise boardwalk along the Atlantic ocean, watching both the sunset and rise. That night I peed in my Jetboil stove pot for lack of a better toilet facility. (It was either decend the many, many, many steps down to the beach, or walk 3/4 of a mile back to the parking lot to a "real" bathroom". Screw it, I was tired.

I also found some great campsites in newly seeded forest land, behind churches, and even in the same spot I had slept in the first time across the country. I even remembered the great radio stations I had listened to in several locales on my way across, and was able to tune in again.

I did laundry clad in only my rainsuit, while reading old copies of Watchtower. I ate roadside barbeque. I continued my quest to find the best piece of Pecan pie. I took an ocean-going ferry, and caught a wave full on in the face. I petted a multitude of random dogs.

I took a month or so, and did 1000 miles or so. I found a house. I live in it now. I work in a bakery. And that's all you get to know, until I feel like posting again. Pictures, sometime!

Who am I?

2007-03-03T21:49:00.000-06:00

I've been thinking a lot of my former life lately. I really miss it on some levels, yet am glad I've moved on in others. You never know what you've got till it's gone, in a way.

Lately I've been talking to people about my former life - the house I built, the bike trip, growing up on the farm and in an underground house. When I was living those things, it didn't seem like anything special. Sure it was unusual and I was happy living that way, but it didn't seem THAT far from the norm.

These days I live in a metro area of more than the population of the entire state of Vermont. I live in a conventional house, not an underground one. I ride my bicycle and take public buses wherever I need to go, no van, no camper, no car. I buy my vegetables at a store instead of getting them from out back. I don't have 10 acres of land to roam on anymore, and instead, I have 23 libraries in city limits and a zillion parks/greenbelts/museums/clubs/groups within spitting distance.

It's taking some getting used to.

Lamp on a rooftop

2007-01-15T21:38:00.000-06:00

My hair when left natural

2006-12-18T15:26:00.000-06:00

My new haircut

2006-12-17T20:37:00.000-06:00

New pics

2006-12-16T19:17:00.000-06:00

Pelicans

2006-11-15T13:26:00.000-06:00

Still Alive

2006-08-06T15:50:00.000-05:00

I'm enjoying being annonymous.

Going, going, gone

2006-04-25T15:58:00.000-05:00

California, here I come!

Tempeh Rubens

2006-04-22T13:08:00.000-05:00

Last night I decided I wanted to make some tempeh rubens as a last hurrah before I start eating trail food. I bicycled 1 mile to the local HEB grocery store and wandered all over the place looking for tempeh. It's usually kept near the tofu, in the produce section. This store didn't apear to have any! I asked a lady wandering amongst the lettuce if she had seen any tempeh. She looked at me blankly and asked, "What's that?"

I hopped back on my bicycle and went to Albertsons, which is 1.7 miles from my house. No luck there either! I asked the produce guy if they sold tempeh in the store. He asked me how to spell it...When I told him it was a soybean product that was usually sold with all the other hippie food (tofu, soy cheese, etc), he remarked that I must be a second generation hippie. He claimed he was just a first generation, and wasn't that advanced in hippie food.

I stood in the produce section for a while, dazed and confused. It just never occured to me that a big grocery store wouldn't have tempeh. It was a real I'm not in Vermont anymore moment!

Ahhh well. I picked up some pasta sauce and zucchini, went home and made spaghetti with red sauce, sauteed onions, zucchini, yellow squash, and a green salad. I'm slowly cooking everything I have left in the cupboards and fridge. I have some chicken in there I need to figure out what to do with.

PCT Updates

2006-04-22T12:27:00.000-05:00

Hmmm, how do I update y'all about my PCT trek while I'm on the trail?

I have a couple of options I'm toying with.

1) I could keep my journal and pics over on www.trailjournals.com.

2) I could use this here Blogspot.

3) Or I could keep the journals and pics on my website over at www.HeatherStars.com

Option 1 and 2 would require me to hunt out a computer when I'm in town, and transcribe my handwritten journals on the spot. No idea how I'd do pictures with that system.

