From june 12. day one the lodge is open. Our peaceful little place in the mountains is now full of campers. I start the shift at 7am with Jesse, meg, RJ and manager, his name is Jesse too. My duties for the day are clean the pool, move tree rounds from the downed tree in the meadow over to the log splitter then cut it into firewood. RJ drives the bobcat over to the downed tree in the meadow and I put these monster rounds onto the loader. I haven’t used a chainsaw in a few years or a bigger one at that but once you’ve used one, you can kind of figure them all out.having a good one out here makes cutting wood a hell of a lot easier. RJ is deaf so working with him was challenging at first but he has an incredible sense of humor, and a lot of patience trying to understand my version of sign language. RJ is from Texas, he was a bull rider, bull wrestler, former backcountry guide, and many more things. he’s knows a lot and has stories for days. Also for being deaf he’s quite a talker/typer. He lost his hearing when he was 3yrs old so can speak a little bit. I’m super excited to work more with him, he’s a smart guy and I’m sure I’ll learn a lot. It’s crazy going from working with 2-3 other people for the past few years to working with a bunch more you don’t know from other parts of the country and learning how to problem solve with them. It’s something that had become dull in me but now feels alive again.
Meg has a Honda crf 150, a killer dirt bike. The first day she was here I told her I wanted to ride but never have before, she said she’d teach me and today was that day. Jesse also has a dirt bike, a big husqvarna, not sure of the model, but she was down to help me learn too. So they both taught me the basics starting, throttle, clutch, shifting and down shifting. It took me a few tries, but they seemed confident in me so they asked if I wanted to go on a trail ride. a little hesitant at first but I said hell yeah let’s go, Jesse and Travis have 2 bikes here so I rode megs, meg rode jesses and Jesse rode Travis’s it worked out perfect. So after about a 30 min lesson they took me on a killer 20 mile trail ride, shewwww. What a ride, along the mountains, looking down at the river, through old burned forests, blazing around, I loved it. A couple squirrelly moments but I didn’t really have any problems, it was all about the feeling. We stopped at the end of the trail, Jesse and meg said “ did you ever think in your life 2 girls would be teaching to ride a dirt bike” I laughed and said “ never ever haha I still can’t believe I’m out here”. Ended the day with a huckleberry milkshake and a tiny shower where I’m a head taller than the shower head. Get out and do something uncomfortable, you’ll love it.
Here’s some random phone shots from behind it all
