Almost August

Hi Everyone!

I can't believe that the month of July is almost over. I looked at the date of my last post and I guess it was some time ago so sorry about that! I've been keeping crazy busy as usual. Working almost everyday and then when I do have a day off I haven't been heading into town but going climbing or paddling mostly all of which is great. Actually I went to a new climbing area for me the other day, the nose of looking glass with two other people. We did a 3 pitch climb and were up there later at night so the sky was amazing. After coming down we decided to do a bit of a harder route and try a one pitch 5.11. Luckily Travis was there who is a bomb climber so he lead up for us. It is a pretty sketchy lead in that you don't get to place your first piece of protection until about 25 feet up so you are very exposed and it is a darn hard route. But I got to top rope it so I was allowed to fall and keep trying some of the harder moves over and over until I couldn't feel my arms anymore. Yesterday I went paddling on the Nanahala River with Meredith (cirle... everyone has a trail name). It is one of the coldest rivers that I've ever been in. It is dam released which is good because the pressure and flow is controlled but it is bad in that the water that comes out is at the bottom of the well and just fridged cold! Luckily it was not another day of adventure swimming for me so only my feet really froze. I keep meaning to take pictures and get them up but it just hasn't been happening, hopefully my descriptions are decent so you can visualize what I'm blabbing on about.

Last night I slept in the town office again, not a great nights sleep. But I was working here today so at least it meant that I didn't have to get up and drive. It was fun to spend a day back in the office, I got to walk around and talk with people and gain a better understanding of the organization as a whole and what goes on. Living and working out of the base camp doesn't give the broadest perspective, so I'm happy that I was finally able to do this even though there are only 6 days left in the internship.

That said, I have decided to stay on after the internship and work in the field through Novemeber. After that, I'm not all that sure what I'm going to do. Today might have paved the way for me to spend the winter in Asheville working at the town office which would be great. If that doesn't pan out, who knows, maybe I'll just go adventure throughout the world on the credit card :) (Just kidding mom and dad)

But I've got to jet. All the interns from both base camps are meeting in asheville to go to dinner and have one last closing event.

Miss you all and I hope that everything is going awesome where you are.


Seriously, send updates :)

Cheers and hugs
J