Option 3 requires me to bounce my laptop to various towns along the trail, so I can access my web building software, and have a handy repository for all of the pictures I'll be taking.

Another option would be to say heck with updating, and just drop off the face of the internet for the next 5 months and do all of the transcribing when I get back. Wherever "back" is.

I'm starting to experience blogger burnout. I've been writing about various aspects of my life and putting it on the web for years now. I could use a break and get back into writing by hand, on paper, for my own enjoyment only. It would also be nice to land in town and just experience town...not worry about updating.

We'll see. I still need to figure out how I'm going to save my pictures. Right now all I have is a 128k memory card, which has space for about 3 days of normal picture taking.

Oatmeal Bread Recipe

2006-04-22T12:22:00.000-05:00

1 1/4 cup warm water
1 T Oil
1/2 Cup Brown Sugar
1 t salt
3 Cups flour
1 Cup oats
2 1/2 t Yeast

Mix everything together in a bowl. Turn out onto a floured surface and knead the dough for about 6-10 minutes, until it's smooth and velvety. Coat bowl in oil, then put dough in bowl, coating dough in oil. Cover with wet towel and let rise until doubled...a little over an hour. Punch down the dough, oil the pan you'll be baking in, and put the dough in that pan to rise once more, until double. (40 min - 1 hour or so). Sprinkle top of dough with oats, brush on butter, and bake in preheated 350 degree oven until bread sounds hollow when you tap it. (about an hour).

More or less, that's what I've been doing. I made another loaf of this last night. Mmmmmmmmm!

Countdown to the trail!

2006-04-21T17:32:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I got my campsite assignment for the PCT ADZ kickoff party. It quickly threw everything into perspective... wow, this whole trip is real! In less then a week, I'll be kicking back in California, getting to know my fellow PCT thru-hikers. Where did all that time go?

Getting ready for this trip is a bit tricky. I was expecting to get my last paycheck from my job last week, but haven't yet. They goofed and put the name of a former Heather on my check, so they had to send it back and get me a new one. The check still hasn't shown up, more than a week later. Can you say broke?

I still need to buy long underwear bottoms, a 4-6 liter water container, hiking poles, some JB Weld so I can make an alcohol stove, some alcohol for that stove, spare batteries, extra memory cards for my camera, sneakers, and a lightweight foam sleeping pad (My inflatable pad would get punctured the second I set it on the desert floor in my tent - just like it did every night the last couple of days in CA). I also need to buy food to last me a week on the trail.

Bread

2006-04-16T20:44:00.000-05:00

If it's too hot, get out of the kitchen! Somehow I didn't grasp that idea...It's been in the 90's all day, so what do I decide to do? Why, bake some bread, of course!

The last batch of bread was made into baked french toast yesterday morning. It was so rich, we could only eat a slice apiece. We're still recovering from the ensuing sugar coma. Mmmmmm, sugar...

This time around, I made oatmeal bread. (Last batch was plain ol' white). It's really fluffy, with a delicate edge to it.

What I did for summer vacation

2006-04-16T13:22:00.000-05:00

I was introduced to summer fun, Texas style. Yeehaw! As you can see, I forgot the sunscreen and was left with an interesting bathing suit burn pattern. It was worse for the guy I went with...not only did he become a crispy critter himself, but he was attacked by some local wildlife. While we were floating down the river, a giant crawfish swam up his shorts. I'll say no more, other than..... ouch!

That night we caught a free show by Calexico. Amazing! I love these guys! I'm such a sucker for trumpet players. The rest of the band was good, too. :-)

There was lots more involved, but it's too hot to think and type. Time to go jump in Barton Springs...

Rent

2006-04-14T14:27:00.000-05:00

This place has me spoiled. If/when I go back to renting somewhere, everything will be measured against my stay here in Austin. It's an awfully big act to follow. Everything is just so...perfect. I love how big this house is, with room to roam inside, and out in the huge, ivy covered back yard. The kitchen, with the adorable double ovens and the industrial stainless steel island. The living room, with the big comfy couch and the amazing stereo and vinyl collection.

