These Boots Were Made For Walking

Every once in awhile, you sit down at your computer on your day off, tea steaming beside you as you check your daily horoscope, and remember you have a blog you swore you were going keep updated. 

It's not that I totally forgot, I just haven't had much time (or lets face it, motivation) to do any reflection, photo-editing, or thesaurus-ing.  But finally, I bring you updates, such as they are. 

For starters, I turned 27 back in July.

When you turn 27, you become mightier than the Yellow River.

How did I celebrate, you ask?  One of my best friends came to visit from Kansas so we could go camping and kayaking to celebrate my entry into my late-twenties.  I've had some awesome birthdays during my years of travel, but this one easily makes the top three.

Not hard to figure out why.

Let's also take a moment to appreciate the very first fire I made all by myself.
Candles on a cake just can't compare.  Say that five times fast.

I also took a much anticipated trip to Kansas to make sure my nephews don't forget me and for my annual tune-up (variety of doctor's appointments and check ups).  For those who haven't heard me complain about the drive before, the trip takes about 10.5 to 11 hours of driving depending on how much liquid I consume.  It also entails looking at a lot of cornfields.  Also usually manage to get sunburned on my left arm.

The drive is long enough that I end up having to do this with my sunglasses:

...otherwise I feel like my skull is being reshaped.

The visit to Kansas has the same effect as it always does: that a sense of home will follow me wherever I go.

Metaphor.  Also a nice way to kill time while waiting in a construction zone in the middle of nowhere.

Upon arriving back in the Driftless, August decided to challenge July as the most hectic month of the year.  This was accomlished mainly by the end-of-summer rush of visitors and special programs/activities at work, along with the Interp Division's enthusiasm for socials and get-togethers.  Exhausting as it all was, I'd go back and do it all again...I think.

One of the big events was this last Saturday.  It was the 96th birthday of the National Park Service, and we had a special Moonlight Hike. A Moonlight Hike is a cross between a guided tour, historical reenactments with living history characters, and a good ol' fashioned night hike.  They're fun for everyone, especially for the rangers who get to do different characters.  This was my first year to be an actual character, in years past I would lead groups up the hill to the different stops, so I decided to go all out.

Photographs of women's uniforms from the 1970s have been floating around the office for as long as I've been there, and everyone is always amazed that women had to wear THAT.  I decided that was going to be my talk, how women's roles and their uniforms have changed through the years.  After doing the requisite research and photograph analysis, I bought fabric, hot glue sticks, and borrowed black stiletto boots.

I became "Gertie," a young ranger in the '70s who tried to prove to her male coworkers she could climb the hill no matter what and ended up spraining her ankle.  While filling out her incident report, Gertie waxed nostalgic about the good ol' days of women being able to wear camping clothes and riding gear (and a real badge) in the early years of the NPS and lamented the change to skirts and heels as women became the eye candy in the visitor centers.



Can't quite reach Eye Candy status on my own,
so I grabbed a tray of tasty treats.

Hidden in the above picture is another little newsworthy item.  You all out there in my imagination internet-land might not know this about me, but I once had long, flowing locks of blonde hair.  Here is a dramatically enhanced photo to prove it:



Angst-y and weighed down.

That is, until last week.  With very little planning, and probably as a result of my own inner crisis, I had just shy of eight inches sheared off.  I dig it.

Less angst-y.  Somewhat lighter.

That's all I got, folks.

Next up on the radar: Taking on Philadelphia.