January, um, recently,,,

Yeeeaaaah.  Thought I was going to write here a little more often, still getting into the swing of it!  In the interim, I've set my sights on Bidwell Park.  There are a ton of great trails in Upper Park, and I'm determined to hike them all.  To this end, I created a Facebook event as sort of an open invite to any friends who are interested in discovering these trails with me.  Since then I've been out twice, and crossed four trails off the list!  The first time no one showed - maybe because I was hiking at 9:30 in the morning on a Saturday.  Totally cool though, I enjoy solo hiking.  Decided to knock out Upper Trail, Live Oak Trail, and Lower Trail in a little loop of sorts that amounted to around 4.5 miles.  I'd never been up onto the North Rim before (other than down by Monkeyface), and the views from the top of Live Oak Trail were amazing.  Naturally I forgot my camera, so my crappy cell phone had to suffice for pictures.  As will so often randomly happen in this small awesome town of ours, just as I was reaching the end of Live Oak Trail where it runs into the North Rim trail, a friend of mine happened to be jogging by.  We stopped to marvel at the trails for a few minutes, and then went about our respective ways.  Had so much fun that day that I decided to go again the next day!  That time I was accompanied by no fewer than five friends, and we hiked the Guardian trail in its entirety and finished up with a section of South Rim trail/Annie Bidwell trail to get us back to Horseshoe Lake.  We did it in a one-way shuttle hike fashion, which put us at around 5 miles in hiking.  Tons of fun!  I remembered my camera this time, but naturally I forgot to check the batteries, which were dead.  Rad.  I had never been on the southern side of Upper Park before, and it was really very beautiful.  Far less traffic as well.  Recommended.

So, in other news, I've very recently gotten very excited about a profession that I didn't know existed, and that I think might be what I should do: Wilderness Therapy.  I only just found out about this line of work after my awesome Shyla sent me a couple of links.  The idea is that you do what I'm already doing - work with at-risk youth - except that you do it in a wilderness or backcountry setting.  After scouring teh interwebz I came up with a list of 11 different agencies in places ranging from Oregon to North Carolina, all of which have ongoing hiring, and all of which I am totally qualified for.  Interestingly enough, for the most part all of these agencies structure their programs very similarly (at least from the employee side): the pay is in the same range, there is opportunity for rapid advancement, the work schedule is the same (totally crazy - 8 days on/6 days off!!!), they all have full benefits, they all provide paid training, and they all provide sweet discounts on gear.  Whoa!  So, they pay people to take a bunch of kids backpacking for 8 days, and then you get 6 days off to go traipse around the wilderness yourself or sleep or take a road trip or whatever.   I think I can handle that.  Pretty excited, was tempted to quit my job yesterday.  Yeah, yeah, not gonna do it, wouldn't be prudent.

Now, what does this mean for New Orleans, you say (or maybe you don't, but in my head you do).  Well, that's still there.  Me and the wife have been realizing that, really, since we've made the decision to move, the possibilities are endless.  We don't have to be anywhere by any certain time, and, though the money will run out sooner than later, we can pretty much go anywhere and do whatever.  For me, this is intoxicating.  I feel alive.  It has crossed my mind recently that this bit of wanderlust that is gnawing at me so intensely has always been there - I never intended to stay in Chico, and this lust has only really been satiated I think by touring with my band so frequently for all those years.  I don't have an actively touring band anymore, and I haven't been on a significant (timewise/lengthwise) tour since the summer of 2009.  This has left me to stew for these last two and a half years, and I really feel that it's reached a critical point.  Well, obviously, since we made the decision to get the fuck out of here.  So we will wander.  First through Europe over the summer, then through the U.S. once we get back, and who knows where we'll end up in the short term.  New Orleans is the long term goal, but who knows - maybe we'll need to make a few detours on the way there... :-)

Well, it's raining finally and will be for several days, so this weekend I think we're staying in and plotting out a few adventures for the near future, like our epic awesome 4 day anniversary trip in March (yes, yes, I know we got married in May, but we celebrate our original anniversary AND our wedding anniversary, because we love each other THAT much).  Stay warm, see you soon!