My roomie Fred and I are like ships passing in the night...we hardly ever run into each other in the house, but when we do, he's the best roomie ever! I know Fred has been home when I come back to the house to find the chocolate chip cookie supply down and the toilet seat up.

Yesterday I made a big batch of cookies. A couple of Fred's buddies came over just as the cookies came out of the oven. They gladly inhaled a dozen or so, pronounced themselves stuffed, then took off with Fred to go on their annual fishing trip. Half an hour later, Fred suddenly appears in the living room. They had to come back to get some things...after they left, I noticed the cookie pile in the kitchen was down. Hmmm, I thought they were stuffed... :-)

I brought the remaining cookies to Whole Earth that evening, when I met up with the sales guys. We ended up going to Barton Springs for the free swim after 9pm. I love that place! It was extra cool last night, with the full moon glistening across the water.

The point of this post? Ummmm.....Austin Rocks! I'll miss it when I leave. Oh, and I just made a couple of loaves of bread, completely by hand. Fun!

I had never done yeast bread without a bread machine before. I'm getting in as much cooking as possible before hitting the trail. Tomorrow - baked french toast, with the bread I just made.

My new pack

2006-04-13T16:50:00.000-05:00

Summer

2006-04-13T16:31:00.000-05:00

Yup...it's getting hotter by the day here in Austin, Texas. :- )

Pictures of the day

2006-04-11T20:48:00.000-05:00

And now, the story behind the pictures...

I finally made it to Barton Springs Pool today. What an amazing place! I am now kicking myself for not having gone sooner. I went with Jeff, one of the sales guys from Whole Earth. Before the springs, we hiked along the Zilker Park Greenbelt. (That's where the pic was taken of him walking along a cliff). The Green belt was wicked cool, too. It's amazing how much green space Austin has set aside! Everywhere you look, there's a park.

The other pictures are of the neighbor kitty. Jeff lives in a really cool and wacky RV park. One of his neighbors has a light-up hula girl in his yard, next to the mermaid and the spinning bunny rabbits. The same neighbor has a ladder to the roof of his RV, where he's created a patio area.

It suddenly occured to me why I had trouble leaving Austin before....this town has a bumper sticker that says "Keep Austin Weird". The vortex here is simply trying to keep me. It recognizes me as one of its own.

Randomness

2006-04-11T00:42:00.000-05:00

So much stuff happens in my life that never gets written down here. A shame, considering I like to go back into the archives every once in a while and relive my past. Playing catchup....:

The other night I took the buses to town and back rather than bicycle, because the blisters on my feet were killing me. I got off of one bus around midnight and sat there waiting for the next. A car pulled up and the lady inside asked, "You know the buses don't run this late, right?" She gave me a ride right to my door. It reminded me of all the nice people I met while biking cross country. Awwww...

I've sat down at BookPeople and read so many books cover to cover, that I'm quickly running out of interesting new material. The latest book was Freakanomics. And a book on QuirkyAlone.

Another time at BookPeople, I ran into a guy I had first met at the hostel here in Austin my first time through. He filled me in on the juicy gossip concerning the other hostelers. About half of the fellow travellers had stayed on in Austin and found a place to live/a job. This city has a way of sucking people in...

For the past couple of suppers, I've gone to Whole Foods. I pick out a loaf of bread, then go to the cheese guy and have him choose a selection of cheeses that go with it. What a cool way to be introduced to new and yummy cheese! (When I checked out, the cashier loved my selections and recomended a type of bread she thought I'd like, based on what I was buying.) I'll be trying it out next time I go...and visiting the cheese guy to see what he recomends I pair it with. I also have to go back because last time, he gave me a tub filled with a very yummy (and expensive) type of cheese as a sample, providing I come back and tell him how I liked it. Gladly!

