Lost Journal Entry...

When I was posted outside the cave at Carlsbad Caverns, I got to witness some truly glorious spring days. You know those days when the sky is that perfect shade of deep blue, a few fluffy white clouds sail past to remind you of unseen winds, the landscape is a desert postcard of deep greens and accent greys, birds chirp and flirt and build homes for future chicks, and ravens play overhead to taunt you and your earthboundedness... yeah, those were the days I was inspired to write. I'd write on a tiny notepad I kept in my sexy NPS-provided fanny pack. I would write thoughts, aspirations, travel plans, and memories.

I recently found that notepad, and on it I had written this.... 

I discovered who I was the summer after college. I went to Virginia looking for something but not sure what. What I found was myself. The self that was hiding deep inside; the self that cried out for every trail that went into the woods along the highways we traveled during family vacations and led me down old farm roads during one of my drives. I realized that I was happiest when I was simply putting one foot in front of the other in the wilderness. I spent lazy summer afternoons lying on a mountain peak with a book in my hand, some good company and a beautiful view. I hiked through the ethereal Blue Ridge fog, the life-stealing heat of Utah's desert and sand dunes in the Rockies. I've seen alligators, badgers, mountain lions and bears along winding wooded paths.

My life has taken me to many new places. I have met some wonderful and interesting people along the way. There was the practical joking law enforcement officer who engaged me in a battle of the wits, the guys who lived next door who rappelled from the roof of the house and the drunk, with whom I shared a wall, who had a heart of gold and a never ending supply of weed and beer. I have met mortal enemies and kindred souls, sometimes living with one or the other. The most interesting souls I've run across have been the thru-hikers along the Appalachian Trail. So many different walks of life and reasons for hiking the AT yet they all came together for one common goal; to finish the 1,200 mile-long historic trail.

I grew up a nervous child always pestering my parents with "what if" questions. Who would have guessed that I would grow to experience all that I have. I've been chased off a mountain peak by bolts of lightning that rained down around me and spent hours deep within the red-rock canyons of Utah never quite believing that I could get out. I have witnessed first light from the top of a 2,000 foot cliff and been woken by cowboys moving herds of cattle around my tent. I have hiked through the 120-degree heat of a Utah summer, camped in the howling winter winds of the Guadalupe Mountains and bagged a peak in Virginia during a blizzard. But none of that prepared me for the tiny holes and crevasses that awaited me my first season as a park ranger at Carlsbad Caverns. There I learned the true meaning of the words "pitch black" and understood just where the term "pinch" got its name.

I have lost toenails, gotten sun poisoning and developed a stress fracture for my love of hiking. I sold my apartment and all of its furnishings to follow my dreams and I've never been happier!

Happy discovery!

This was one of those perfect spring days

Holy Shit, That Spider Just Exploded!

A few of you have asked about my other infamous spider story so here it is!

The Exploding Spider of Carlsbad

Now, I grew up in Houston, Texas, home of the flying cockroach.  (and yes, typing that did just make me break out into the itchies)  Growing up with such an evil creature around, I have developed a liking for EVERY OTHER INSECT THAT ISN'T A ROACH!  Spiders included.  So I'm no stranger to creepy crawlies and they don't bug me too much.  (However, I knew I'd entered adulthood the day that watching that horrid insect-filled corridor scene in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom made me freak out.  Before that I watched in awe and excitement as a child)

Back to the story.  It was my very first season at the cave, in fact it was my first season as a seasonal ranger.  I moved into my seasonal quarters and quickly learned that insects would be my roommates.  The girls already living there informed me that the hall light was to be kept on every night to lure the insects away from the bedrooms.  I'll pause for all of you to go throw up or freak out from that thought.  While I'm pausing, I'll list the insects found on the wall around the light each morning.

