:)

Well things are coming together quite nicely for me here, and it's only been a day and a half. Yesterday I found myself a place to live. I got a room in a condo with 2 other girls, both named Chrissy. It's a really cute place, only a few minutes from work, which I start training for tomorrow morning. I'm pretty excited for what life throws at me next. BRING IT ON, LIFE!

On the move again!

I'm moving to Utah!

Where to start... Ok, so the past couple weeks have been quite busy. I road-tripped to Wyoming with my friends Bryce and Jared for a friend's wedding, and on the way back stopped in Utah for a week so I could job-search. (Pictures of the road trip I will post soon.) I chose Utah because I have so many old friends out there I would love to be near for a while, and I love all of the outdoor activities Utah has to offer. Not to mention I love living in a place with mountains as the backdrop, and I'd take snow over rain any day.

After job searching for a year and a half all over Arizona, Oregon, Utah, Washington and California, I found myself a job in Orem, UT after one day of job searching there. So I feel like that's telling me something, and it's where I belong right now. It will be nice to have a change in life for a while; I'm excited to see what life throws at me there!

Bryce, Jared and I left Utah on Friday, and since they need me to start work this coming Wednesday, I leave tomorrow (Tuesday)! It's been a fast-paced weekend of packing and saying hello and goodbye to my family and friends here in Oregon, but I will be back for Christmas.

The job is a sales/printing job at a camera/photography shop called "Inkley's Cameras" (Ritz Cameras without the name change). It was the only job out of 6 I applied for that week that I wanted, and happened to be the only one hiring. The manager liked my application more than anyone else's, and liked me a lot so hired me before giving me a formal interview, haha. The job is part time (~32 hours) but could increase soon. I might find myself another part-time job if I need it. I'm excited though, because although this job is not in my "field" (wildlife), it is in my greatest interest right now, since photography is my passion at the moment. At this shop I can learn about all the equipment, AND get discounts!! :) My dream is to work for a magazine like National Geographic or Nature, take photographs and write columns about them. This is where my degree and knowledge of wildlife and earth sciences would come in. So I feel this is something that is needed to get me started in all of that. While I'm at this job, I will continue to search for wildlife jobs in the area, but there has just been nothing for quite some time because of budgeting.

I'll be staying with a friend Amanda until I find a place to live, which shouldn't take long. I'll post my new address as soon as I have one ;).

I will try my best to update this more often, but please check out my new photography blog www.hollandbanksphotography.blogspot.com where I will be adding pictures as often as I can. I've already had 2 clients!

New Photograph Site!

I have finally created a site with all of my pictures easily accessible, and contact information for people that would be interested in purchasing them. I first looked into making a real website, but this of course costs money, and the more photos you add, the more it costs per month (we're talking at least $20 a month, and I can't afford that at the time being). So then I looked into Flickr.com, which is a site where you can add a large number of photos for free and share them with the world, but this only allowed me to add 60 photos, and this was just too few for me! SO, I went with Blogger. It's free, I can put up unlimited photos, it's just not as organized as it could be. But it will have to do for now. Please take a gander! www.hollandbanksphotography.blogspot.com.

Lately

So since I've been back in Oregon, I found out a lot of things. Although I missed living here and being here (especially in the Fall), I don't feel like I BELONG here right now. Where that place is, I don't know, but that is what I'm trying to find out. Yes, I have my family here, and my close friends, but there is a whole world out there that I could be exploring! Another thing is, Oregon's unemployment rate is 2nd highest in the nation, at 12%. So I think it's going to be pretty tough to find something here, especially in my field. At this point I could go with anything at all, and continue looking for things in my field, but so far I can't even get THAT.

I have been doing a lot of job searching in Utah. After being there and exploring the beautiful country, and visiting good friends that I haven't seen in YEARS, I came out feeling really good about the place. And although it seems far, it is still a day's drive away from my family in Oregon, if I need to get home for any reason. Obviously I have had no leads yet, it's only been a week, but I am planning a trip with my friends Bryce, Mariah and Jared to take a road trip the first week of November to Wyoming for a friend's wedding. Then we'll be going through Utah on the way back, where Bryce and I will stay and job search/visit friends. I'm hoping it works out, but I won't have a car to get myself around towns to search for jobs.... Anyone know of a good rental car company that is reasonably cheap, and will rent to people under 25 years old?

I am also in the process of building a website for my photographs. It is a little more difficult than I thought, as the more pictures I want to put up, the more my site will cost me per month. So I might have to wait on that till I at least have a job.

Oh, and if you are wondering what kinds of jobs I'm searching for, they are mainly environmental sciences, wildlife, biology technicians, resorts, and little things like bookstores, art shops, and gift shops. If anyone comes across anything they think I might like, please let me know, as anything would help right now!

My 2,000-Mile Journey

Although this journey took about 3 weeks to accomplish, I will make this as short and sweet as possible ;).

The first week of September I started out in Phoenix (flew from OR to AZ) and hung out with my friends down there before my big move back to the NW. It was great to see everyone again, just unfortunate that I had to say "hello" and "goodbye" in the same visit. Erik and I had a lot of time to talk, but it still didn't seem like enough. I think I left on good terms though, and we are going to try and stay good friends. While I was there it was storming pretty good, and I've been working on getting good shots of lightning... this will suffice for now.

