Coast to Coast

Hey y'all! I'm actually back in North Carolina :(  Holy moly is it a hot one (well, in comparison to what I'm used to!!) I got back a few days ago from my trip with Aaron. After a flight, 2000 miles, a left turn, another 600 miles, and a right turn we ended up in Seattle to move Aaron into his place for the summer. Then another flight backtracked me to my starting place at good old RDU.

I got to spend two days with the family before Aaron picked me up for our trip. A little brother/sister time, a haircut from the Auntie, breakfast with the grandparents, getting pampered by the other grandparents, and of course time with my Annie <3 That little pup never left my side. Even sleeping, we managed to both fit on the couch (a little squished with an 80 pound lap dog). So in a nutshell, it was a flurry of "Megan is home! We need to see her and ask her a thousand questions about climbing!" and some tail wags.

Look at this cutie pie.

Aaron picked me up, met the family, and then we headed to Byron, MN to spend the night with his family. By the way, his mom makes the best cookies and muffins so we had plenty to snack on during our long days of driving. Then it was hitting I-90 for 10 hours to get to Devil's Tower in Wyoming. Damn is South Dakota boring to drive through. Set the cruise at 84 and let's go. We camped for the night, had a nice fire, and had a few beers. Next morning we headed to the Tower. Luckily (and somehow miraculously) we were the first people to get to Durrance. We geared and racked up and went for it. Five pitches, a few hundred feet, a busted knuckle or two, scratched shins, screaming toes, and a bonk to the noggin we reached the top. I felt like I could see all of Wyoming! I also made a fool out of myself by talking about the "zen stones." Little did I know they were actually called "cairns" and they are actually directional markers. That is one way to impress your man. Then we rappelled down and hit the road again.

Durrance is on the left

yeah, i climbed that.

 Next day we finished the drive to Grand Teton National Park. We rented crampons and an ice axe for me - I'm a professional at mountaineering now (bahaha). We set up camp, hid our food from the wildlife, and went bouldering. It started raining so we went back and put on rain gear and took a little walk around Jenny Lake. We had an early night since we were getting up early to ascend the Middle Teton. The next morning he made breakfast and lunch as I disassembled the tent (teamwork at it's best). We shoved everything back into his car - which is rather impressive may I say - and headed for the trail. 

Let me pause and give a little disclaimer: The year before when Aaron and his friend did the exact same thing, they didn't hit snow until they were 4 miles into the 7.5 mile ascent. This year we hit snow right from the parking lot. Oh, and Aaron is Mr. Nature Man with the appropriate gear and I am Miss Trying-To-Keep-Up-To-Aaron-On-A-Mountain with inappropriate gear. And guess what, I would do it again (once I have the right stuff).

Middle Teton

Pretty pretty.

 So we hit snow right off the parking lot. But it wasn't even, flat snow; it was snow here and there, some melted, some icy. There was a lot postholes happening. Posthole is a word I quickly learned the meaning of when my foot randomly sunk through the snow. If there is one way I could travel the world, it would be by postholes (many other would agree). We got going for awhile, took a little break to take off layers and fuel up. After some slipping and sliding on my end, Aaron gave me my ice axe and a walking pole to me upright. Soon after it was crampon time for me. In Aaron's words they were supposed to make me feel like a spider. I felt like I was supposed to be in Monster's Inc with my claw feet. Anyways, we kept going for awhile, taking small breaks until we made it to Garnet Canyon. We decided that the rate we were going at wasn't going to be quick enough to make it to the summit by our turn around time (mainly because I was basically I clumsy small child that was slower than molasses in January). You would think going down is easier than going up right? Maybe if I was a polar bear sure. I learned many things that day
:
1- I still don't really enjoy snow.
2- I'm a wuss when it comes to the cold.
3- I don't have the right mountaineering equipment (especially the boots).
4- Crampons do make you feel like a spider.
5- I am very terrible at glacading.
6- I require more water than a normal human being
7- Aaron thinks it's hilarious watching me glacade (and probably got bored waiting for me).
8- I want to do it again (after better preparation of course).

If I was smarter, I would have taken my own picture of the Teton Range. But I didn't.

