Tuesday, November 29, 2011

The year, so far...

OK, so it's been a long time since I wrote anything here. I'll try and work on that...

    Well, we survived Thanksgiving. I had a lot to be thankful for this year, mostly being a stay at home Dad for almost an entire year and not killing Conley in the process. This year has been a roller coaster ride almost from the start. The first week of January we moved out and abandoned our home in Tahuya due to the continual flooding of the river that flooded our home for a second time within 3 years. Watching the river pour into your front yard and having a 4 month old child living in the house mere feet from the torrent the river had become made leaving an easy decision; although the need to rent again followed by the impending foreclosure was an altogether different story. I guess the upside is that the house we are in now is only 12 miles from my wife's parents and closer to the Olympic Mountains, so the in-laws see the kiddo more often and my drive into the back country is much shorter.
   While the start of the year initially was rough, I quit an 18 year smoking habit cold turkey the 2d week of January followed by the desire to drink fading into relative obscurity. The freedom provided by those 2 things alone make for an awesome year.
    I had my good friend and mentor Nate come visit from Michigan in March. It was good to see him again and it got me focused more on my photography. The trip made me look back on my work from his visit and shortly after he left, with encouragement from my Mother and wife - I started my photography business. It got off to an amazing start- I juried for 2 galleries back-to-back and was accepted to both. Then I had my work accepted at 3 local businesses, so I made the decision to make a go of it 100% and $5000 later I have some swanky business cards, a nice inventory, a website and some updated camera gear. All the hard work has paid off, as now I am the official staff photographer for Port Gamble, WA and have begun to garner a rather small following and that is a pretty awesome feeling.
    Starting in May, I began taking Conley backpacking with me. I spent 6 months researching what kind of kiddo pack to get and finally decided on a UK brand, the LittleLife Voyager S2. They weren't sold in the states at the time, but I contacted them directly and they helped me find a UK supplier that shipped to the US without raking me over the coals on shipping. Needless to say, Conley LOVES the pack. As soon as he sees it, he starts to climb in. Our first summit was Mount Zion, a short (albeit steep) 2.2 miler that rapidly made me realize how big my son actually was or how badly I had allowed myself to get soft. The short version of the hike was that I suffered through the ascent only to summit in 7' of snow with the views shrouded in clouds. You can read my trip report and see a few photos here on the Washington Trails Association website. The remainder of the summer saw a lot of day hikes and weekend trips to areas like the Dungeness River Valley and several more summits, 3 which were with Conley; all of which were clouded in except Mount Rose - which was a painful summit in that I am a moron (note to self- NEVER hike this summit with a 50lb load in your barefoot running shoes). My hiking highlights this year were Mount Baldy and climbing up Mount Saint Helens, both were extremely satisfying for me and reminded me how much I love the outdoors.
    June brought the loss of my brother, which put me in a place I have never been before. While my brother's death was tragic, in some sense I feel I have gained from it in the sense that I am a different person. A better person. I stayed in Louisiana for almost a month to help my Mother deal with things there. It took its toll on me, but over the next few months I looked inside myself to find out who I truly was and I think I can say now that I am truly happy with where I am (sans the 10 lbs I picked up when my plantar fasciitis stopped my running). Speaking of running, I started shortly after my brother's death to help me purge and I found a love for it I had never had before, so the injury in late September really bummed me out. I hope to get back into it this month.
    In early October Lila, The Scooter and I made our way back down to the central Oregon coast again this year for what has become our family pilgrimage down south. This year we stopped at all 11 of the lighthouses that dot the Pacific coast from southern WA all the way to CA. We stay at a place called Wayside Lodge in Yachats, OR and make our daily treks into the surrounding areas (usually further south)  from there. On the Saturday of  our visit, we drove down to Golden Beach and met up with my Dad and Step Mother, as they had recently moved to Pacifica, CA in July. The 4 day trip was fantastic but the weather was, shall we say, very Pacific Northwest. After having lived here for 2 years, that isn't really an issue for me anymore, as I typically find a way to make it work for me; especially when it comes to photographing it.
