Apparently I'm on a "dogs" kick...

Beautiful

Dear Internet,

Not sure exactly why, but I loved this little image as soon as I stumbled across it. That's all. Happy Monday. You're welcome.

xoxo Liz

Smupdates

Dear Internet,

So it's Sunday evening and I wanted to get a post in since I haven't written in a while. I wanted to tell you that San Francisco was great last weekend! I stayed with Judy, a friend of another VISTA here in Helena, and I ended up helping her dogsit a tiny, ferocious little thing named Otis. Judy was super nice and invited me out with her friends and even bought me dinner!

Otis

Plus I got to sit in on two classes at Berkeley (which has a gorgeous campus, by the way!) - a 1L Criminal Law class and an International Humanitarian Law class. I loved it, and both classes - especially the latter - reaffirmed that I would love to study law, both intellectually and in terms of what I can do with it.

Boalt Hall School of Law at Berkeley

The next day I walked all over San Francisco - a free tour on Telegraph Hill, and I walked down the Embarcadero and Lombard Street, and visited Boudin Bakery (where they make famous San Fran sourdough!), and saw the Golden Gate. It was a great trip and I got to miss the 15 inches of snow that fell in Helena... although not really. It's still around a week later, making my walk to work pretty treacherous.

View from Telegraph Hill

Boudin Bakery

Golden Gate Bridge

Outside the apartment where I stayed. The hills in this town
are serious business!

Aaaand I came home to this sad buried car at the airport.

There's not a whole lot else going on, just enough to keep me busy. I did finish painting my room - whoever did it before did an atrocious job:

Paint ALL OVER the baseboards...

... so I sanded and stained those. With a beer.

Then I got ready to paint the weird crappy brownish color on
the walls, and the ugly cabinet thing that was left up here.

More before...

And the after! Yay indigo!! I chose this purply/indigo color
because it reminded me of the color the mountains around
Helena turn at dusk.

So that's all the important updates, really. My job is going well - actually, some of the pieces on disaster planning and disaster response that I wrote recently might (MIGHT) get published in a journal. So we'll see how that goes, but regardless, things are pretty good. I have been hanging out with my roommates Nora and Stefan a lot, but they're pretty great so it's been fun.

Altogether, I'd say life is not super exciting to talk about but it's just busy enough and it's good. Ben comes to visit for Thanksgiving this week, so I'm looking forward to that and to other small things: going to the YMCA with Nora in the morning. Interviewing a legal services guy in Louisiana this week about the work his agency did post-Katrina. Seeing my family for Christmas in less than a month and seeing Will again in just over a month. Not exciting things to read about, but happy things :)

In the meantime you can find me getting ready for just another week, snowed in, in Helena.

xoxo Liz

San Francisco!

Dear Internet,

Today, I love this picture:

Guess why.... I'm going to San Francisco this weekend! I don't think I told you that. I'm telling you now. Get over it. Smile.

Aaaand, I was kind of upset because I probably picked the worst weekend possible to visit Berkeley (I'm applying for next fall, by the way) because the whole Public Policy school (I'm applying for a dual degree... because why not) is out of town, in DC ironically, for a recruiting event. Also there are no school tours to be had. Also my boss Brian's friend who goes to Berkeley Law will be out of town and can't talk to me.

BUT

everything seems to be coming together nicely because people are super nice. One guy at the Public Policy school said he would be out of town but would send me a list of "Top 10" things to do around the school/surrounding neighborhood/etc. And one of the other Helena VISTAs is from the Bay area and emailed her friends asking if someone could host me (I had no luck with finding a CouchSurfing place), and her friends seem super nice and willing to host me. Plus one of them went to Berkeley undergrad so I can get some kind of idea about things. Plus they invited me to hang out with them.

People are great sometimes.

The only thing left to work out is getting to the airport Thursday morning... a winter storm's supposed to be blowing in and I'm flying out of Bozeman (almost two hours away from Helena). Luckily I'll miss most of the storm while I'm in SUNNY CALIFORNIA, but I do have to get there. Fingers crossed that I can make my 7am (ugh!) flight.

 (But I won't have to because San Fran will be SUNNY :)

Also, you should watch this because it's hilarious. Happy election day, and don't vote for the crazy one. We all know who I mean.

xoxo Liz

Wise words from Vonnegut

- Kurt Vonnegut.

