It's been way too long since I've really blogged.
I had grandiose ideas about blogging about how awkward it was to initially come back to civilization after nearly 3 months of being out of it. But I got lazy.
I suppose I still could, but a lot of those thoughts have probably been lost by now and gone to the wayside and things that were normal for as long as I can remember that were weird just a few weeks ago are already long-lost memories.
The weirdest thing that I did find odd, was that I just thought it was the craziest thing to see building after building after building alongside the road. I mean, it wasn't so weird to see buildings themselves (even though I hadn't for so long), but it was just the string of them that got to me, which I think is kind of funny seeing as how I came back to civilization near Healy, Alaska which has a stable population of around 1000 people, and maybe quite a few more during the summer.
Oh. Another thing I remembered was the inefficiency of pissing. If one needed to piss, you had to locate a designated location in which to dispose of the urine. Out in the field I just had to walk a few paces away from everyone and take some account of the wind direction and speed.
Crapping was a different matter. At each base camp we would dig a hole that would hopefully last us for at least a couple of weeks. Brian, my boss had made this wonderful contraption which was basically 5 pieces of wood nailed together where the larger top face was maybe 3'x2'. This face had wood nailed to each side of it so as to make a sort of stool out of the faceboard. Each of the frame pieces were about 4" wide. A hole as big as a toilet seat was cut into the faceboard and a plastic toilet seat was attached. This actually made for some nice shitting. Where ever we dug the hole, we'd put this toilet seat atop it and around that we took a tent fly and made a cover over the shit hole and seat.
Inside the crapper was placed the seat to sit on, toilet paper in a plastic bag, a sharpee pen for graffiti art on the painted-blue shit stool, a box of strike-anywhere matches placed in a plastic bag, and a coffee can.
The coffee can was for disposing of used toilet paper. Since bear and the like enjoy digging up shit piles, we had to burn our toilet paper so as to not leave trails of brown-streaked paper all along the tundra.
I remember coming back to civilization and marveling at how easy it was to flush a toilet and not having to be mired down in the rain trying to light your asswipes.
So I've come to the conclusion that (at least for males) civilization makes pissing hard and shitting a breeze.
Wow. So there was that....
What else. I enjoyed a bed. They were very ultrasoft when I first had the chance to get on one.
Another thing was that up in Alaska, during the summer there's light practically all day--all 24 hours (more like 20). So when I'd go to bed at 11 and get up at 7, I never saw dark. Nor was there any place to take solace from the light. My tent readily accepted sunlight. The closest thing was the cook tent that was made of a heavy-duty canvas material but still let light in. Being in a room with opaque walls where darkness was actually a possibility was also a seemingly novel concept to me.
Ah, things are coming to me now: pavement. After walking on tussocks and tundra all summer, walking on pavement was so EASY. It also felt weird. Your whole foot came down and did a full swing. Out there in the field you never get a complete push from your toe because 99% of the time where you are stepping is not flat. To have a flat surface was kind of like the feeling you get when you have just come off a trampoline after having jumped for an extended period of time. You feel like you could/should put in more effort and get more out of the energy that you put in.
Walking on tussocks was a pain in the ass. Tussocks are pieces of earth and vegetation that stick up somewhat like a succession of mole hills covering an entire field but with mosses or grasses growing out of them. The mossy tussocks were spongy and every step that was placed on them resulted in your foot sinking up to two feet into the spongy tundra. The next subsequent step was met by another step into this squishy matting or onto the harder grass tussocks. The whole mossy tussock ordeal was like walking on a stair master.
The grass tussocks, like I said, were a lot harder. These you could step on and wouldn't receive much give. However, the hard part about these are that they are not stable. It's almost like stepping on an unsupported toadstool. You have a lot of surface area to step on, but underneath there is no stability so the "toadstool" will lean this way or that depending upon whichever way the pressure of the step is pushing it. This forces you to have quick steps to not slide off of the top of the tussock and in between them. One might think that walking in between the tussocks would result in easier walking, but they would be wrong. Between all these "mole hills" are depressions that readily accept and hold water. Some of these pools that collect between the tussocks get up to 2 feet deep. Some of the holes around the tussocks are hidden by the vegetation so you don't know how deep or how wet the holes are.
Therefore, you end up trying to fall from tussock to tussock. I found a routine where I would keep my arms out for balance and throw them back and forth as I would throw a bent leg from tussock to tussock as quickly as possible, almost looking like a scurrying ninja. Of course this is highly tiring and can't go on forever, but it was rather effective when I did utilize this tactic.
Also having more than the same 5 people around was weird. Not only did I have to constantly watch where people were coming from, but there was so much variation in faces that I seemed to be staring a lot of the time. Nubility was something that was thrown back in my face. Hi, Kim! =D (Who said anything about acting upon urges ;)
I suppose what kind of went along these lines was seeing other dogs. No, not bitch nubility, but seeing other breeds of dogs. I had gotten used to Thule's (too-leez) size, which as a Saint Bernard, her head came up to just above my waist and the majority of her body came to my waist. Seeing other dogs (especially the kickable kind) was very amusing. They didn't seem like dogs at all. Other dogs that I've dealt with since then also seem way more manageable, as Thule would lean all of her 120 pounds against you every time you would pet her.
Showers were nice, but it was odd that for about a week after I never felt an urge to wake up an take a shower like I would before I left for the field. I guess that was a newly acquired habit to break that formed after only having 1 shower in 3 months.
Carrying a cell phone was odd too--being tied to something so closely...
The last two weeks out there my watch died so although I had a decent sense for time whenever I asked, I never really knew what time it was. Nor did I have a conventional alarm for waking up. What I actually adapted to do was to wake up to the sound of everyone's tent zippers being tugged on. With this as my alarm, it always insured that I was the last one to get up for breakfast, but I'm sure everyone was OK with it as they knew my situation.
I suppose that's it for now. Tomorrow I get to get up and move everything to my dorm room. Luckily all my belongings are already all boxed up or in my van.
School starts Monday which I'm kind of looking forward to but could use another week to get things straightened out and in gear.
School will be a nice routine to get back into, but I can't wait to see what my next adventure will be like next summer!