    After our trip to Oregon, Conley and I went down to Pacifica in October to see my Dad and Step Mother and my grandparents from Baton Rouge who had come up for the week- it was a great trip. Conley's PawPaw bought him his first BMW, I got some 4 generation photos and an audio interview with my grandfather. It doesn't get much better than that. The trip was short and Conley didn't exactly enjoy the relatively small confines of the RV, but we had a great time.
    The day after our return from CA, my Mother and brother came out to visit. The primary purpose of their trip was so that my brother and I could trek into the Olympic Mountains to spread our brothers ashes at a spot I had found while near Marmot Pass a few months earlier, a precipice looking down into the Big Quilcene River Valley and across to Boulder Ridge. I had spent some time trying to figure out what kind of memorial I was going to make and ended up taking a piece of hardwood timber that I had and fashioned a marker from it. I cut it 6'3", the height my brother was and had a brass plate I had cut and engraved from a kick plate off my grandfathers house screwed to the top. The brass plate was inscribed "J's Overlook" and had a nautical star above it. The trip up to the overlook (6300') was a little over 13 miles round trip with over 3500' of elevation gain and took its toll on my younger brother, as he had never hiked before, but he made the sacrifice for Jerrod and I respect that a lot. At the top, I took the pick axe I had carried up with me and began to tear and scrawl at the rocky earth only to get down about 13 of the 24" I was hoping for to set the pole. I settled on what I could and sturdied the marker with stones. I took a moment and then retrieved the ashes from my pack and prepared to spread them into the valley below while my brother watched. Let's just say that our brother didn't go without a fight, as the ashes spreading weren't as elegant as you see in the movies and managed to find their way all over me and landed mostly in one spot not too far below the marker. Thanks Jerrod, you ass :p Here are a few photos taken at J's Overlook. I guess there really aren't any other words for what kind of experience I had other than to say that the spreading of my brother's ashes was a painful experience for myself as well as my younger brother, but it finally freed us as it had done for our brother when he died. In another perspective however, my brother would be proud that he has a marker in the mountains he so admired in a place he would never have been able to go - or as he might put it "I've got this bad ass marker up there in the Olympics, how cool is that shit??!!!"
    November brought my 39th birthday and a trip to Alaska to see the bald eagle migration that I had planned for over a year. For my birthday, Conley and I made red velvet cupcakes and it was the best birthday I've had to date, nothing fancy just an awesome time with my family! Never to be outdone though, Conley got sick the night before my trip and I almost didn't go; but the morning of he seemed fine so I went anyway. That was the first sign. The second sign was missing my flight due to standing in line for security for over an hour. On a Wednesday. The third and final sign that I should have stayed home came at 2am. I'll leave out the details, but if you've never had a severe case of gastroenteritis- don't. For the remainder of my trip I was miserable, to the point of staying in my room all day Saturday and going to the local clinic in Haines that afternoon. I of course got everyone with me sick, so I can only imagine I won't get invited back next year. Sorry Dave! I did manage to get some nice photographs from the trip, but overall I was disappointed at being sick almost the entire trip.
    Bringing things current, my nephew Justin had asked to join us for Thanksgiving and he came to stay with us for a week while my Dad and Step Mother came to stay as well. We had a great visit and a really fun Thanksgiving to include a trip into the Olympics for some snow- here are a few photos from that day. Wrapping up November, my Mother is FINALLY moving here in January, so it will be fantastic to have her closer. We found her an awesome beach house in Hansville, WA right on the Puget Sound so she is close, but not too close ;) Love you Momma!!!
    So, it looks like the rest of the year is going to rapidly disappear and 2012 already has some amazing things in store for us! I will do my best to start writing again with some more frequency, so stay tuned. Until then, thanks for stopping in :)