Chile, where it's chilly.

Soon I will be off to South America for another work adventure. This time I am heading to a group of islands 380 miles offshore of Chile in the South Pacific. The Juan Fernandez archipelago is a very interesting and unique place, with many rare and endemic species (found only on these islands) including the Juan Fernandez Fire Crown, which is the only endemic hummingbird species in the world. Additionally, the novel Robinson Crusoe is thought to be partially based on the account of Alexander Selkirk who was marooned for four years in the Juan Fernandez islands. So in addition to the awesome wildlife and amazing views, there is some interesting history to explore as well. I am leaving the quickly approaching t-shirt and shorts weather of summer in the Pacific Northwest for the dead of winter down south...bummer. But Kari reminds me that I can't really complain since I traded the wet and cold of February and March in Portland, for the tropic like climate of the Caribbean. I suppose that is fair enough.

Given that I have never been to Chile, I am excited to see a new region and island ecosystem, as well as learn more about the Chilean culture. I will spend two months...yep you read right two months, out on island doing research to inform our project planning process for future restoration activities in the Juan Fernandez.
Upon return I will certainly share my experiences and pictures with you all. In the mean time, call/email/come visit my loving and extremely understanding better half.

Costa Rica - Part One

We have been back from vacation for almost two weeks now and finally getting settled back into real life. The trip was wonderful. I was more than ready for a vacation and Jake was looking forward to being someplace tropical and not working!

Each day we enjoyed pretty much the same routine:
- Short walk before breakfast
- Longer hike between breakfast and lunch
- Siesta
- Another hike before dinner
- Happy hour at the tiki bar
- Dinner
- Bed

The food was fantastic. The people were so kind. The landscape was beautiful. I could not have asked for more.

First sight of the lodge.

The front porch of the first cabina we stayed in.

View from the second cabina.

Spider Monkey

Scarlet Macaw

  

Tree Frog

Capuchin Monkey with baby

Poison Dart Frog

Coati

Tamandua (Anteater)

Aguti

KD For Life

The weekend of April 13-14, the Beta Delta Chapter of Kappa Delta celebrated 75 years on being on the USU campus. Naturally this called for a party! Nearly 200 alumni and current collegians gathered to re-connect, reminisce about old memories and create new ones. It was great to see many of the wonderful ladies that I spent much of my college life with and many of whom I had not seen since I graduated and moved away. The KD house looked great and I could not believe when they said there were 74 active members in the chapter right now! I remember that we were pretty excited when we almost got to 40 when I was active. It was wonderful to see the chapter doing so well.

Friday night was spent catching up at the house, signing KD songs, then on to The Factory for dinner and of course finishing the night at the Owl. Saturday morning the collegians recreated for the alumni one of the recruitment nights to take us back and give the newest members a bit of practice before the real deal this fall. It was really neat to see and it made me laugh at how quickly it all comes back and I was singing the song along in my head and thinking how it didn't seem that long ago that I was in the circle singing with the rest of the chapter. In reality it was 8 years ago that I pledged KD! More singing with the whole group then led to a round of Pat out in the road! After the morning festivities came to a close we all made our way down to the new Marriott for the luncheon. It was beautifully decorated and the speakers did a great job. The main speaker was Julie Landgrin Johnson, a former KD National President, who was actually President when I was initiated which was very cool to see her in person. They had also put together a slide show of pictures that alumni had submitted which ranged from the 1940's up through the current chapter. It was hilarious to see how the styles changed through the years and how some of the furniture in the house is still around from many years ago!

I truly enjoyed catching up with so many friends and remembering the great times we had together during school.

Singing in the living room of KD.

Jess and her centennial Danica Moran

Neeley and Michelle.

Sara, Jess, Michelle and I

Michelle missed the memo about the hand on the hip pose.

Love my little!!

Biggest Pat circle I have ever seen!

My centennial Courtney Robinson.

The Jessicas

The typical sorority pose.

The ladies at our lunch table.

Lysh, me, Lori, Michelle, Lucy, Neeley

More singing at lunch.

The whole group!

Amongst The Trees

Once again we have taken advantage of the wonderful place that we call home. It is great to have so many fun things to do and see just a short drive away. A couple weekends ago we headed up the Columbia River Gorge to take on the Eagle Creek Hike. It is a popular trail since it is pretty close to Portland, but we got there early enough that we beat much of the crowd. There were many waterfalls to see along the way with the main attraction being Punch Bowl Falls. I will let the pictures speak for themselves. It was a gorgeous day, just perfect for a walk in the woods.

