Peace Corps Turns 50!

Greetings All!

It's been almost two months since a post yet I'm on my computer every day.  Spring has sprung here...sort of.  Sounds like we've entered what's called mud season in the mountains.  Lots of exposed ice and well, mud.  That's not to say the snow is done but the winds are significantly warmer.  Much has been happening which is why I haven't been blogging.  I've been DOing :)

PC Prop at Colorado Mtn College talk

 Peace Corps turned 50 this year and in my near obsessive need to "spread the good word" I tried to get some PC love where I could.  Turns out there is quite a community, mostly at Colorado Mtn Collage where I tutor.  No one from West Africa, lots from Central and South America, and one incredible woman who served 5 years in Botswana and then a year as staff in Bulgaria!  She's now an entrepreneurship professor and is interested in the company Dlight Designs, started by the first volunteer in my village in Benin.  Love the less than 6-levels of separation!

delicious PC Potluck

Peace Corps has been sending out copious amounts of emails saying returned volunteers need to get together, especially in its 50th year, and celebrate what we've done and talk about what remains to do (a TON!)  I mostly needed these get togethers for some solidarity.  Haven't had a fix in a while and I finally felt like I had enough oxygen once I realized how many of us were in the community.  A few more faces to say hello to at the coffee shop is always a nice thing.  After a small presentation at the local college, we got together for a potluck.  Enchiladas, fruit salad (b/c that's what I always craved in Benin), empanadas and good drink for all.  It was a great way to meet some friends and learn about their experiences.  I must say, I felt a bit like a weeney when a few folks recounted tales of drug lords bursting into their homes because they were taking over that village, or of going on a 10 day excursion in the Amazon, with nothing but booze and a few roots to chew on.  It's clear there have been many changes to PC over the years, and many more that need to happen but I think the spirit of volunteers has remained.  As a finale to these events, I received a call on my cell yesterday from a friend back in Guinarourou.  We haven't spoken since I got in the taxi to close my service but it was like we never skipped a beat.  He is shocked we don't have any African yams (ignames) over here and I can't imagine I ever lived in the equatorial heat as I gazed out the window on a white white landscape and blustery 20-degree (F) winds.  Who knows how much that will cost on my phone but with lots of laughter and some Bariba exchanged, it's good to know there's still a little bit of me over there and a lot of "over there" left in my heart...

Food Corn!

Ahhh yes, I remember it fondly. My sister dangling her little feet from the car booster seat, gazing out the window on Mentor Avenue and honing in on the righteous porn picketers on a sunny afternoon.  Sometimes grocery shopping can invoke one of life's lessons.  "Mom, why are they holding signs about corn?"  That afternoon, mom and I learned 2 things:
1 - phonics doesn't always work
2 - Abby has been a diva since birth, lusting after the shiny green, sparkly outfits dangling in the "corn" storefront.

In honor of the perpetual relationship food and pornography now holds in my mind, here are some money shots taken this winter at our house.  A great example of what cold temperatures, good friends and a functioning kitchen can produce :)

 

basil focaccia by Rocky

cornish game hens, pumpkin soup steamed veggies and stuffing, impromptu thanksgiving!

butternut squash, porkchops, asparagus. and cheesecake!

herb bread rising in the morning light

and the final product

pizza bar...brought on discussions of opening a local pizzeria...

this was pretty impressive

juevos rancheros

crepes?  c'est tres bon!

swiss chard pie

my very first turkey! 

eggs benedict, how much butter?????

washington berries, boulder sausage, and yes folks, we have a waffle iron

SPRING ROLLS!  freshest app ever!

especially good with smoked halibut inside

mozzarella and sun-dried tomato stuffed chicken breast, roasted red peppers, and oven roasted asparagus

Special thanks to Mother Earth News, Joy of Cooking, Martha Stewart, Rocky's Bread Book, the Peace Corps Cookbook, Julia Child, and our very own brains for delivering these concoctions.  

Happy Chef-ing and thanks for checking out our food corn!

Hey Friends!

It's been a while and you wouldn't believe how much elk I have schlepped in the last month! The 30-foot yurt fits 45 people when it's max-ed out. The holidays came and went, mostly at work, punctuated by a few get togethers and gift-exchanging. Practical mum sent food, a non-electric chopper, and a tool kit...for that impending day when my bumper actually fall off. Most touching was a donation of $100 to Camp GLOW in my name from partner-in-crime, Rocky. Rarely do I get true surprises and this one blew me away. Glad the girls in Benin are still keepin' on.

It's been gorgeous here though we've been hit by some cold snaps. At 20 below, it's hard to start a car, snowmobile the mile to work, or just be outside in general. My house is old, slightly drafty and I've been spotted sleeping in a full fleece suit, hood and all. I believe they call that backcountry beautiful. As long as the sun keeps shining, we're all in good spirits. Though I must say the monochromatic color scheme has been getting to me. Haven't been taking as many photos as hoped and while I'm on the hunt for a tripod and photo software to experiment with, brown, white, and evergreen are wearing on my eyes. Suppose I should sound a little more thankful to live in such a fabulous location ( I am, I LOVE it here), but as I've said before, even chocolate and elk for every meal can get a little tiresome.

