I'm trying to get to 30 years with my company, but there are currently no internal jobs for me to return to in Seattle. The company has moved the program I support to Oklahoma City so the Seattle site is laying people off (or in Aussie speak, making them redundant). This has pushed me into staying much longer than planned. Aside from it being hard to be away from family for so long, it's an awfully sweet place to be hanging out at for nearly seven years now. Yes, SEVEN years! Wow.
Saturday, April 8, 2017
Suckered On the Blue Gum Loop Trail
Haven't posted anything in ages. The last year has been interesting for sure with this bi-continental living thing. Every couple months Eric or I head off to visit the other. It makes for fantastic greetings, but tough goodbyes. This living style is due to wind up at the end of June. Or maybe the end of September. As seems to be too often true, I really don't quite know.
I'm trying to get to 30 years with my company, but there are currently no internal jobs for me to return to in Seattle. The company has moved the program I support to Oklahoma City so the Seattle site is laying people off (or in Aussie speak, making them redundant). This has pushed me into staying much longer than planned. Aside from it being hard to be away from family for so long, it's an awfully sweet place to be hanging out at for nearly seven years now. Yes, SEVEN years! Wow.
The last month and a bit has been full of visitors. I'm happy to have them all, but my very favorite one is, of course, Eric! We did quite a number of sightseeing trips both short and longer with our different visitors while they were here. The longest was a long weekend in the outback town of Lightning Ridge. Caught a fantastic sunset and moon view while there, but my favorite part of the trip was spotting wild emus along the way there and back. Wild critters - so awesome!
I'm trying to get to 30 years with my company, but there are currently no internal jobs for me to return to in Seattle. The company has moved the program I support to Oklahoma City so the Seattle site is laying people off (or in Aussie speak, making them redundant). This has pushed me into staying much longer than planned. Aside from it being hard to be away from family for so long, it's an awfully sweet place to be hanging out at for nearly seven years now. Yes, SEVEN years! Wow.
After April 4th, when Eric and I did one of those tough goodbyes, I was down to one visitor left - Ethan. Ethan and I had a 'lowlight' of highlights on our Blue Gum Loop Trail hike yesterday. We had hoped to see cool critters and insects, but failed miserably. Emphasis on miserable.
It all started off well with a brush turkey sighting. He was quite the poser and thought he was entitled to a handout. Not happenin' mate!
We next enjoyed some lovely water scenes and the specialties of a rain forest: huge trees, moss, fungi, mushrooms, and one very unwelcome discovery - leeches. From that point on our hiking turned into some strange form of walking and stretching. The stretching was all about inspecting our shoes and ankles for more leeches.
I missed a critter crossing our path because I was busy removing a leech from my shoe at the time. Those things have ridiculous hanging on abilities! I completely lost count of the number we had to remove from our shoes, but it was definitely in excess of 30 each!
Amazingly, none of those suckers managed to attach themselves to our skin. Our shoes were another matter, but our vigilance in constantly checking was a real big factor in them not getting to the holy grail of skin. I was pretty proud of myself for controlling my "I want to freak out and run the rest of the way" impulses. My conclusion for the day? Critters are cool but leeches suck!
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