Amazing how little we seem out in the woods!

Punch Bowl Falls

Looking down stream from the top of Punch Bowl.

Another waterfall.

Playing Pooh Sticks is the best part of going on hikes. The water was pretty far down, so I had to make sure the stick was big enough to see from the bridge!

PTFC!!!!

Jake and I went to a Portland Timbers soccer game the day after he got home from Puerto Rico. Nothing says welcome home like a huge crazy crowd of soccer fans! It was the first time at a professional soccer game for both of us and it was awesome. I loved watching/listening to the Timber Army section that literally was chanting and singing for the entire game. The playing was good as well, but we ended up losing 2-1 with the final Real Salt Lake goal coming during the stoppage time after the end of regulation. Even though we didn't win, it was still an awesome experience and I would definitely want to go back again.

View from our seats during warm-ups.

The Timbers Army section. Many different countries represented on the team and all the flags were there too.

Green smoke for making a GOAL!!!

Players in action.

La isla del encanto

Once again I (Jake) have been away for work and return with stories and pictures from abroad. Well, sort of. If by stories you mean 'work talk' and if by pictures you mean the 5 grainy pictures I took on the few days out of 46 that I was gone, and if by abroad you mean a commonwealth of the US. Apparently I am becoming somewhat jaded to travel and the common sights of my job, as I take less pictures each trip. It also doesn't help that my camera is a 4 mega pixel dinosaur. Fear not, for an upgrade is in the works. Anyway, here is what I was up to for the last month plus. 

I returned to Puerto Rico for another restoration project (same island, different species). I had been working with the project manager in PR remotely since about October, striving for mobilization and implementation of the project in March. By early February it became evident that I needed to physically be in PR to finalize the aspects I was working on and help make the project happen on time. So on February 13th I headed down, leaving the cold wet Portland winter for...not cold wet weather. Most of the first couple weeks were spent working behind a desk, super exciting. During this time I stayed in a rental house in Cabo Rojo (southwest PR) complete with a convenient siesta hammock.

The little house turned into 'Jake's Bed and Breakfast' as we rotated personnel through for deployments in the field and preparation for the main part of the project, but I was a mainstay. By early March everything was coming together and the majority of the project personnel began to arrive. I moved north to Rincon, where we would base the operation. Our house had a nice view of the island we were restoring.

This project was a little different than usual, as we did the main part of the operation from the mainland, with only a small field team on island. I didn't even overnight in the field the whole trip, which felt weird. My role during the implementation was aerial operations supervisor. I oversaw the helicopter operations, and managed the LZ and associated personnel. Overall, our project came together well, our team was great and everyone worked hard. We nailed our timeline, had good luck with the weather, and did it all without any injuries. I don't think we could have asked for a better outcome. A field team will remain on island for another week or so, then we wait. By the end of next year monitoring of the island ecosystem will confirm if we were successful or not, but confidence is high as all went very well.

For my parting shot I leave you with 2-charlie-alpha. Big boy toys are fun. Now if only I could find an excuse to rappel for 'conservation benefit'....

Well Done Nature, Well Done.

Snow belongs in the mountains. Thankfully around here mother nature agrees and we very rarely get snow in the valley. Last weekend we ventured up to Mt. Hood to pay the snow a visit. I went snowshoeing last year for the first time and really enjoyed it, so we thought we would give it another go. The weather was perfect for a day up on the mountain. Blue sky and sunshine all the way. When we got to the sno-park there were a couple of guided tours getting ready to start so we hustled to get our shoes on and get on the trail before we got stuck behind them. The destination for this trip was Tri-County Ridge, which would give us a view of Mt. Hood to the east, Mt. Jefferson to the south and the Three Sisters even further south. The trek up was not so bad, definitely some steep hills, but the view was going to be worth it. As we got farther into the wilderness area it began to look like we were walking through Narnia! It was beautiful and when we finally got to the top, the view certainly did not disappoint. It was great to be out and enjoying the snow right where it belongs.

Mt. Hood

Mt. Jefferson

Mt. Jefferson and the Three Sisters (on the left)