Once again, I find myself a little surprised at how long it’s been since I updated this blog. I’ve been meaning to, but things have been busy, and I find what usually happens is that I write a post in my head, but before I get around to publishing it, I decide that it’s not worth publishing, and then more weeks and months pass. In the meantime, the last entry on the blog is titled, “Death.” Not exactly representative of my life right now!

Anyway, here’s an update that is long overdue.

I came home from Michigan in the fall of 2014, took my NREMT test, and over the course of the next few months, did a lot of paperwork and more testing until finally the state of Washington DOH got tired of me bugging them, and gave me an EMT license. I’m now a volunteer EMT with both Skamokawa VFD and Cathlamet FD, which is what I needed to move on to the next step in my changing career plans, becoming an instructor for Wilderness Medical Associates.

I went to the WMA instructor training in March of 2015, and got hired at the end of the course, but I wasn’t able to work that spring, because of my other conflicting work schedules. I finally started teaching for WMA last December, and by the end of the spring season, I had worked as an instructor for 51 days, all over the place. I’ve been to the LA area, SE Ohio, SE Missouri, Gettysburg, PA, northern Wisconsin and northern Minnesota.

Besides learning a lot about teaching, which I will be learning about for the rest of my life, I also learned that I like traveling. I’ve rarely done much more traveling than west coast road trips before. Until I went to Michigan, I had only ever been on commercial aircraft twice in my life, in 1991. Now I’ve been through a dozen different airports this year, some more than once.

Everyone told me I was going to hate it, but I found that I actually like flying. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no fan of the long TSA lines, or the ridiculous security theater that that entails. I’ve learned to dislike at least a couple of the nation’s largest airports, O’Hare and Dulles. But I’ve also found that I really like some of the smaller ones, like Duluth and Traverse City, and I really liked Denver, too, although I’ve only been through there once so far.

I like the people watching, I like the amazing level of complexity that goes into a working airport, and I like airplanes, too. I love machines of all kinds, and a commercial jet is a pretty amazing piece of machinery. I like taking off and landing, and the complexity of the wings working to do the job of lifting all those tons of loaded airplane into the sky, and then bringing the whole thing gently back onto the ground. I’m not a huge fan of the long, boring hours in between, which is why I usually try to get a window seat, so there’s something to look at. I’m slowly learning various tips and tricks for more comfortable and practical air travel, and the very beginnings of how to use mileage points accounts. The Points Guy has been helpful.

I loved seeing all kinds of new places, most of which turned out to be more interesting and pleasing than I had thought they would be. Gettysburg touched me on a level that I did not expect. SE Ohio was more beautiful and interesting than I thought it would be, and the Great Lakes region is a place I plan to go back to as often as I can manage it. I love Duluth, and Lake Superior. I love smoked whitefish. I even learned to tolerate a level of biting insects that I never would have imagined getting used to.

In between all of this travel and activity and life changes, I finally shot a deer, bought a Brittany spaniel puppy and started learning about upland bird hunting, put a brand new logging winch on the tractor and started actively thinning my woodlot, started remodeling my barn and trying to get a handle on my messy shop, and also spent much more time than I ever anticipated dealing with my aging parents, and working on helping them sell off some assets and remodeling my dad’s office building. I caught a few fish, and took a few pictures, too.

Coming soon, some pics and words about a short canoe trip in the Boundary Waters.