My First Month as a Guardian

***I wrote this post a month ago and haven't had a chance to finish and post. Our office has moved so I'll include that update later!**

My first week was a whirlwind and I was glad when I got back home from New Mexico. The Portland office is in the Industrial District, or so I'm told that's what it's called. My commute is just over an hour but it's only a 10 minute drive to the MAX station. I listen to podcasts on my commute and play logic puzzles on the way back. I don't do them on my way to work because I'm not awake enough in the mornings. The logic puzzles make the commute fly by and I even missed my stop when I took a new bus because I was so absorbed in the puzzle.

The Portland office is tiny and we got it when there were only two staff in the city. I joined as the fourth person in our office and we just barely fit. We just added a fifth member to the Portland staff and we're now searching for a new, bigger office while she works remotely. Here is our current office, with four desks squeezed in.

View from the hall

View from my desk

My desk

On Cinco De Mayo, we had a fundraiser in Denver. I was too new to help with much of the prep but I joined and helped with checkout. I also took pictures for social media. The best part of this fundraiser: raptors!! No not those raptors. Birds of prey are calls raptors. Owls are my favorite bird and of those, barn owls are my favorite.

My new best friend

There was also a falcon, an eagle, and a hawk. The eagle wore a hood because she was found blind in one eye. The volunteer told us that when they're learning to fly, they can accidentally run into a branch and blind themselves in that eye. They think that could be what happened to her. She was wearing a hood, because her reduced eyesight made her more likely to be nervous and by covering their eyes, the raptors are more calm. She had an interesting habit of scanning her head like a type writer when the hood was on. The volunteer told us that was because without her eyesight, she was scanning to locate sounds. By moving her head, she could triangulate where the sound was coming from by comparing what she received in each ear. It was a very informational couple of minutes for me!

We also had live music outside, an open bar, and stations where staff could talk about our work with the guests. There was a small silent auction and a raffle as well. Another volunteer group performed visual arts during the reception. A man and a woman, dressed as trash collectors, did floor acrobatics, for lack of a better description. He would lay on his back and hold her with his foot, while she contorted her body. They also had a woman dressed as a mermaid trapped by trash. That was more of a social statement than performance.

I was only in Denver for the afternoon before, day of, and morning after the fundraiser. I was able to walk around downtown for a bit and take in some of the city. We checked in during May the Fourth, sn unofficial Star Wars holiday (May the fourth be with you). The hotel lobby had Star Wars art but they said it was for some exhibit in town. When we walked around that evening, there were people in Star Wars costumes all over celebrating the pseudo-holiday

My dad has one of the R2D2 Pepsi coolers!

The morning of the fundraiser, my colleague and I were walking to breakfast and saw the trees had turned blue. No seriously, they were blue. It was obvious that they'd been painted but we couldn't fathom why. I sent a picture to Brandt and in true Brandt fashion, he looked up why. He sent me an article explaining it was part of a public art project in Denver's Theater District. The artist painted them with chalk-paint, which is temporary and non-toxic, to highlight their vital role in our environment. I thought that was fitting since we were in town!

Santa Fe

I spent my first week with WildEarth Guardians in Santa Fe, where the main office is located. I got to know some of my colleagues and had a week-long immersion into my new job. I was working most of the time and didn't take many pictures. I did love the Santa Fe water though; my hair looked fabulous without any frizz.

All of the buildings around downtown were adobe and I think it's a pattern that continues throughout the city. I got a shuttle ride one morning and was told there's a requirement to build with adobe in the historic parts of town or at least cover the buildings so the facade looks adobe.

The hotel I stayed in had a very Santa Fe look. The bedspread really tied the room together. The southwest theme was all over town and a little too "in my face." I don't think I could live there but I enjoyed it for the week.