ERT does NYC

Dear Internet,

You might have guessed that ERT is responding to Hurricane Sandy, and you're right. They're heading to New York City today, and I've been thinking about it all morning. Wondering what it will be like - it's so different from the small city responses I've been involved with (Joplin, Branson). They'll be outside the city instead of downtown, most likely, but still - it's so far from Missouri and so different. I'm wishing really hard that I was with them for this one.

Disaster response is unlike anything I've ever done in how hard it pushes you to be your best for other people. When you get there, all of a sudden your needs are secondary to the needs of an entire community - sleeping and eating are scheduled around your work, and it's all-consuming in a way that few things I've experienced are. Schoolwork could sometimes be that way for me (not kidding), but here, the stakes are so much higher. If you don't give your all in a disaster, you don't just get a bad grade on a paper - people have a hard time keeping their homes warm or feeding their kids. It's incredibly stressful and exhausting, but also so rewarding and exhilarating. I miss it.

If any of you guys read this, know I'm thinking of you and wishing I could help. You guys seriously rock, and good luck with everything!

xoxo Liz

Mug quote

Dear Internet,

Yesterday I bought a mug at the dollar store and wrote this quote on it in Sharpie:

Then I baked it at 350 for 30 minutes & now it's permanently on there. I like it. It's a good reminder to start your day with.

That's all.
xoxo Liz

Dogsitting

I just agreed to dogsit for a woman in my office over Thanksgiving. I love dogs. I'm going to pretend that they are my dogs.

xoxo Liz

Oh, also, a quote I like:

The ERT-iest day

Dear Internet,

Sorry my last post was such a downer. It was the truth, but a sort of depressing truth. I went to see ERT over Columbus Day weekend and that has made me considerably happier! Hopefully this post has the same effect on you :)

Anyway, I took the LSAT Saturday morning (accompanied with a not-insignificant amount of stress when I realized, 45 minutes before the test was to start, that I was completely unprepared... had to drive to the office with my hair still wet to get the admission ticket I had left there, take a photo of my[not attractive]self with my phone, print it, and steal everyone's pencils...) and I guess it went fine. Whatever.

That evening, I drove out to Butte/Fleecer to see the team. We had a great time Saturday night and hung around Butte on Sunday. Will and I went to see Taken 2. It was less than inspiring; much cheesier than the cinematic masterpiece of Taken. Anyway.

Since I had Monday off for Columbus Day (I wasn't supposed to, but the MLSA office where I work was closed for the day, so what's a girl to do? Yippee!), I decided to go out on project with Will's team. A number of things collided perfectly to allow this to happen:

1. Will's team was hauling firewood, so they were driving 2 trucks instead of one, meaning that the entire team didn't have to cram into one truck, meaning that there was room for me.
2. One of the new leaders of ERT, Tom, was driving back to Fleecer that night for a flight the next morning, so I had a ride back to my car.
3. Angie from last year had given Sara, a second year her fire boots to see if they fit. Since they were extra, Sara let me borrow them for the day since we were on federal land, and regulations require 8-inch leather boots in order to cut... something I don't just have in my closet.

So, with this perfect storm of events, I set out to Beaver Dam Campground with Will's team to help buck up firewood for delivery to Canyon Creek Cabin. I'm not nearly as good a sawyer as Will is; still, I was glad to be running a second saw and helping the team to work a little more quickly to load the beds of the trucks with the cut wood. And I got to run a saw again! Never thought I'd have call to do that after ERT ended.

We headed off to Canyon Creek - one of the more breathtaking places we visit - to deliver the wood. There are two ways into Canyon Creek: via the highway, or the shorter, albeit terrifying back road along mountain ledges. Since a first year was driving the other truck, and she was from New Jersey, we opted for the highway route. However, we chose the wrong exit, not having entered Canyon Creek that way before. The resulting ride was much more stressful and fun than the mountain-ledge-route would ever have been.

There were two water crossings of the creek, a section so rocky we feared we'd bottom out and tear the brake lines or something, and steep descents and ascents galore. Plus the map was somewhat confusing. Will and I were at the head of the convoy and when we finally made it to the Charcoal Kilns, which, if you'll remember, are just up the road from Canyon Creek Canyon (or maybe not since I didn't actually tell you that in my earlier post), we decided to entertain ourselves and pretend to be hopelessly lost. We opened the map up all the way and presented it to the four first years with us ("Are you guys any good with maps? I have no idea where we are..."). Tom, who is probably the nicest person ever, even pretended to be mad at Will for getting us lost ("What were you thinking!?") and asked if the first years remembered where we were going ("What is it called...? Crystal something...?"). Will voiced the opinion that we should just give up ("Let's call it a day and just dump the wood somewhere. We can come back later for it..."). It was somewhat discouraging that the first years, even when given the map and told that we had started out going south on I-15 (which I pointed out) couldn't find where we were, even though the Charcoal Kilns (not to mention Canyon Creek Cabin) were marked in bright red on the map....

