riverECHO

I think we just experienced the best weekend of the 2010-2011 winter season. After a few weeks of cold weather and occasional flurries, a storm settled in on Saturday and bombarded us with over 2 feet of new snow. Here are some teasers from the weekend and a few more from the rest of the winter.

BJ in the Poop Chutes - Backside of JH

Mellow Grove at the bottom of Four Pines

BJ and Scott show off their Snow Beards

Lisa's 30th Birthday Weekend in Moab

Fun Turns on Cardiac Ridge

Plummer Yurt with Ellery

Victor Sunset

I have a feeling that we may be asking ourselves that a few times as we head on out on this little exploration.  But, honestly, I’m not 100% sure how it snuck up on us.  Today, we left our home, our friends and my family to head out into the larger world for an indefinite period of time.  I feel good…I feel sad…and I’m extremely excited.  The dream I’ve had swirling in the back of my head – is morphing into reality!

We have had this planned for over a year now.  And, although we have been preparing and organizing every bit of our lives over the past few months, we still ran out of time.

Now, we didn’t run out of time in getting ourselves in order.  We starting with purging all of the excess in our lives…we sold it all…and a few of you out there got some screaming deals!  We then started to acquire new minimized items that would fit the lifestyle we will be living – and also fit into a single backpack each (yes, that includes my office).  It was then on to finances and insurance. Its amazing the amount of research you can put into somethine like this.  From best international rates on credit cards, to atm fees, to health insurance options and on and on.

In fact, we ended up tackling items that weren’t even on the radar a few months ago.  Refinance the house – sure, we had a few weeks left, why not?  Hire a new employee to work alongside myself at Vertical Media – that’ll be quick and easy, right?  In any case, it all came together after some long hours and some amazing “get ‘er done” skills from Lisa.  We wouldn’t be ready if it wasn’t for her!

However, we still ran out of time to take in what we both wanted to before we left…Family and Friends.  Although we were able to “see” almost everyone, each and every one of our visits was way too short and I can’t help but feel slightly empty on our departure.  Yes, one of the greatest things we will miss is the little creature that has joined our lives for the past two years as he has no way to visit us…Good-bye Salsa.  And although we have been living with my mom for the past 6 months, I don’t even feel like we actually said good-bye (but we will see you in March to celebrate your birthday!).

It is likely that I’m feeling this a bit more than Lisa tonight as we are currently headed to Phoenix (on the plane now with complimentary beers!) to spend the next two nights with her Grandparents.  It is then off to San Francisco on Sunday night where we will stay with Lisa’s mother and step-father until Thursday with a going away bbq on Tuesday.  Again though, it will be short, and we will be on that plane in only 6 short days!

The world awaits and my emotions are currently like the sea we are soon to cross.  Troughs of sadness for those we just left, a building anticipation for what is over the next horizon, and pure excitement for every moment we are about to create.

BJ and I recently went to Allyson Smith and JK’s  wedding in the village. We had spent the week before in town, staying at Tim and Mary Lynn’s house and had, of course, packed  our version of wedding clothes: jeans and a white shirt for BJ and a hippie skirt and tank top for me. The day of the wedding we made a last minute decision that we were way under dressed and rushed home, showered, and put on our best. Thought we should share.

Its been a while, but we figured we needed to drop a line here to catch up on the last few days.  Needless to say, our lives have been a swarm of wrapping things up in the “real” world so that we can take off for over 3 weeks.  Both Lisa and I have been cranking away at work and spending more time over in Jackson than usual.  In our spare time we have been sorting out taxes and helping build a new investment club.  And, to top if off…we’ve actually had a number of great days out skiing.  It seems kind of weird to be wrapping up our powder skiing, which we did yesterday on March 2nd.  Yet, we will be back in time for the fun, party atmosphere that only the sun brings to the slushy slopes in their closing weeks.

So, tonight we went through the piles in our living room that continue to grow as we start sorting and packing for the Grand Canyon.  Each day something else comes up that we feel would be nice to have along.  We are pretty close to having everything ready…just a few more shopping items and then we will see if it all fits in the dry bags.  Its been quite a little shopping spree to make sure that we have everything we need.

For those of you who don’t know, it turns out that I’ll be the primary oarsmen on one of the boats.  Although I’ve been on many a river trip and have some great experience on the river in general, I’m not so versed in oarboats.  So, why not jump right into the Grand Canyon right?  You’ll see in the photos a few images of my “cheat” sheet for the larger rapids.  If you look closely, you’ll actually see that one of them says “good luck”!  I’ve been doing my research between first hand experiences, online logs, river guidebooks and even YouTube videos.  At first I was questioning if this was something I really wanted to take on…yet now, as each day approaches I’m getting more and more excited for the challenge.  I’ll have a great backup crew of Lisa and our friend Scott Steen to help out along the way!  Funny to think that Lisa and I were talking about getting a bit more into the river lifestyle this past year…and BAM…why not start off at the top!  Its just one of those opportunities that you can’t pass up when it arises…so here we go…

I’m hoping we can get another blog entry in place before we go…but, if not…we will be keeping a journal on the river and will post it word for word when we return.

Today is President’s Day…a day that most people have off. Although no day is ever really on or off around our office, today actually IS an official day off for Vertical Media. Of course, as you will see on down the road…its hard for us to tell when the week ends and another begins. We don’t really follow the normal working schedule of the rest of the world. We work hard…yet, we schedule it around our play. Its amazing how much more productive one can be when they are allowed the time to get outside and enjoy the day if the opportunity presents itself.

We started off the day as if it were any other Monday…straight into the computers! However, after a few hours of catching up on emails and organizing projects…it was off to Grand Targhee for a few hours of sunshine and snow. As it was the completion of a three day weekend, there were plenty of folks out there from the region soaking in the fun! We found some good snow on the North facing aspects and then decided to take the short hike up Mary’s Nipple (hey…I didn’t name it). It was a gorgeous day and we spent some time up there looking around and planning out a few adventures that we hope to share with you in the next few months. There are some great, and little known, stashes back there.

We then came home and have both been spending yet more time in front of the laptops. However, I did feel that it would be good if a few of you actually saw where we lived as we start this blogging thing. So, I snuck out of the house as the sun was going down just now and snapped a few pics. Yes, that is our back deck…piled up past the windows and no hope of getting out our back doors.

Now, please don’t think that this trend is going to continue. Although Tim and Mary Lynn have been a big part of the inspiration to get this thing going, we are in no way committing ourselves to the “everyday” theme. If you want to take a look into their lives on a daily basis…here it is. Many times you’ll likely catch us in their daily posts as we spend quite a bit of time with them.