6 days later, I drove from Phoenix to Orem, UT in 10 hours, where a bunch of my old friends live. I grew up with a family in West Salem, elementary school through middle school, and hadn't seen any of them since they lived in Oregon, 4 years ago. It was so wonderful to see them all again, and their husbands, wives, and children whom I had never met! The youngest, Samantha, who was my best friend in my younger years, and her friend Elise took me around Salt Lake to show me the sights and go shopping. We hung out a few times and it was great to catch up with her. I really missed that family! I had another friend who was another best friend in middle/high school, that lives in that area, and we were able to have time to catch up as well. Then there was my good friend Jake who I worked with at Reds, who took me hiking and to see sights in the mountains that I never new existed in that place. I always thought of Utah as a rocky desert, but this place was pretty beautiful, and the fall colors were just beginging to show through.

In these mountains, just outside of Provo and Orem, are numerous canyons, and each canyon had what seemed like hundres of waterfalls pouring down the walls. We went to Sundance, where the film festival takes place, and visited Robert Redford's resort and stables and said hello to the horses.

Other days we went to explore some caves in one of the canyons, and I went rock climbing for the first time in my life! Although I only went up about 15 feet, it felt like much more since we were on the side of an open cliff that overlooked the entire valley. The sunset was amazing that evening.

After spending about a week and a half in Utah, I drove SW another 10 hours through the boring state of NV back to the Sierra Nevada Moutains, where I worked this summer, to ride along on the horse drive from Mammoth Lakes to Bishop, CA (45 miles). A horse drive is like a cattle drive, by the way, for those of you that do not know, where we herd 90 animals all that way, coyboy style. It was a blast, but quite hot (105 degrees in the sun) since we rode in the desert the whole way. I don't have pictures of the horse drive yet, but will hopefully soon. Since I only had 3 days off this summer, I didn't get many pictures of the high trail, my favorite trail along the Pacific Crest Trail, but arrived a day early to do so, and capture the fall colors there.

Along my hike to Shadow Lake Lookout I spotted black bear tracks left by a medium sized bear, relatively fresh, but there was no sight of the bear.

It's always nice to get back to the Sierras, and I rarely get to see them in the fall, so that was a treat.

After the weekend horse drive I left Monday morning and drove back to Salem, OR in 12 hours where I am now. I had a great trip, and I'm glad I did as much as I did and saw so many people, "stopping to smell the flowers" rather than doing the whole 2,000 miles in one stretch. Now it's time to look for a job and a place to live......

What Happens Next

Well this blog title may turn into "Hug a Tree" because... I'm moving back to Oregon. Or somewhere near or around Oregon where I can find myself a decent job. When I turned 24 this summer, I had the mountains to really clear my head, and realized I'm not moving in the path I should be moving in being in Phoenix. Being unemployed for a year, along with many other things I won't get into on here, made me decide it's time. To make it short, Erik and I agreed it would be best for me to move on, do something for myself and give ourselves a chance to date other people. It will be tough, but I'm ready and excited to see where I will end up next in life. Erik and I are still great friends. After being together as long as we have I think we better be!

So here is my plan:
End of this month I'm flying back to Phoenix, where I will stay about a week to hang out with my friends down there, and to do something fun with Erik before I leave. I'll pack up my car and drive up North, through Utah where I will be visiting a ton of friends I have up there that I have never been able to make it out to see. It will be the first time I will see Utah. Then my plan is to drive East from there back to the Sierras where I just came from, to go on the Fall Horse Drive, were we herd the horses and mules 45 miles from Mammoth to Bishop, CA. That's not till the end of the month of September, so I have a lot of time to burn in Utah. Maybe see some National Parks, maybe go to CA early, we'll see. Then I'll be back in Oregon by the 1st of October. That's over 2000 miles of road tripping by myself! It will be long, but good for me. If I decide to make the trip shorter, I will just not do the horse drive and move along North through Idaho and into Eastern Oregon.

So that is what's new in my life. Well for the next month ;). Who knows where this feather will blow next.

My summer at Reds Meadow

Yes, I know it has been forever since I last wrote, but I had a busy busy summer with slow internet so didn't even try to get into my blog to write! But I will update you on my summer and what is coming next in my life.

Summer in CA was great. Mammoth is my "home away from home" and I always have a hard time leaving it. I got maybe 4 days off total throughout the 2.5 months I was there, and worked hard enough to lose 12lbs, but it was worth it with the amazing crew I worked with, and the animals I have grown up with. The season started off with the Spring Horse Drive, where we herded all 93 animals (horses and mules) from Bishop, CA to Mammoth Lakes, a total of 45 miles. It took 3 days, where we stayed in 2 different camps. It was the most fun I had had in a long time. I stuck in the front line where people dressed to me with a mule named Emma, and the front line kept the rest of the herd from escaping ahead of us. Then people along the sides and back would keep the herd from escaping out of the sides and behind.

The rest of the summer I spent as a dayride guide for the horseback rides out of Reds Meadow. I took out 2-hour rides, half-day rides and full-day rides into the backcountry. The country is beautiful and I can never get enough of the scenery there. (Click on the pic to enlarge.)


I was able to go on one pack-trip this summer to Thousand Island Lake for 2 nights with some of my closest friends, Bryce and Jake (Bryce was the packer and Jake was the trail cook). It was nice to get out of the pack-station for a few days and camp with some pretty great people in one of the most beautiful places on Earth.
3 of the 4 of my days off I spent hiking or relaxing by a lake with a good book, but one I spent with some old friends that I worked with at Devils Postpile National Monument in 2006 (see first 2 pics below). We went to see the ghost town of Bodie, and to Convict Lake, both within 45 miles from Mammoth.








All in all I had a wonderful summer that went by far too quickly. I made some new friends I think I will be very close to for a long time, and saw things I had never been able to see before. I didn't take nearly as many pictures as planned, but alas, there is always next year.