Anyway, after that bit of fun, we "stumbled upon" the Cabin, unloaded the wood, and were just finishing up when we started hearing lots of radio traffic about a fire.

Then we heard Bruce get on the radio.

If I haven't mentioned it before, Bruce, the founder of ERT loves fire. We suspected last year that he started them himself just so he could fight them. It's at that level. Suddenly, we hear ourselves being volunteered to fight the fire, and Bruce radioed us, asking if we were prepared.

We were not. I don't even own Nomex (fire-retardant clothing) anymore, having given it back to ERT at the end of my year. Will and Tom didn't have theirs with them (the last time ERT was on a fire out west was 5 years ago, it doesn't happen often!), and none of the first years have had any fire training, so they were automatically out. Still, we said we'd be there, and began the drive to the Fourth of July Campground near Wise River.

After a bit of confusion (and the arrival of one of the other ERT leaders and a second year from Fleecer, bearing Nomex for Tom and Will), we were sent out on various tasks. I helped Bruce with some hose (which mainly entailed me following him around and jumping in his truck as quickly as I could while he took off on tasks that went unexplained to me), then followed Will around while he dropped hazard trees at the perimeter of the fire. Some of them he cut down while the bases were on fire, a dangerous task since his fire boots are wearing very thin. Two helicopters were flown in from Helena to drop retardant on the flames, which was exciting, since I've never been on a fire with helicopters before.

A pretty neat truck; the operator could control where the hose sprayed from the driver's seat (prompting Will to say [jokingly], "We could have used that at Occupy St Louis...")

In all, the blaze was contained pretty quickly - what we had heard was a 20-40 acre wildfire as we were driving there turned out to be only 12.5 acres. Good thing they got it early, though, as it was right next to a mountain that it would have raced up, trying to climb. It could have been a lot worse. Still a pretty exciting end to what was supposed to be a relaxed, fun day with ERT.

After about five hours at the fire, we finally left around 9pm and all went back to Fleecer. Will and I ate jalapeno cheddar hot dogs (delicious) and I took off for Helena, sore and tired and happy.

I had a great time running a saw and driving around and fighting fire with ERT. It was an awesome day, much better than whatever else I would have wasted my time with on my day off (with no studying left to do, whoop whoop!).

But it's not my place anymore. It's not where I belong. A new group of people are here to experience all the things that ERT will bring them. I'm thankful for my experiences, but they're not what I want to do forever. (It would, however, be awesome if I could just moonlight as a sawyer/firefighter/ERT-er from time to time). As awesome my Columbus Day was, it really just affirmed that it's not what I want to do every day, and I probably wouldn't have been totally happy with the choice to stay with ERT for another year. This doesn't mean I won't miss it, but my Columbus Day was a sort of restorative; it put me back into a good frame of mind and gave me some perspective and basis for comparison.

If I made the right choice in coming to LSNTAP and Helena, I don't know. But that's at least one question answered, which is pretty good if you ask me for a holiday that no one ever remembers anyway.

xoxo Liz.

P.S. I said I wanted to brighten up your day, so if that didn't do it, how about this?

It's suddenly cold here.

Dear Internet,

It's been in the 70s-ish since I moved to Helena. All of a sudden today, it's 40 degrees out and miserable. Worse, I saw snow.

This is how I feel:

It's supposed to be back up in the 60s next week... one can only hope.

xoxo Liz

So far the hardest part about growing up is deciding what I want.

Dear Internet,

Usually, for your benefit and my level of happiness, I try to keep my posts very upbeat. I try to skate over negative things that happen and post pretty pictures of good things that happen. I think it's healthy to focus on the positive and it makes for better reading. But more pensive times have come.

Not to be a Debbie Downer, or anything. I just wanted to sort out my thoughts and writing helps with that. The thing is, I am not enjoying my job lately; partly - say 60 percent - because I'm not busy enough, but also - 40 percent - because I'm just not finding it as fulfilling as I thought I would. Also - 100 percent - because I miss life in ERT.

