Where's Brett Been?

I made it - I'm in East Schodack, NY. Finally. And safely, despite the final leg being on an Airbus A319 (the make of planes that have been crashing lately). I was excited earlier because I was supposed to be on Boeing jets only today.

If you don't post to a blog regularly, it's a bit overwhelming to get caught up on all the events that took place. But I'll do my best to give a recap here. My last trek with Gray Wolf was a good one. It started out with some great sunny, warm weather. And (as I actually hoped it would) ended cold, dreary, and rainy - that way leaving would be that much easier.


Highlights of the trip included sightings of an owl and several loons, the out-maneuvering and out-witting of the residents bent on soaking me with their bilge pumps while kayaking, an epic stick-sword fight with Jud, some freestyle "rap battles" (sorry, to protect anonymity of the GWR residents, and my dignity, the video of this will not be posted on YouTube), use of my WFR First Aid training, and the last time (for a long while) that swimming will involve withstanding 45-50ºF water.



The first aid I had to give was to a wound on the wrist of a resident that had slipped coming down from Desolation Fire Lookout. It was a pretty nasty cut - deep and dirty. Half an inch to the right and it would have hit an artery and been spurting blood! As it was, it took quite a bit to stop the bleeding. It was the first time I had to do any serious field treatment. It was a bit nerve wracking at first, but as I got it under control I found it a bit difficult to hide that I was enjoying myself (it's not everyday you get to treat something like that)! Unfortunately, I don't have pictures - I thought it would have been a bit insensitive to excitedly ask somebody to get my camera. Because the wound was so deep and and dirt filled (irrigation only did so much and picking out grains of dirt with tweezers was made difficult by the amount of blood) and because infection would have been unavoidable, I decided to evacuate him. This was made easier by the fact that we had a van and staff member already at the transfer point to deal with the boats. The only complication is that the only road out from there was through Canada. There's no border control station at that crossing (because the road dead-ends at the park), so getting him into Canada was no problem. But getting him back into the US without ID and with outstanding felonies on his record presented a potential problem. Luckily, it was out of my hands by that point. Now the GWR trek program director is a practiced human trafficker (I should probably be clear that I'm joking here; they actually had already alerted the border patrol and faxed the necessary documents. Even still, it took 4 hours to get him back into the States).


Highlander
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtFPbbzTyEo)

After trek, I did my laundry, had my last (gourmet) GWR meal, packed my bicycle trailer and headed back to Kelly's to put the last of my things into storage, say goodbye to Kelly and the dogs, and catch the airporter shuttle to SEATAC.



My destination was Naples, Florida - to visit my grandfather. It was a good visit, centered primarily around whichever fancy restaurant we chose each evening (ever since my grandmother passed away there has been a great lack of culinary expertise in the household). We talked about history, classical music, and set up his brand new laptop computer, which included a lesson in making calls via Skype so that we can talk once I'm on the island - we even got to talk with Jessee briefly a couple of times! Midway through my visit, my mom and step-dad arrived, and we all put my grandfather's living room to good use (which my grandfather noted is seldom used these days because he rarely has enough guests to fill it).

Wednesday morning, then, began my epic journey northward. Everything went smoothly until we taxied out to the runway on the final of my three (scheduled) flights to Albany. Then it all went awry, the details of which are explained in my previous post.