One thing I loved, was when I was looking for souvenirs, I came across something that reminded me of my grandparents. My paternal grandfather loved the southwest and the people who traditionally lived there. They traveled a lot and I remember their home being filled with art and artifacts from the region. While I was in a fabulous souvenir store, I came across a display with Storytellers. I was immediately transported back to my grandparents' home and the hours I spent there as a child. I used to make up stories in my mind about what these women were telling the children. I did a bit of research and these came around in the 1960s.
They are now very popular:

As time went on, more and more artists started making their own storyteller dolls, each adapting their own unique style and implementing their own beliefs based on their heritage. Today, the term storyteller refers to any human or animal figure that is covered with smaller children or animals. They have become one of the most collectible and sought after forms of clay art.  - PuebloDirect.com

It snowed my first morning in town, which was odd to see in the desert. That evening, I was offered the opportunity to hear a talk by our River Program Director and jumped in. We drove up to the hills and it was beautiful to see the snow speckled hills and spots of green trees.

Never having been to New Mexico, I was surprised at the amount of green. It's mostly the trees but there was more than I expected. I soaked up the sun on my lunches and realized how much I've truly missed vitamin D. Portland winters seem to be getting longer and drearier with each year we live here. Santa Fe was a nice respite from the gray of the Pacific NW.

I explored the foods of Santa Fe for lunches and dinners. I normally eat out once a week or less, so it was a lot of rich food. I was glad to have Brandt's home cooking when I got back. All of the places I went were great but the one worth taking a picture was a little place near the office. I got a lamb burger (going out of my comfort zone) and it was locally raised lamb, house-made English muffin, house-made ketchup, and duck fat fries. It was great! I'm a ketchup-aholic and didn't care for the house-made ketchup at all. The fries made with duck fat were great but I didn't like the reminder that I was eating duck fat. They were so delicious that it wasn't hard to eat them though. The presentation was great too!

The airport was super tiny, and adorable. It was a nice throwback to when TSA didn't destroy our lives and make us wish shoe bombers, underwear bombers, and the like, still didn't exist. I was able to show up an hour before my flight, check in right away, and then I got to play on my new work laptop.

Santa Fe doesn't have any flights directly to Portland (and vice versa) so I had a layover in Denver. I was impressed with the plane back to PDX. They had screens that folded out and had our safety instructions. They also played a TV show, but it was with Steve Harvey and he's a little hard to watch because I think he's always over-acting. I'll watch Family Feud all day because I'm awesome at guessing the answers but anything else with him, I avoid. I was able to plug in my headphones and switch to various "radio" stations and get in a good nap.

To end my story of my first week at Guardians, I want to circle back to my first day. We went to a taste test for the Gala, which will take place in October. My allergies had come back due to the temperature change and one of the staff brought me a sinus-cleansing tea. Each tea bag has something on the paper on the end. Mine is worth sharing and perfect metaphor for my new job.

Making My Dream a Reality

As far back as I can remember, I've always been passionate about animals and nature. I spent summers outdoors and loved playing in the creeks that wind through Cowley County. I wasn't afraid to climb a tree in a dress or pick up a toad I found in the garden. I loved getting dirty and still do.

I've always gone out of my way to recycle and I've been hounding Brandt to use reusable bags (we're almost there!). A primary reason for moving to Oregon was my desire to live in a place that values the environment as much as I do and hopefully get a job working to save the natural world. In April, I finally made that dream a reality and joined WildEarth Guardians as their Membership Manager.

Guardians' mission is protect and restore wildlife, wild places, wild rivers, and the health of the American West. We believe in respecting and valuing nature, which has always been my personal belief. We focus on protecting public lands and rivers as well as the wildlife that live on them. We're fighting to keep national monuments public and prevent any more oil and gas leases on public land. We're passionate about the Rio Grande's right to its own water and fighting to keep it from drying up, as it does every year due to over consumption. We're currently fighting Colorado Parks and Wildlife's new policy to kill bears and mountain lions in a "study" to see how it affects mule deer populations. They're shooting the carnivores from helicopters, using bear traps, chasing them down with hounds, and poisoning them. Not only is this inhumanely killing the bears and mountain lions but it's not truly a study because they don't know how many are living in the wild and there's science showing the mule deer aren't repopulating as fast as CPW would like due to loss of habitat, not predation. The kicker is that citizens have come out in force against this plan and CPW has gone ahead any way.

