Lily update (includes new email address!)

Hey - I hope everyone is having a good summer so far and sounds like plans for people are falling into place!

I spent a week in Yellowstone/the Tetons with my family right after graduation. I saw so many animals close up! Bison, elk, black bears, grizzlies (with cubs!), pronghorn sheep, pikas, and moose. The one thing I really wanted to see was a wolf ... and sitting on the tarmac at Jackson Hole, I saw one on the runway next to us!!
The bison were everywhere. We got in a couple traffic jams because a whole herd were crossing (and taking a while).




We also went on a horse trail ride and I loved it. It was so cool - my horse was a bit of a bitch though (actually, the only girl horse on the ride too). She actually kicked my sister's horse in the face behind me for really no good reason. I want to ride more horses!

Then I met Andrew in the Denver airport and got picked up by Steve-o and Jake (the burlington boulderer, not Big Feintzeig). We've been crashing on Steveos' couches and bumming around. We climbed at a different climbing area every day of last week (so many places!!); spent the weekend in Rifle (where I couldn't climb hardly anything...limestone is hard!). I've spent this week at one of the four awesome climbing gyms here in town (Movement) -- just because I don't have anything else to do, and their air conditioning saves me from the balls hot heat wave. Mark will be happy to know that I've been practicing whippers and I've been trying to lead stuff that I will definitely fall on. Hopefully I will grow some bigger balls to be comfortable leading outside. Or at least borrow some from the heat wave.

I don't want to continue to complain -- but I definitely didn't know what to expect with the altitude. Man, so much huffing and puffing! I guess I didn't really think about it before getting here, but it's taken me a little to get used to it. Lungs, fill with oxygen!

I realized on Saturday that was the longest I'd ever been away from Teo. 10 days for spring break. 11 days since I'd been in Hanover.

If anyone sees him around Hanover, tell him I love him. And if you are traveling from Hanover to New York and want to bring him for a visit, I'd love you.


And now the name-dropping section:
Seen a couple days of Clara Chew! She's doing great and I think is really enjoying Boulder. She's a busy bee though, lots of work/waking up at 6 AM. I woke up today at 10:30. Her car window broke today but at least her bumper is aligned because that was broken too.
Dom is getting here tonight. I do not want to hike, Dom. But I will sit in the air conditioning with you! And I can't wait to see your glacier-chiseled guns.
Egan is getting here July 6th!
Also heard that Shellito, McCauley, and Alice are showing up on the 6th!
Ellen says she'll be coming to visit from Creede sometime on a weekday(s). She can write her own update though.
So yeah, if you are around in Boulder and don't want to see me, at least come say hi to these nice people! If you do want to see me:
Today - July 18th: Boulder and vicinity
July 18th - July 23rd: Philadelphia
July 23rd - on: New York. 1st and 19th street. Come crash on my floor or use my pasta machine! I can't even offer you a couch because I don't know what the furniture situation is.

ALSO - my new email address is lily.he.2010@gmail.com if you don't already have it. Keep in touch! I miss Dartmouth!

Colorado is the place for adventures

Laura and I successfully made it from the East coast to Colorado with only a couple false alarms regarding car trouble (I was convinced I had a flat tire, Laura was convinced her gas tank was leaking, my check engine light went on - turns out it was all nothing). We left Wednesday morning, June 16th and spent the night at an extremely buggy campsite run by a very friendly family. On Thursday, after driving for 12 hours the second day in a row, we were planning on camping again, except after hearing warnings of tornadoes and floods and certain severe thunderstorms, I decided it might be wise to take up my dad on his offer of a motel room. We stayed in a Holiday Inn Express in Lincoln, NE and watched the sky change colors as the storm rolled in (we weren't lucky enough to get a tornado, however).

Friday afternoon we made it to Denver and I followed directions on my iPhone around the city to a new (to me) kayak and mountain bike. Friday night we were crashing at Greg's friend's house in Boulder and were headed there when we ran into two kayak bums on the side of the road. They looked pretty cute and we could tell they were definitely sweet dudes cause they weren't wearing any shirts so we decided to stop and ended up joining them for a makeshift dinner party by our cars.

Saturday we headed down to FIBArk and got there in time to see the Hooligan race: only qualification for entry is that your craft can NOT be a boat. Some people got quite creative. There were a couple of crafts that looked a lot like Max F's inflatable pool. My favorite was the giant PBR 6-pack. We saw it the next day when we ran a section of the Arkansas a number of miles down stream pinned against a rock and with only 5 "beers" remaining. Sunday, after an epic road trip, we finally parted ways.

Monday was my first full day on the ranch. There was one other student already here, Harry, who is just graduated from St Michael's in VT (thats a college not a hs). Joey (Tri-kap #1) showed up on Wednesday and John (Tri-kap #2) and his friend from Hamilton, Chase, arrived on Thursday. They all seem pretty chill, but I haven't gotten to know them that well yet. Partly, because I am completely segregated from the male species. As I'm sure Kate and Ben will recall, the boys are put in the "Hodge Podge Lodge" a mile down the road from the ranch and I, being a female, am in a cabin right on the ranch. Also, as Kate and Ben experienced, the work is completely divided by sexes. Boys use weed-whackers and cut wood, girls

clean cabins. (I'm the only female "student", but I work with Emily, the ranch manager's 16 year old daughter, who I actually have a lot of respect for. She reminds me a of a much cooler version of me when I was that age. And she got in a fight her freshman year of high school, which is something I would never have the balls to do.) I was rereading Kate's old post when she talked about how Ben cleaned windows only if they were on the 2nd story. Well, apparently, Mary, the office manager, had been trying to get the men on the ranch to do someth

ing about the second story windows, and finally they gave us a couple of the boys to help. Turns out that they weren't that much of a help, and Emily ended up climbing up the steep ladder to clean most of the high up windows. As Kate mentioned, despite the fact that I might have more experience than some of the boys or might be more qualified to do some of their jobs or simply just might be better at their doing their job, the fact that I have a second X chromosome means I'm relegated to watering flowers, sweeping floors, and ironing table clothes.