I'll clarify. The not-busy part is easily enough overcome. My supervisor, Brian and I meet twice-ish a week via Skype and he gives me lists of projects to work on; for the last week or two, the lists don't last as long as the time in between Skype chats. I've gotten in touch with him to ask for more to do, but even the updated lists don't fill up all the empty time. I also feel like I'm invading his work time by constantly bugging him for more to do. I probably need to get over that. Regardless, I end up surfing Facebook or Pinterest for a few hours a day. A certain percentage of Internet trolling is not out of place in a work day, mind you, but when it's several hours' worth I get really frustrated, but there's just nothing left on my list of projects.

One of the things that I kind of knew/suspected about this job when I began was that I would have to be a bit more of a self-starter. I knew I wouldn't have a team around me, working hard at a given task and getting me to work alongside them. I knew it would be up to me. So I need to start finding things to do, relevant things that fill my hours, my own projects. It's just a kind of strange transition. When I think about it, I've always kind of had someone guide what I'm working on - a supervisor, a professor, etc. I still have a supervisor, of course, but I'm going to have to start to fill in gaps.

Then there's the not-so-fulfilling part. This is in part due to the fact that I don't actually interact with humans in the course of my work - even though I work in an office full of great people, I don't have to speak to a single one of them during the day to do my job. I'm a sort of satellite for the Seattle office of NTAP, so I'm not working on any of the same things as the people here in MLSA. Furthermore, the people I'm serving as a VISTA are the lawyers - who I don't see or work directly with - who then help people who are even more remote from me. It's tough to feel like I'm actually accomplishing anything or doing anything good at all. The end results of my work are all digital - blog posts, videos, and Tweets - just a bunch of 0s and 1s.

This one's harder to deal with, but not impossible. A few weeks ago, the Executive Director of MLSA mentioned training me on the help desk that MLSA runs (not the NTAP help desk that I staff). I would actually be able to help callers find legal help (I think; there's a fine line between what a non-lawyer can and cannot say to potential clients). That would be a good thing for me to get involved in if it's okay by Brian, so of course I should check with both the Executive Director and Brian. Other than that, I think I just need to try to remember that I am doing something worthwhile. I think.

Overall, the hardest part of the transition into this job is its sheer contrast with ERT. Everything I can think of is different: instead of working outside with a team of four or five, I work by myself in front of a computer. Instead of never really knowing where I'm going next, I have a very regular (bordering on boring) schedule. Instead of constantly having people around, even in the off hours, I'm usually on my own. I laugh less. I miss everyone. I miss Soulard.

As I've been growing up, I've of course been trying to figure out what I want to do, which direction I should choose in life. I'm still not sure what I want to do for work - my main hesitation in applying to law/grad school, which I had planned to do this fall - but I've found how I want to live. It's funny, I was always pretty introverted and liked having time to myself, but I just loved life in ERT. I practically lived at the Shenandoah apartments, surrounded by people who felt like my family, in good ways and bad. They drove me nuts and there was no privacy, but we just had this amazing level of comfort with one another; amazing at least to me. ERT was the first time I felt comfortable wearing little to no makeup, for example. Those people saw me at my worst, frustrated and angry and bored throwing sticks at Peck Ranch in February. And they didn't hate me for it. I learned a lot from them, more than I at first thought that they could teach me. I miss them a lot.

Unexpectedly, I also really miss Soulard. That little neighborhood felt like it belonged to us and we belonged to it. I've never felt that way about a place before. It was exactly right for who we all were and where we were in our lives. I used to joke that Soulard felt like a campus and it did; Shenandoah was our dorm-slash-frat house. I guess I was just never "in" on that stuff in college, so it came as a revelation. It was great.

I wish I could live like that again, but I have a sneaking suspicion that I never will, and this makes me sad. I was talking to Will a few weeks ago after he returned to Shenandoah from the time-honored tradition of $2 pitchers on Sunday nights at Llewelyn's, and he was telling me about poking fun at another member of the team last year, Clare. Clare was returning to pick up her truck at Shenandoah and he started hollering at her, just trying to get a rise out of her (as he does). I could see the whole thing: the steps of Shenandoah looking out over Pontiac Park, Clare's teal pickup truck parked across the street, busy 7th Avenue off to the right and groups of ERT members straggling up the cracked sidewalks of 9th, lit intermittently by the streetlights. For some reason, at that particular moment, I missed Soulard and ERT and all of it so bad that it hurt. Unlike the things I listed above, there's not a cure for this one, except time, maybe. I don't want to forget what ERT life was like, even if I never live it again. Especially then.

