Two (ish?) big months have gone by since catching up, so there's a bit to recap.
The next weekend, I did the drive back up to Boulder in the suburban, then flew back to Austin late on Sunday.
The crew left early the next morning to head to a ranch near Mason, Texas to burn as part of a private lands partnership with our agency (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service). The crew cooked & camped out, and the ranch manager was friendly and willing to support my coffee vice. Ranch cat below.
We spent about a week in Kansas, then pit stopped at Wichita Mountains NWR in Oklahoma on our way back home. We helped with a 1500 acre burn (huge compared to our little 200 acre Balcones burns). I had a blast. It's a gorgeous refuge. Big hills, grassy & open in spots, but shaded by hardwoods in others. And lots of bison wandering around.
After a day and a half in OK, we drove back to Texas for our annual fire refresher the next day. I was in charge of the team-building exercise, which meant I had the liberty to, as Carl said, "Get a bunch of grown adults to play capture the flag." The competition was intense. Someone dove into a cactus.
The boys who have been on the crew for a while have nothing but bad things to say about burning there, but I had a blast, felt challenged physically, and melted some siding off a building. Whoops!
I took a trip to the urgent care for steroids after Round 2 of bad poison ivy (the first was from Wichita). I really ticked off my bad knee, and just got word that I have a partial ACL tear in that thing now. It's always something. I'm certainly not getting younger.
Wrapping up our Caddo burns closed out the month and freed us up to travel for assignments. We had a fish fry after our last burn, spent a day checking the units we burned, then drove back to Balcones.
I took some days down and went to Ohio for Easter weekend. Mom and I had a cute slow day in Defiance, then we all got together at Dad's for a big Easter. Then back to Mom's for family supper with Grandpa Tom.
I was attached to the agency's helicopter, which was staged at the refuge due to high fire danger across the state. It was cool to get aviation experience and some signatures in my HECM taskbook.
This was a great trip. I got my Florida tan, some new work experiences, and had a lot of fun in Titusville. I went to a "Prince of Egypt" musical at the Titusville Playhouse, we went on a deep-sea fishing charter, and watched a couple rocket launches.
I picked up some bikes on Facebook Marketplace and convinced two coworkers to bike around town with me. I had some really nice beach runs, bike rides back to the hotel, good seafood, birding, and beautiful weather. JM came to visit for a couple days too :)
I am writing this as me and the other two new guys on the crew drive to Tallahassee for another severity assignment, this time on the Apalachicola NF. I'm the trainee for this one, which is very exciting, but also nervewracking.
We'll finish out the month on this assignment. I hope to head home on my days off at the beginning of June to see family, watch the Big Boy train go through Continental, and celebrate Druby's 30th.