I'll see how it goes. I have faith that it might get better. This was just the first week when everything needed to get organized. Charles (the owner, Charles Nearburg... heard stories? I've gotten to see some of his toys including his plane, his supped up Jeep with "Cowboy Thunder" painted on the side, and the outline of his Ferrari through its fitted cover) arrived the other day. There are number of old ranch hands that will be arriving in the next couple of days for a reunion. And guests will start arriving in the next week or so. I've heard that Charles generally has projects for the students (something about making a fence), which I hope means that I can work along side the boys. To be honest, the work isn't that great, but it is sort of what I was expecting. It really isn't bad. You do your work, you get paid, and you go have fun.

And speaking of fun. I had a great time this past weekend. Realizing that it was the only time I was guaranteed to have a full weekend off, I hopped in my car Saturday morning and headed to Crested Butte, where both Laura and Erin Larson are working. After a beautiful drive I arrived in CB around noon, found Laura, and shortly thereafter we met up with Erin. We tried mountain biking on Saturday, but to due to time constraints we didn't get that far, but did bike up the huge hill in CB. Saturday night Laura and I met up with Erin and some of her friends to head out for a night hike. The plan was to summit Red Rock. The path started going up hill, then traversed for awhile, and then up a little more, and then turned and started going down in the complete opposite direction of the mountain. So we eventually turned around with summitting, which was fine by me because it meant we got back to our car before midnight and I was pooped by then. Sunday we got out mountain biking for real. After completing one trail we headed down a dirt road in search of the classic class V creek, Oh Be Joyful, with only a vague idea of where it was supposed to be. We found it eventually and it was increadible. Laura and I thought about running it but we only had playboats (kidding). We were about three hours early to watch the race on the creek, which would have been really cool to see but instead we headed back to town on a different trail and had well-deserved burritos for lunch at around 3 o'clock.

Thats more or less all for now. I'm bartending/serving tonight at the lodge for the reunion. I'm also desperate for some kayaking friends so today I went into the only rafting company in town to see if any of the guides happened to be kayakers. The answer was yes, all five of them are, but there isn't really any whitewater in the area. (The single run close by is already too low.) The guy working there gave me his contact info, however, and a trip to Durango or Salida or BV might work out. And I guess I have to be honest and say... I still don't think its fair that I don't get to do the same work as boys at the ranch, but sexism does work both ways and I wouldn't be surprised if the guide was more willing to work out a kayaking trip because I was a lady boater.

Mmmmmooooose!

Hey all!

Reporting in from Anchorage, Alaska. I have a few more days of "prep" before my participants arrive. I'm super excited and its been fun cruising around the Anchorage area. We've been staying in Eagle River, which is 10 miles or so outside of Anchorage. Alex K's family was super kind and offered us much needed showers and an AMAZING feast of Alaskan Salmon, Alaskan King Crab, and turtle bars! Thank you! Mmmmmmm....Alex also joined us on a short little hike near Lake Eklutna and watched the US lose to Ghana. BOOOOO. Carlos Bocanegra, you should be ashamed...

Last night we were chilling at our campsite when an adolescent female moose walked by. Mmmmoooooose! They really do make that noise. First of many wildlife sightings I'm sure. I've been playing phone-tag w/ the Gnar-girl to try to do some kayaking up here, but I'm worried that we will run out of time. Boooo.

I won't have real interwebs-phone service until August, but I will try to update you all w/ photos, etc asap.

-elar

ps.
August 10-16 Park City, UT
August 28-? New York, NY; Boston, MA; to a free couch near you?! I am working on some plans to be on the East Coast for a little bit and would love to visit. Just need floor space/couch to crash on.

Mark and Julie got an apartment!

It was a hard fought race, and for awhile we weren't really sure which we would finish first: the apartment hunt in New Haven, or the Lord of the Rings films.
Today, friends, I am happy to report that Julie and I have finished both. I'll spare you my thoughts on hobbits, but I will give you the key details about our new digs.

- We've got a big, two bedroom apartment in Westville, about a ten minute walk from my job at Hopkins and about a five minute ride from West Rock State Park, which has 32 miles of mountain bike trails.

- The landlord is a mountain biker, so I'm getting trails beta from him. He is a big fan of the West Rock trails, and claims you can do xc loops or psycho-technical stuff, depending on your inclination. Time will tell if CT biking is up to snuff.

- Okay, on an indoors note: the apartment is nicer than 3D. Sorry. Though it lacks a pong room (for now...?)

- Due to the nice layout, affordability, good natural light, big living room, swank kitchen, and proximity to MTB'ing, I was pretty sold on this place. Julie, however, had her heart set on an apartment in this retrofitted underwear factory ("Smoothie"... only in Connecticut):



Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed.
Well, that's where we'll be starting September 1st. Til then, I'll see you around, and may call upon Team Hanover's couches a few times this summer.

Cheers,
Mark