I'm such a dairy fiend. For being lactose intolerant, I sure eat a lot of it. Right now there's 1/4 of a 3 pound block of Cabot Extra Sharp Cheddar sitting in the fridge. I've gone through about 6 pounds of butter since I've been here...most of it in making chocolate chip cookies. (1/2 pound of butter per batch.)

I bicycle 14-17 miles a day. The most I've done around here in Austin is about 60. I've grown to love bicycling home at night! It's usually 72 degrees with a light breeze. Perfect! Except for last night on the Congress street bridge, when I looked up to see if the helicopter overhead was news or hospital, and crashed into the curb. Oops! I'm scraped up a little bit.

There hasn't been any work scheduled for the past 8 days. I'm going crazy! I need something to occupy my time. And money. I need some of that... Perhaps I'll get a 2 week job at Taco Bell. :-)

Fun and blisters

2006-04-09T11:31:00.000-05:00

The Austin skyline

A sign I'm having too much fun: On Friday night I danced so much and so hard, I got blisters on the soles of my feet. Owie! But oh so worth it. :-) I started off the evening with some Zydeco dance lessons, and kept going till 11ish with Contra. The Contra band was phenomenal!
The Zydeco lessons were pretty cool, too. I've always been extremely self conscious about trying something new in public, and the Zydeco was no exception...But hopefully I'm making progress, and can stop being so tense about making mistakes. It wouldn't be the end of the world, sheesh...

It's like when I first started backpacking by myself. I was petrified of the dark. What if some wacko with an axe was lurking outside my tent, just waiting to pounce? Eventually I relaxed and realized that in all likelihood, I was not going to be hacked into little pieces at night and if anything, being alone in the woods was way safer then being in the middle of town. (Think about it - speeding cars, lots of people, hazmat, etc). I now love the feeling of being alone in the inky darkness, just me and my sleeping bag. Eventually I'll also learn to relax and enjoy learning new things in front of other people, mistakes and all. We're all human...

Austin at night

2006-04-09T11:28:00.000-05:00

The Frost Building at night

A day in the life of...

2006-04-06T16:52:00.000-05:00

Oh man, I didn't even make it home last night until 3:30am. There are just so many cool things to do in Austin!
I started out the day at the Green Muse Cafe. It's the place I wrote about yesterday. (They have really good chocolate chip cookies!) I did a bunch of PCT research there via their wifi for a couple of hours, then left to explore the downtown parks. (There are a couple pictures of that two posts below).

I went to the usual Wednesday Contra dance and had a whale of a time! Best contra, ever! The band was exceptional (with the exception of two too slow songs), and the dance partners were really cool. I like the fact that all of the guys there are older (30's+), so they're married or have steady girlfriends. That way I can relax and have fun without getting hit on. (It's flattering to have so much attention, but sometimes a girl just wants to enjoy herself without having to tactfully shoot someone down every 5.2 seconds).

The contra ended at 10, so I cycled back downtown to amuse myself for two hours before the free Weird Wednesday movie started at the Alamo Drafthouse. I found what I was looking for... Over in the 6th/5th street area was one of the guys who works at Whole Earth. He was there doing his second job, driving all of the tourists around in his pedicab. It was a slow night, so I rode my bike up and down the streets with him while he trawled for customers.

After bidding him adieu, I went to the Alamo. The movie theatre is upstairs...and on the stairs is a guy wielding a black magic marker. Everybody in front of me held their hands out for him to draw two big black x's on them, so I did too. I figured it was some sort of free admission thingy. I asked him what it was, he said it was to show the wait staff that I was under 21. Whoops! I showed him my ID, and he said to go into the bathroom real quick and wash it off while it was still wet. Whadda ya know, the soap in their bathrooms works really well for that. The whole black X thing doesn't seem to be very foolproof...Not that I had any alcoholic beverages there, but still! :-)

Upon sitting down in the theatre, I discovered I was only a couple of seats away from a guy I work with. I love this guy! He's always in awe of things I've done. I made sure to show him the black tire marks all over my left leg (From me being a klutz and managing to run myself over with my bike just a few minutes earlier).