• gnats
• moths
• roaches (hurl!)
• millipedes
• centipedes
• beetles
• bugs with no names, unless you are an entemologist
• scorpions (!!!!!!!!!!!!)
• small spiders
• medium spiders
• really big spiders eating all the insects mentioned above

Everyone back?  Ok, moving on.  So I moved into this house full of insects.  The designers had lovingly carpeted the floors with dark brown speckled carpeting so you were never really sure what you were about to step on.  Needless to say, I wore shoes constantly and never sat on the floor.  The worst was when you'd walk across the living room and feel something crunch beneath your foot.  EW!

In retrospect, I'm glad for the insect-induced shoe wearing.  After living there for a year, the carpets were scheduled for a shampooing.  I came home to wet beige carpet.  Not dark brown, but beige!  I can only imagine the countless bug carcasses that must have littered the floor, turning the carpet brown with their essence.  Gettysburg in my living room.

There were 3 of us living in the house and, due to the terror-inducing carpet, we all crammed on the 3 seater sofa every evening.  Only a few nights of lights-off movie watching and we learned that the sofa was also insect-afflicted.  Imagine sitting on the couch with your new best friends, lights off, scary scary Japanese movie on tv where people die from cell phone use (oh wait, didn't science prove that could happen?  hello brain-cancer), and suddenly something crawls accross your shoulder, onto your neck and disappears into your hair.  What would you do?  What would Jesus do?  Well, we did what became known as the "spider dance".  The individual would jump of the couch a lightning speed, and screaming or whimpering, run in place while shaking their heads furiously to dislodge the offending creature.  Once it was gone and the heebie jeebies were over, they would sit back down and finish the movie.  We would pause it, cause after all, we were polite  It was a guest ritual.  Male, female, everyone on our couch would eventually do the spider dance.  It was a great ice-breaker for the new employees.

Roommates on Spider Couch, watching movie and suffering from cabin fever after a nasty snow storm.

Roommates vogue-ing....  cabin fever, I swear

Then there was the morning that my morning coffee was horribly ruined.  See I'd wake up very very early so that I could make my coffee and sit at the bar, reading in the peaceful quiet of my roommates slumber.  Eventually roomie S would come in and make her coffee, grunt a good morning and retire to her room.  So this one morning as I'm sitting at the bar, where I've been for an hour, S walks in.  After a few minutes I notice that she's not moving.  I look up at her and she is standing in the kitchen doorway, mouth open, horrified expression on her face and pointing just above my head.  I look up (this happened in slow-motion, I swear!) and chilling out directly over my head on the ceiling is the biggest wolf spider I've ever seen.  Even though I'm dying inside, I very slowly get up, grab my coffee, and walk away.  Just in the nick of time because the spider fell from the ceiling, I assume from the sheer WEIGHT of its ginormous body, and landed in my seat.  S ran screaming, doing a variation of the spider dance while I stood there and watched it crawl up the drapes, swearing I wouldn't lose eye contact until it was out of the house.  We finally managed to get it out of the house using a time-honored roommate tradition.  We called the guy next door.  Of course, this guy laughed at us on the phone cause we couldn't take care of the little spider.  He showed up with a cup too small to hold the creature, freaked out by the size of it but managed to lure it outside.

But nothing compares with the exploding spider.  A week after I'd moved in and had learned the ways of the insect night light, I discovered a really large hairy spider in the middle of my bedroom floor.  I'd had a long day and just wanted to change and have dinner.  This spider wanted none of that.  It sat in my path in the middle of the floor and wouldn't move.  I tried shooing it out but it would only chase me.  When I'd had enough of trying to be nice and follow Geneva Convention, I reached for the bug spray.  I took aim.  I fired.  The spider exploded!

Literally, little brown bits went shooting off of it!  In all directions, over all of my unpacked items that I now would never be able to touch again.

Little known fact to this young ranger, some spiders carry their young on their backs where they can "abandon ship" to save themselves.

I slept the next few nights on the couch and used the entire can of bug spray in the bedroom.  Even so, I spent the next 5 months constantly worried that a baby spider would take revenge by crawling into my ear and exploding its own offspring in my brain.

Sweet Dreams!
(and in case you were wondering, I'm still itching)