The long and short of all this is that this job is feeling less like something I'm looking forward to this year and more a like a trap; something I committed to and now I just have to get through it. I'm wondering if it was worth it, and - right now - saying no. I took this job because, as much as I loved ERT, it wasn't the kind of work I could see myself spending my life on and I thought that in staying another year I would feel stuck. I could potentially see myself going to law school, working in legal aid, etc. etc. I knew that the life would be different but I thought that the work would be good. But now that the job is not all I had hoped and dreamed, I just don't know. I don't know.

I guess the silver lining is that I'm learning a bit more about what I want in life, and what I don't want. I just wish it didn't have to be the hard way.

xoxo Liz

P.S. Thanks guys, that helped.

Happy Wednesday!

xoxo Liz

Jar cat

Deliciously normal

Dear Internet,

So I've been here for a month now and there's not a whole lot more to say about my job or life in Helena. They're pretty normal, which is a nice change in pace, but doesn't give me a lot to talk about.

I have gotten to know a few of the people in my office a little better - the other two AmeriCorps guys and another young guy in the office invited me to go to Blackfoot (the brewery) with them after work on Friday, and it was nice to hang out with them outside of work. I'm also joining the office bowling team, starting this Tuesday! It will be nice to have a kind of regular hang-out time with some of my co-workers, and it'll give me something to do on Tuesday nights.

Other than that, like I said, life is deliciously normal and low-key. I'm joining a book club at the library, spending my Saturday mornings at the Farmer's Market, and have been canning lots of things:

Top left: spiced peaches; top right: pickled beets and roasted
garlic pasta sauce; bottom left: sweet cherry jam; bottom right:
dill pickles and sweet cherry jam.

I went to see a community theater production of Avenue Q, which was fantastic, and I'm hoping to take voice lessons soon and start auditioning for shows there. Of course, on a reduced stipend and increased rent, all of this is subject to some serious budgetary restrictions, but I'll figure it out.

I've also been studying for the GRE (which I take this Saturday) and the LSAT (which I take next Saturday)... I'll be glad when that's over. Especially because ERT will be back in Montana this week! In talking to Will, they should be heading up this Wednesday, arriving Thursday night or Friday afternoon. So I will get to see them this weekend... once I finish my GRE :P

Other than that, I don't have much to say, so here's some photos I took of Helena:

The building where I work...

... right across from the "Man Store."

Farmer's Market!

Walking around downtown on Last Chance Gulch, one of the
main drags

The Cathedral, and some guy who didn't seem
to want to get out of my photo. Legend has it that
some guy flew his plane through the spires on a
bet - and then measured his wingspan and found out
that he cleared the spires by about 3 inches.

Big Dipper Ice Cream on the Walking Mall = amazing.

The Walking Mall. This is a staute of a newspaper-selling kid
across from the crêperie!

View of Mt Helena from the street

The road that leads to my house. The leaves are starting to get pretty

And I took two panoramas from Mt Helena and couldn't decide which one to put up, so here they both are. If you look closely you can see the red roof and spires of the Cathedral.

xoxo Liz

An Adventure

Dear Internet,

So I had this fantasy the other day that I won a round-the-world trip from a (fictional) airline. I was thinking about where I would go, and this is what I came up with:

• Iceland
• Costa Rica
• Tuscany
• Ghana or Kenya
• Sri Lanka
• Croatia
• China
• Russia 
• Australia or New Zealand

 It's been a while since I've been on an international flight... here comes the travel bug, and he's hungry!

xoxo Liz

Happy Monday.

"In the mountains of Montana, sometimes we forget to count the days."

Dear Internet,

The above was painted on a bench in an antiques shop on Last Chance Gulch, the downtown district in Helena. I went for a walk during my lunch break since it was such a beautiful, clear, sunny, slightly brisk day and stopped in to look around the shop. We've been cloaked in smoke from surrounding wildfires (none too close; all the smoke just floats down here into the valley, even all the way over from Idaho) for over a week, so it was nice to see the mountains surrounding the city today! Also, to breathe a little easier. So,

Happy Wednesday!

xoxo Liz

Daily Odd Compliment

Courtesy of Daily Odd Compliment, a great site to look at when you're having a rough day. Cheer up, buttercup! :)

xoxo Liz

This is real science.

