The summer in Chelan begins

1. I sleep in the yard.

After one wild week of being stateside again, I return to Chelan to work. A friend picks me up from the train station, dinner and then I arrive at Aunt Kathryn's. They had told me they would be at their farm, so I find the spare key... and the door won't open. It's the only door to the house that you can unlock from outside, but apparently I can't.
I search for an idea of what to do. It's 11:30, everything is closed, too late to call, I'm tired... so I pull my tent out of my pack set it up in their front yard and call it a night... to wake up at 6 in the morning to the sound of Bob opening the front door, surprised to see a tent in the yard 'well Adelaide, the house is open now, come on in'. And that was that. They had decided to come back from the farm early, and forgot to expect me, and apparently the key to the house doesn't open the deadbolt, no one had ever tried before, so no one knew. Kathryn was just glad the sprinklers didn't come on during the night.

Yeah, this is going to be a good summer.

2. On to the trails.

My coworker Kristian and I swapped New Zealand stories while I spent the day filling out bureaucratic paperwork and getting gear. The pain was short lived though. The boss was out of the office, and while out injured his thumb and had to get stitches. Ken is a great boss, just longwinded, makes the paperwork drag on.

I'm immediately sent into the field to work with a WTA crew for the week. I love volunteers. There were 12 on the crew, most of them retired, a few librarians, and one younger girl. I got to look official in my uniform and go over saw safety and how to use a radio.

We were camping at Prince Creek and working on the Prince and Lakeshore trails. And they were CAMPING. A boat had shuttled all our gear up, so it was like car camping. They had a huge cook tent, tons of food, camp chairs, big tents, packs full of who knows what. I enjoyed eating their food. They had plenty to spare, and it was nice to eat real cooked meals every morning and night. Campfires, guitar picking, and yoga. Someone asked if I could lead yoga, and a bunch of them joined me fora sun salutation.

I met the legend Gary Zinc. Last season we had been working on Agnes and were supposed to meet up with him. But he started working on the trail from the other side. We never saw him, but we saw the trail he cleared, and heard stories of him carrying his 60 pound pack and 3 saws. He really does carry 3 saws all by himself, and he is the sweetest guy, retired from working at Boeing, and out working trails for fun. 7 days w/ WTA, they were sad when I left, while I was happy to go home and take a shower and have one day off.