The movie was called Candy Snatchers. From the description on the Alamo website:

This is an incredible, mean-spirited black comedy that neatly encapsulates everything that was great and scary and wrong and right about the 70’s. A trio of kidnappers; gross fat slob, hot chick and psychotic con man; kidnap a teenage girl named Candy. But when they present their ransom demands to the girl’s father he’s perfectly happy to abscond with the ransom money and be free of the burden of parenthood. Meanwhile an autistic child has discovered Candy’s underground hiding place but his horrible parents don’t believe him. Sounds like a grim, dark, depressing movie huh? For regular squares maybe. But for those of us with a refined taste for the absurd and amoral it’s like an iced magnum of Dom Perignon. Don’t miss this one or you’ll be one sorry bastard. (Lars)

I have to say, it was a really good movie! I'm not usually a fan of dark movies, but this one was brilliantly twisted.

After the movie, I did some people watching and rode around the block with pedicab/Whole Earth guy, then hit the road for home. I went down Congress for a change...partly because he recomended it as a safer route, and partly because the 24 hour bakery wasn't on it. I could see the bakery becoming a bad habit! Mmmmmmm, so many yummy Mexican pastries...flan...coconut juice...mmmmmmmmm.

What I did to my hair

2006-04-06T16:13:00.000-05:00

I dyed my hair for the first time ever in Hunt, Texas, on my way across the country. It didn't show up well in pictures, but in real life, I was a redhead. Well, being a redhead was fun and all, but I wanted to go back to my old self. Yesterday I tried to go back to medium brown hair. I must have left the hair dye on too long, because now I'm quite the brunette! Heck, I always wanted to see what that was like too. I feel so incognito...
Last night when I went to the dance, everybody there said I looked familiar, and where had they seen me before? Perhaps they thought I was the redheaded Heather's evil twin. Muhahahahaaaaaa!

More Austin Pics

2006-04-06T15:52:00.000-05:00

Austin has so many inviting parks...

A nifty gazebo at one of the parks

Outdoor Rec

2006-04-05T11:11:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I had a grin on my lips that wouldn't quit. Austin rocks! Austin seems to like me, too. My ego got a lot of stroking yesterday...all sorts of really cute guys started coming out of the woodwork to hit on me. The only weird one was an (old! ...like in his 50's) married guy who gave me the line of his wife not understanding him, not enjoying the outdoors, etc. etc., and did I want to go out in the backcountry with him sometime? Ick, gross, yucky!

The reason the backcountry came up in conversation? I was in Whole Earth Provisions, checking out all of the cool outdoor gear. (And the sales guys...) I ended up buying an Osprey Ariel 55 pack. My old pack was too small for taking on the PCT...even though I don't have much gear, I need lots of room for obscene amounts of water in the desert sections, and prodigious amounts of food in the high Sierras. (Old pack being 35 cubic liters, vs 55cl for new)

Osprey has three different styles of hip belts to choose from. Once I picked mine out, the belt was put in the special Osprey oven and baked for 10 minutes. After baking, I strapped it on and wore it around the store another 10 minutes to let the belt cool into shape, conforming to my unique hip anatomy.

After pack shopping, I tripped on over to Whole Foods for some supper. I was originally planning on going to Barton Springs at 9pm (They stop charging after 9), but I had so much fun talking to the cheese guy, I ended up saying to heck with biking over to the springs, and had a leisurely supper out on the patio.

Book People was on the menu next, and I stayed there until they closed at 11. Still not sleepy, I took the long way home...I bicycled to a bus stop, then sat there journaling for an hour. After letting all the buses that had my usual route go by, I got on a bus route that I hadn't been on before, for fun and excitement. I had a great time talking to the driver! Very cool guy, into bicycling and road tripping via car across the US. The bus went out of service at the end of the line (West Gate) but he had to loop back up past my road to get to the bus garage, so I kept riding, and was able to get dropped off just feet from my doorstep. Coolness :-)

Other nifty stuff that happened yesterday: I found a new cafe with oodles of ambiance, free wifi, and wicked good food. There, I had a turkey panini with southwestern sauce to die for, then followed it up by biking to the 24 hour mexican bakery and having a decadent slice of rich chocolate cake with a coconut/condensed milk frosting, ooey gooey cherry filling, whipped cream, chocolate sauce, and a cherry. Yummy!