Come Alive

Dear Internet,

Today I was thinking about Pinterest.I like it a lot. I have several virtual "pinboards," one of which is just a collection of photos and quotes and other images that make me happy. Then I thought: maybe you guys would like them too. So I'll put up some images from my Pinterest board every once in a while. Just to change it up. Just to spice up your day (or at least mine!)

That's all.

xoxo Liz

The Queen City of the Rockies: A Week In

Dear Internet,

Well, I’ve been in Helena for a week now and things have been going pretty well! But first I’ll back up and tell you - or just put up some pictures - from Will’s and my road trip here.

On the Road, Arizona!

Bright Angel Canyon, a tributary canyon of the Grand Canyon
which Will and I hiked down (2.5 hrs) and back up (3.5 hrs). Ouch.

A canyon most grand!

Me & Will (respectively).

The Great Salt Lake (it was pretty gross)

Temple Square in Salt Lake City,
a.k.a. Mormon HQ.

Okay, cool. So my first day of work, my supervisor, Brian, showed up wearing all black, including a kilt and combat boots. I had been warned about the kilt but not the black or the boots or anything. So I knew it would be a good job.

My job is confusing to explain. I’m funded by a Technology Initiative Grant (TIG) from Legal Services Corporation (LSC) and I work with the Legal Services National Technology Assistance Project (LSNTAP). The office I work at, and that sponsors my hiring through VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America, by the way) is Montana Legal Services Association (MLSA). Lawyers love acronyms. Jeez.

Basically I work with legal aid organizations to help them reach and serve low-income people better, via technology. So this entails monitoring a help desk and listserv of email addresses, blogging, and helping with social media (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube...). It’s a lot of computer time, and I didn’t realize how tough that would be for me.

On the plus side, it’s decently interesting. I deal more with the tech side of things than with the legal side of things, but I hear a lot of what goes on in the office at least - attorneys dealing with clients who have housing or domestic violence or a host of other issues that they otherwise would not be financially equipped to deal with. It’s pretty cool and I’d feel worse about eavesdropping if the attorneys bothered to close their doors when they were on speakerphone.

I’ve also re-re-rediscovered how much I like to write. Blogging is probably my favorite part of my job. So far I wrote a piece on captioning YouTube videos and am now working on one about different options for video conferencing. It’s not terribly exciting stuff for me - I’ll never be that much of a techie - but I’ve enjoyed the process of putting it together. I think I’m better at teaching in print than out loud. I’m not sure if it’s the research that I enjoy, the writing, or what, but writing posts is sure better than combing Facebook for legal aid organizations to “like.”

Overall, I think the job might take some warming up to. At this point, I’m used to being outside all the time, hanging out with at least three other people at all times. In this job, there isn’t a whole lot of human interaction, which I guess I didn’t realize how much I relied on to feel like I was really doing something. Out there in cyberspace, it can be hard to feel like you have an impact. This is a good thing to know about myself in the long run, I think; in the short term, I’ll try to keep perspective and remember that whether I see them or not, the information I’m disseminating to lawyers around the country is helping them to help a lot of people.

Beyond the job, life has been pretty great! I think I will love living in Montana, aside from the winter, which my roommate Justin assured me “is not as bad as it is in Bozeman.” I’m from the South. Your normal winters are my apocalypse... not to be too dramatic.

Anyway, the first week I was here was the last Alive @ Five in Helena (yeah, I do lots of links now). I was able to meet up with one of the girls I met at my Pre-Service Orientation (PSO) back in July, Jillian, and her friends at Blackfoot River Brewery, a local institution, before heading over to the festivities. Then I got to hang out with a few other people from my PSO at Grand Teton National Park that weekend (Labor Day weekend, as luck would have it)! Both were great experiences and it was kind of reassuring to know that I can still have a social life even though I don’t live at the over-populated and under-cleaned apartments on Shenandoah anymore. It’s a different way to meet people and make friends, but it can still be done.

The Tetons!

Also Tetons

And I got to see Old Faithful!

Crater made by the Excelsior Geyser in Yellowstone

Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone

Artists' Paintpots in Yellowstone

Me and some of the super-cool people I got to hang out with
in the Tetons: Kelly, Sammie, and Michael.

That’s about it for now - in closing, a photo I took when I hiked up Mt Helena this evening:

My awesome new city: Helena

xoxo Liz