Chinese food after that was delicious. We ate in Jackson (Mom, this is where we went for our family vacation whatever year that was). We started our drive towards Castle Rocks in Idaho. Unfortunately, we didn't go climbing there :(  We were running short on time to get to Portland (we could have gotten to Portland a day later and gone climbing but we didn't). 

Anyways, I'll leave it at this for now. I'll tell y'all about the second half of our trip a little later :) let's just say I would do anything to be back there right now again. 

So this is a cairn. Looks like zen stones to me!

One Step Closer

Good afternoon cutie pies! How is the world treating you today? I hope lovely as can be :)  I am sitting in a beautiful 86F with a gentle breeze in the shade near a bunch of plants - imagine that! So...I'm just enjoying the beautiful spring/summer time and forgetting about the last semester. Let's just say I will have much much much much much better classes this upcoming semester and they are ones I actually want to be in and not some bull-crap classes I've already taken at Madison but need to retake because the ones at State are "graduate level courses that will advance my knowledge of the topic." At least I'm not paying tuition!!

This is right up my alley. If I move to Portland, I am becoming a part of this!

 The last time I posted was the day before my final. I'm not sure what I got on it but all I know it was enough to raise my grade to an A. This semester I managed to crank out a 4.0 so I can't complain about that! Next semester I have 2 crop science courses which will ACTUALLY help me in the future. Hold on, I forget not all y'all know what my game plan is. Here is a quick overview of PlantPath Girl's life gameplan:

1 - get my M.S. of Plant Pathology

2 - get the heck out of Raleigh

3 - get a crop consulting job at a vineyard or orchard

4 - move to aforementioned job in Portland or Seattle (clarification of 2)

5 - please note that these are in no particular order besides the fact that I need to be in Raleigh to get my M.S. :)

6 - climb, climb, climb, run, kayak, climb, climb, climb

Rooftop gardens keep the building cooler in summer, warmer in winter, prevent runoff and water pollution, and are appealing to the eyes! GO BROOKLYN!

Basically, these crop science courses will be very valuable to me. For crop consulting, I need to know that plant just as well as the pathogen. Getting a second Master's in plant biology or argroecology would be very helpful for my future career. That is why I'm taking crop physiology and crop ecology next semester along with presenting my research at seminar and starting to write a thesis.

Okay, enough with the stupid school stuff. Let's chat about more fun things. Like climbing. A few of my dear climbing friends have moved away for summer internships or whatnot leaving me only with 2 or 3 climbing partners. We try to sneak out of Raleigh every weekend but the weather is just not cooperating with us! It stormed everywhere but Raleigh yesterday thus leaving us in Raleigh and itching to go climbing. But that's okay, we just went to TRC and cranked out 21 climbs in roughly 1.5 hours. So that's good. But now I want to go climbing sooooooo badly. Good thing Aaron and I have a nice long trip ahead of us :)

Urban farming can look beautiful as well as be productive. I highly recommend reading up on urban farming!

So yup, I will be in the Elkhart Lake and Plymouth vicinity very soon. On Thursday morning, I fly out of Raleigh and will land in Milwaukee around 2pm local time. Kiddo and Momma are picking me up and having an Easter egg hunt, birthday/mother's day celebration and have a splendid time because their dear, precious, darling Megan is home! Then I will go to Papa's and hang out with him and Little Annie on Friday/Saturday morning. Of course, I have to go surprise Gma and Granddad Meyers!! Rough-house with Tank some more, make sure I have all of my stuff packed, throw Annie's kong around, and soak in the nice hot Wisconsin air! Then Aaron and I are somehow meeting up and our trip begins! You know, my time at home wasn't planned out or anything. They didn't even know I was coming home ;)

Upcycling (recycling-ish) reuses materials for different purposes than their original purpose. Here 2L soda bottles are reused as planters in a vertical garden. Useful and not wasteful.

I will fill y'all in with more details when I get back from my trip with Aaron! I will be staying with Peter and Alissa in Portland for a day or two and I'm so excited to see them!! Anyways, I'm peacing out and will let y'all know about my trip!! Be safe my flowers!!

Use all your available space. That means growing up (vertical beds) as well as out!