Austin Rocks!

2006-04-05T01:16:00.000-05:00

Fun times

2006-04-03T20:28:00.000-05:00

I just spent an outrageous amount of money on a pair of sandals. I feel so frivolous! And fabulous! And oh so fine...

The new sandals are a pair of Chacos, something I have been lusting after for years and years and years. I could never justify the cost. I finally reached the point where I just didn't care anymore. Viva la payday!

Part of the decision to buy them came because I liked the sales clerks down at Whole Earth Provisions. I spent a loooooong time trying on sneakers and sandals, then went to go fiddle around with the packs. I ended up going across the street to a tavern for lunch with two of the sales guys. They had real food, I had a chocolate volcano. Mmmmmm. :-)

I am here

2006-04-03T20:16:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite spots downtown ... the Halcyon Cafe. They have comfy couches and chairs, great music, and yummy food/drinks.

This was the first place I ran into when I came to Austin the first time around (on my bike trip). When I came back the second time (to live here) and booted up my laptop out on the patio, I was tickled pink to see my wifi setting remembered the place and automatically signed me on. Little things in life are cool. The more you celebrate the little things, the more the big things fall into place. Life is good. :-)

( From a PCT list I'm on )

2006-04-03T20:11:00.000-05:00

On Wednesday of this week, at two minutes and three seconds after 1:00 in the morning, the time and date will be:

01:02:03 04/05/06.

Snuggle Buddy

2006-04-03T00:52:00.000-05:00

Well heck, my post about wanting somebody to snuggle up with late at night generated a pretty big response! I guess a lot of people out there have the same thought. What can I say - great minds think alike.

It's almost 1am and I'm still wide awake, bright eyed and bushy-tailed. Since nobody is waiting for me in bed, I've been online reading various PCT hiker journals. Talk about me being antsy! I'm really chomping at the bit to go take a hike. 3 weeks to go, and counting...

Now, how to amuse myself in the meantime? Any local Austinites care to write and tell me all about the cool things I can do in this town? Royalepain@aol.com

To Do?

2006-04-03T00:15:00.000-05:00

I do food service for special events. My work schedule is very erratic! I just worked Fri-Sat, and won't have any work for who knows how long... perhaps this weekend, perhaps sooner, or even later.

This leaves me with a lot of free time. The clock is slowly ticking down towards my PCT start date. Why can't it get here sooner? I'm twiddling my thumbs here!

When I get money, I'm immediately running online to buy the PCT guidebooks. I have so much planning to do! And then the really fun part...buying stuff! New gear, 4-5 days of food to start off with, sneakers, etc. It's a good thing I have my very erratic job...it'll supply me with a little extra money, and give me time to explore my newly adopted home city.

More pics of where I live

2006-04-02T17:50:00.000-05:00

The dining room and glorious kitchen

Tree outside....it's spring!

The events of the 30th

2006-03-31T22:04:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I decided to pack up my things and go on an overnight bicycle trip. I only made it 20 miles out of town before I stopped at a gas station for a snack, and picked up a copy of the paper. There, in the events section, were a couple of cool movies showing in Austin that night. I hemmed and hawed, then decided to head back to town to catch the events. Almost as soon as I pointed my bike back towards home, my boss called and asked if I could come to work the next day. I guess it was inevitable :-)

So, fast forward. I went to the movies. They were free, courtesy of Monkey Wrench Books. One was a documentary on 2 Brits who got sued by McDonalds over publishing a leaflet about McD's business practises, and the other was a short film by a lady who had bicycled over the highest paved road in South America. It included a piece on self sustainability in Hawaii.