We have offices based across the West and some people who work from home if they don't live near an office. Our staff retreat a few weeks ago offered me my first opportunity to meet everyone. I thoroughly enjoyed meeting my colleagues and learning about our programs. I'm proud to join an organization of people who are as passionate about saving our natural world as much as I am. They're intelligent, strong-willed, and will do what it takes to speak for the wildlife across the west and their habitats.

We speak for the voiceless and I've wanted to dedicate my life to restoring and saving nature before humanity completely destroys it. This job gives me the opportunity to dedicate my career to that which I am most passionate. I am truly looking forward to standing up for the native species, rivers, and lands in the West.

Enjoying a Rainy, Green Portland

We dropped off our parents for their flight and the little sister and I headed to Cathedral Park under the St. John's Bridge. This was one spot that my sister had heard of and insisted we go. There isn't much to the park itself but the bridge and the foggy hills behind it were a perfect example of the rainy beauty that is Portland.

We decided to get out of the drizzle and head to Powell's Books. I absolutely love that place (two buildings with floors and floors of books). We spent more than an hour browning the isles of books and shelves with funny, nerdy things on them. I got a Cthulu shirt and a collection of HP Lovecraft's works. It felt appropriate with it being October, and all.

While we were at Powell's it was PACKED. It turns out that Bruce Springsteen was there signing his new book. We joked that Springsteen ruined my sister's first trip to Powell's because we couldn't get to one of the floors and that line wrapped throughout the building. We were able to squeeze through people to get to the shelves we wanted to see but I'm going to take her back on her next visit so we can meander more.

Our next stop was the Lan Su Chinese Garden. I've driven by before and it looked minuscule compared to other attractions I've seen. I didn't have high hopes but I was completely wrong. It ended up being my favorite place we visited while my family was in town. Every single angle was meticulously thought out and equally as beautiful. I imagine that every time I go back I'll see something new. Below are just a sampling of the dozens of pictures I took. Truly beautiful.

This is made from string!

This wonderful gentleman from
Wisdom Arts Academy made us
Chinese calligraphy symbols. He
made it look effortless!

After the garden we were hungry and walked over to a restaurant with pho. I've heard a lot about it but I don't like to try new food without someone who's had it before to make recommendations. My sister has had pho before and we ventured into the tiny restaurant. It was good (and a lot of food to eat at once!) and I enjoyed the artwork on the wall.

We rushed through our deceptively gigantic lunch to make it to the train station. My sister's vacation wasn't quite over and she was on her way up to Seattle. We said our goodbyes and I went home to catch up on sleep.

Climbing Mount Hood

Mt. Hood

My boss has a place at Mount Hood and was extremely generous and offered to let us stay there a night while my family was in town. I spent my last day with my parents and sister traveling to the mountain and then conquering it. After we checked into the condo, we went up to Timberline Lodge and had lunch then explored the historic lodge.

The lodge was built in 1935 as part of Roosevelt's New Deal Works Progress Administration. It was primarily built by hand using materials from the area. It's a nice change to see the actual wood and stone used to construct the building almost 100 years ago. The craftsmanship was top notch and I loved the wood carvings. It's primarily used as a ski lodge but there isn't any skiing in October, when the snow hasn't fallen yet.

The picture doesn't do the details justice.

The newel posts on each floor were a different animal.

1930's craftsmanship.

Our parents went up to the Rams Head bar while my sister and I went outside to explore and climb the mountain. The facade was used for the Shining and it took me a second but at the right angle, I definitely saw flashbacks to the movie.

 

We found ourselves on the Pacific Crest Trail!

 

I have no idea why the rock looked like this but I
was fascinated.

Pacific Crest Trail marker.

Little sister checking out
the foliage.

Rams Head bar shot glass

It was pretty chilly out and we decided to head back to the condo to rest up before our early morning. The airport was about an hour away and my parents had an early morning flight. My sister spent most of the evening in front of the fireplace and I cuddled up to sleep in the biggest comfiest bed ever.