Well, such as life, my time is nearing its end here in Richland, WA. I have 2 weeks of work left (8 actual days of work) then ????. I at least know that I'm flying home for a week to visit w/ the family, and hopefully getting to ride my MC a little bit (been YEARS!!). I feel like I just unpacked my stuff after a mid-job housing change (for the much better) after my old roomie revealed her true colors. That's another whole story, but to make it short.....I was forced out of the house (thankfully) by a vote while I was out enjoying myself over a weekend in Bham. I was told to move out at 11PM after driving 5-6 hrs back "home." I went to work the next day, tried to find a place to stay on "short-term" notice, was unsuccessful, went back, packed my stuff in a hostile environment, and ended up sleeping on top of a bunch of boxes in the hospital parking lot!! Funniest part of that story is that my alarm went off while trying to sneak out of the van amongst all the people showing up for work!! Luckily, I found a place to stay the next day w/ a news anchor woman named Faith Martin. Super nice woman who plays in a band, has horses, and a nice house to herself. What a change for the better that was!! She's healthy, doesn't smoke, and doesn't have a mystery side to her!! I spent one weekend unpacking and taking care of odds and ends that I normally shirk. It's a good feeling to get caught up on stuff that you've put off forever!! Now I'm looking at the pile of boxes in the corner of my room and wondering why I've been dragging around a bunch of stuff that I REALLY don't need. I think the plan is to take that stuff up to Tonasket and store it at Lily's dad's house. I really need to make that happen so that it isn't such a cluster to move every time!! Plus I can sneak up to Kelowna and ride a bit!! Speaking of which.....I'm not riding right now!! I hurt my hand a couple of weeks back after having the Bham gnar-fecta (Tower of Lies on Sat, 4 Deadfall and 2 Dirt Renyolds on Sun, and 2 6-mile top to bottom laps on Monday, plus trail building on Lower Sasquatch w/ Ben and Woods). On Sunday I was RAGING on Mechanical Tragedy (the bermy section) and happened to glance up for a millisecond. That glance sent me into a tree next to the trail which I punched w/ the outside of my fist, shoulder checked, then slammed my head into it too!! It stunned me pretty good, but I pushed back up and rallied through the rest of the run (including 10% right away!!). I kept riding the rest of the day and the next day, but that next week it really started to hurt, especially in the AM. I did some mobs on it and it started to feel better. Then I went and rode Eagle Mtn in BC w/ Brad Walton to shred some of the best trails around and shoot photos. We KILLED IT!! Funny thing....as we were dropping into Massage Therapy we ran into a group of two guys and a gal that did NOT look like they belonged riding what they were about to!! We hung out and enjoyed some parking lot finds, and then progressed to rip MT a new one!! That trail is super tech and fun!! We stopped and shot the rock roll to off camber techy log ride to step up onto the rock which has been broke all the other times we were there. It was still broke, but we propped the step-up enough to hit it!! Brad gave it first, then set up the remote flashes. I hit it 3x, the last of which was a bit sketchy (leg flapping in the breeze). I rallied through the next section pretty fast and forgot how gnarly it really is!! We charged the whole first lap like it was our business, then pushed back up the gnarly jeep road (that had fresh tracks!!!!) and got ready for round 2. Lots of skinnies and tech riding brought us tons of joy and smiles!! We were riding really well!! We pushed back up and found the move Brad REALLY wanted to shoot (a rock face that you roll down, then drop 10+ ft off of). I hit it three times and he hit it once. We got some pretty cool pics!! I think it had been hit once before. We finished off the lap and made it back to the truck in one sweaty piece!! We rolled back to Bham and threw down at Boundary Bay before crashing across the street from Brad's (w/ Lily who showed up late). The next day I blew off riding The Towers to try to let my hand start healing. I think it was the right move b/c it hurt ALL WEEK LONG (more than the first week). We spent the day roaming around Bham (had breakfast at Mike and Meredith's, espresso at Tom's, shopped at the co-op), then out to Glacier to hang out w/ Jerry for a minute. He's building a nice deck off the back of his house. We then booked it to the "coal pad" to check out Jack and some kids tearing up the skatepark. We then spent the night up at Artist Point after mowing down like royalty at Grahams. We ran around on top of the world and took some pretty sweet slow shutter speed pics. We woke up the next AM and went on a hike toward Table Mtn before being engrossed in blueberries. We picked 1.5 liters worth before heading back down to the truck. We booked it back to the Ham and had some lunch at the Public Market before heading over to Brad's where we split up our stuff and switched vehicles (the Previa stalled at a light a couple of times which it had never done). It was kind of weird getting back in the ol' Yota and driving her a good distance (it's been a bit!!). It was a good thing though b/c the Previa started to give Lily fits after getting off the ferry. She got pulled over by the hwy patrol for doing 40 in a 60 and driving over the white line. She said it sounded like it was running on 2 cylinders. It BARELY made it to PA......therefore I would have been stuck hours from home!! Man......things DO work out for a reason sometimes!! Now just to find that elusive, cheap, well maintained used rig that has 4wd/AWD!!! That's my mission today after sleeping in to 11am for the first time in ages!! I guess I did stay up late last night talking to Laura at work. She has some amazing insight and helped me make some professional goals. I have a lot of work to do!! Clear up my tarnished credit, pay off my medical bills, pay off my student loans, try to buy a house since the market is crazy low right now, try to open my own practice, try to get more credentials so that I have a more solid referral base, etc, etc, etc. Man!! Life is complicated!! And I have it pretty easy!!
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