"Wilderness" don't mean "Backpacking"

Spent the last 6 days outin Eastern Utah working at a wilderness therapy program for at-risk teens. Don't be fooled. By "wilderness" they don't always mean "backpacking". We didn't move this last week. Just camped at the same spot the whole time. A little painstaking but a great first week back: the weather was great, the students not too challenging and a cool group of staff to work with.

Picture this moment:

I was sitting in on a therapy session, watching the sun set over the snow and sagebrush, listening to a therapist talk to this kid whose parents don't really love him, hearing coyotes howling in the distance.

my life is so exciting

i'm back in salt lake now. living with my parents, which is good: free food, free rent, and my parents are cool. And my plan is Portland in April, so hope is on the horizon.

On my more exciting salt lake days I walk my parents two ancient Shi-Tzus. One (diogi) is blind, the other (poochini) is partially blind, fat and deaf. you can imagine how fun walking them is. Diogi's sight is so bad that this morning, when i walked her with my mom, she jumped really high just to get over a pinecone. She couldn't tell it was just a tiny pinecone. I can't wait till that happens to me.

Joe Victorine and Liz Ellis just left 2 days ago. They came out for 6 and for the new year. We went skiing lots, it's free after 3PM at one ski resort (alta). Joe started on the bunny hill but was doing pretty well by day three.

On the 20th I start working again at Second Nature, and hopefully, if i can swing it I'll be temping during my off weeks. that's all. i'm at the library and out of time.