After the movies, I got back on the road around 11:30pm-ish. I was cruising along, enjoying the 72 degree temps and smell of wildflowers in the air. I noticed a car speeding towards me along an intersecting road and immediately hit my brakes, missing the side of the car by inches. The man inside slammed on his brakes and hopped out, really worried and asking repeatedly if I was ok. We both stood there for a long time, profusely apologizing to one another. Oops!

I took South 1st street home, and stopped by the 24 hour Mexican bakery for a flan. Mmmmmmm that was good! As I was biking home, I approached a traffic light controlled intersection. I had green. The lady on the side street didn't seem to notice, as she pulled out in front of me. I yelled at her. "Hey! Hey Lady! I have the right of way!" and just barely missed getting run over.

Ooooh, and the day before, I almost got clobbered by some beer kegs! A beer truck sped up to cross the intersection in front of me (I had right-of-way), and as he turned, half a dozen metal kegs of beer rolled out of his truck and into the intersection, barely missing me and my bike.

(Mom, forget everything I've just written. Austin is really cool! And safe!)

Favorite Sign

2006-03-31T21:51:00.000-06:00

This sign is on one of the roads I take to get to town. It always makes me smile. :-)

Contra Dancing

2006-03-30T09:47:00.000-06:00

Yesterday was a very momentous day. I got my first paycheck, bought a digital camera to replace the one I had stolen, I managed to ride 40 miles just around town, and to top it off, last night I went contra dancing. Weeeeeee!!

The kitchen

2006-03-30T09:45:00.000-06:00

The backyard

2006-03-30T09:44:00.000-06:00

Human Touch

2006-03-28T21:49:00.000-06:00

I don't want a romantic relationship. I want touch. I want to fall asleep curled up against someone, wrapped in their arms. To run my fingertips over their smooth skin. To lay there late at night with my body snuggled against their warm chest and thighs, the cool evening air caressing and enveloping everything else.

I think most people really just crave a kind, gentle human touch in their lives...and use romantic relationships/sex as a path to get it. The ironic thing is once you start a relationship, the pure and simple holding each other goes out the window. Instead of reveling in the closeness, waking up in the middle of the night and realizing your breathing has synchronized with theirs as you watch them sleep....that sweetness slips through your grasp. The focus shifts to sex and how to get it. Which shifts the focus away from simple enjoyment of one another, and towards creating and maintaining a relationship. Wonderful as sex and relationships are, right now I just want gentle, kind, loving touch. Simple and innocent. No sex involved. No romantic entanglements. No thinking about the future. No wondering what to cook for them on weekend mornings, or if they find me funny, or what to do together as a couple. Just someone to have and to hold at night, to fall asleep with and wake up in the morning next to.

My pillows just aren't cutting it anymore.

Food

2006-03-28T21:20:00.000-06:00

Moon ranch in New Mexico, pic taken on bike trip

I woke up this morning to pounding rain and dull grey skies outside. I lounged around in my bed, listening to the rain beat down on the oak leaves and ivy carpeting the yard. Thunder rolled in the distance, lazily announcing its plans to hang around for awhile.

I find thunder very sexy. There's just something about rain and thunder that makes me feel alive, both at peace and energized at the same time. When thunder is outside, I feel like hunkering down inside and cooking up a storm. Today was no exception.

I sliced up a whole head of cabbage and sauteed it in oil with tarragon, crazy salt and pepper, along with 3 onions, what was left in a bag of carrots (about 6), half a head of garlic, and some ginger. I mixed it with 3 kinds of cheese (cheddar, swiss and montery jack), and stuck it in the fridge while I made some dough by hand. Once the dough was finished rising, I rolled it out into circles, filled it with the sauteed veggie mix, and folded the dough over, crimping the edges with a fork. I brushed the dough with an egg glaze and popped the calzones in the oven for half an hour. Fred and I ate the calzones with warm pizza dipping sauce for lunch. Mmmmmmmm.

Fred went to work, and I spent the rest of the day over at Danielle's house (the other girl I went to Fort Worth with), talking and hanging out. We had a devine supper of salmon and potatoes on the grill and a mixed leaf/veggie/crab salad.

When I got back to my house, the only sign that Fred had been back was the platter of chocolate chip cookies that I had made before leaving were demolished. And the extra calzone I had made for him to take to Kate was mysteriously absent from the fridge.

Travel

2006-03-27T20:18:00.000-06:00

Me poolside in Phoenix, AZ

Today a copy of Yogi's PCT Handbook came in the mail, courtesy of a fan. YESSSSS!!! I immediately sat down on the couch for some serious reading. It's made me so restless! Now I'm positively bursting at the seams, ready to get out there and start hiking.

This whole planning something out before I do it is really wierd. I mean, with the PCT, I actually need some semblence of an idea of when I start, where I'll be camping each night, etc, so I can figure out food and water and whatnot. Because the PCT is out in the middle of nowhere in a lot of places, I can't just wing it, like I just did on the bike trip. If I did, I could find myself in the middle of a 30 mile waterless stretch with nothing but saltines and a couple of sips of water in the bottom of my bottles.

Brilliant!

Sleep Deprivation

2006-03-26T20:04:00.000-06:00

My workplace shipped 4 of us up to the Fort Worth convention center to serve at a huge event. We crammed almost 40 hours of work into 3 days! They put us up in a motel, took us out to dinner every night, and drove us to work in the morning. It was a fun little road trip. I had an absolute blast hanging out after hours with the people I work with.

Now, for bed.

Adventure

2006-03-22T10:44:00.000-06:00

I've received quite a bit of feedback about my AT or PCT question. The consensus is about evenly split as to which trail.

One person suggests I flip a coin (It came out 4 out of 5 for doing the PCT), and another suggests I do not just the AT or the PCT, but the whole triple crown - AT, PCT, and CDT! And yet another person thinks I should shelve my wandering ways and crack the books down at college instead.

Just now, I got the best fan letter ever. Here's a snippet:

Just as the lady in the library, I have followed your exploits for over a year
now. I have come to deeply respect you as a force of nature capable of
overcoming just about any obstacle with a deep compassion, intellect, and
outgoing personality that is rare among people in these times. You can
do the PCT! Think of the adventures waiting!

Ok, just for that brilliant compliment, I'll do the PCT. :-) That, and the coin toss. As Sugarbush found out, you just can't argue with a coin toss....

Coolness, PCT it is! Now to just tell Fred. And get my gear together. And figure out where to store my stuff. And how to get there. And I suppose I should buy the PCT data book et. al, so I know where to send food and get water.

I've now gotten over my guilt of using this time in my life to galavant around the country instead of being responsible and holding down a 'real' job and life. I could get run over by a truck tomorrow. Once I woke up in a hospital bed and found out I would never be able to walk again, would I really wish I had put a damper on my travelling and worked 50 weeks a year instead?

This is summed up much more eloquently by another letter I received recently:

Thanks for the entertaining journals. Though I don't know you I do enjoy
living vicariously through some of your adventures. I'm a little older
than you & got stuck in the life that society expects. What I now
realize it that once you go to that place it's hard to break away and get back a
real life of adventure & wonder! Whatever you choose, have a great time.

Thanks! Will do.

AT or PCT?

2006-03-21T14:35:00.000-06:00

Both are such good trails, how do I decide?

From here in Austin, it's 1,252 miles to Campo, CA and the PCT. From here to Dahlonega, GA, and the start of the AT, it's 1,028 miles.

The weather patterns this year will be a neutral to mild La Nina, meaning it'll pretty much stay like it is, or be slightly drier than normal. Lack of water is a big concern for PCT hikers, AT hikers really only need to worry about how many hurricane remnants will dump on them this year. Evidently last year was a doozy...Wicked wet for all those poor, soggy ATers, and the PCTers found streams that normally are dry as a bone running full with luscious water.

Which one do you think I should hike this year, and why? Drop me a line at Royalepain@aol.com and let me know. :-)