In an awesome show of family solidarity, my parents sent Abby out to the mountains for some apres-new year's fun filled days. I picked her up on a Wednesday from Denver and we didn't stop moving until putting her on a plane shortly thereafter, on Sunday. Most of our photos are on the facebook but wow, I don't think I've laughed that hard in a long time. She'd never been on skis, a snowboard, or a snowmobile. We covered it all and then some. After watching her hurl herself down a small slope on x-country skis, catch serious air after a major fall (on the bunny slope) while snowboarding, and scream "Born to Be Wild" at the top of her lungs while tearing it up on a snowmobile at 40 mph, I realized I needed her visit just as much as she did. Mixing it up is necessary to stay fresh and alive. It was awesome to have a visitor from home! It occurred to me that Abby hadn't really experienced being in the mountains before, and though I don't think she'll ever call Leadville home (too small), this was one more notch in the journey belt. Made me reflect a little on past travels and my encounters with nature's grandeur. It was nice to see my surroundings in a fresh light.

On the last day, guide-extrodinaire, Rocky, took us for a fast and furious few hours snowmobiling near the Gore range. These mountains are touted as being the model for the Coors cans. That delicious banquet beer. It really does look like it!

We ended in Denver that same night to catch dinner and a movie before handing her over to security at the airport for a red-eye back to Kent for spring semester. Ate burritos and saw Black Swan. A self-destructive ballerina isn't my usual cinematic topic of choice but certainly gave us conversational fodder for the ride to Denver International.

In true Miller form, it was whirlwind adventure but oh so fun and needed.

Turkeys and Trails

Leadville, formerly known as Cloud City, has been treating me right. For someone living a "normal" life for the first time ever, things are quite better than normal, I'd say.

After torturing myself for the last few years about taking the business graduate entrance exam, the GMAT, it was time to bite the bullet, pay the $250 fee, and drive my freshly studied-up brain to Denver for 4 hours of computer adaptive madness. What does one do before the most important test of your life? Oh, roast a bird. The "old country" comes out when I get stressed and I cooked an impromptu Thanksgiving dinner a few hours before I left in a blinding snowstorm for the lowland of Denver.

After the initial culture shock and freak-out which simulated going to the capitol city after living in my Peace Corps village, I spent a day at fellow RPCV Lizzy's studying and dreading the exam. Upon arriving at the nondescript testing center (which I spent a full hour seeking out the night before) I sat next to a girl taking it for the second time who confessed to breaking out in hives her first time due to nerves. "Lovely, well... good luck" I smiled while inching across the room and hexing her with my third eye. No bad vibes needed! A relatively painless 4 hours later, I walked out confused but satisfied with my results. Who knows what they actually mean to the admissions committee at Colorado State but advice to the young, if you are even remotely considering grad school, take the test as soon as you can after college. Those formulas just don't get any fresher with time.

Since my last post showed us all biking in t-shirts, I thought it appropriate to represent Leadville in its true form, a winter wonderland. Since starting my gig as a backcountry diva, snowmobiling and schlepping wild game with the best of 'em, I've had the opportunity to get out cross-country skiing more than I thought I would. I really think this is going to be my sport. It's as hard or as easy as you want it to be, you can carry camera gear without too much worry of crushing it, and the prep is minimal.

In addition to being an outdoor sports mecca, Leadville is also a historical vault. I took myself to the National Mining museum a few weeks ago, located just a couple blocks away. Wow, did you know the same stuff that makes shaving cream white also makes Oreo cream white? One more thing to scratch off my lists of appropriate treats. My self-timer camera and I had a great time perusing the exhibits and enjoying the building all to ourselves. It's been really fun getting to know the community and its resources! Bittersweet to know I'll be packing up again in 5 months.

The latest news, I won a local photo contest and they gave me cash! Curiously, they emailed me the news the day before I took the GMAT and it covered the test fee exactly. Stoked and surprised! The photo was published in Rocky Mountain Reflections, put out every semester by Colorado Mountain College. Here's the link but fair warning, it's a huge PDF.

I treated myself to a real DSLR, the Sony a33. Oh. My. Gawd. Talk about in over my head. This thing does EVERYTHING! And I don't even know what everything is. It has translucent mirror technology which allows it to shoot still and HD video at the same time and that's really just the beginning. I've been experimenting with filters and lenses but at the end of the day, it's hard to take a poor image up here. Every angle is a postcard or calendar shot waiting to happen. I've been updating photos on facebook but below is an example of the panoramic feature. A nice, fire-y sunset I took while standing in my socks in the front yard.

Happy Holidays, time to head into the light once again.

Lovin' the high

After spending a few weeks above 10,000 feet, I've been enlightened...probably due to oxygen deprivation. There literally is. no. air. In addition, nights have dropped to 8 degreesF and walking to the library entails more layers than a river trip down the Kenai in Alaska. That said, Leadville is an amazing town; it oozes history and activities abound!

Mountain vernacular is sheer hilarity in itself . "Puking Pow", "Rip the gnar" and "Whoa dude, steezy shades." are phrases I have either heard or created in my head because they actually could exist. The learning curve is huge and though I've surpassed the pants drooping, long tee wearing, lingo-slinging phase I've heard is rampant on the slopes, I'd like to keep up with the times.

This should be fairly easy as my paid gig for the winter is pretty sweet and the location really couldn't be more awe-inspiring. That's right folks, I have realized my dream of working in a Yurt. Yes, one of those round houses right out of Mongolia (minus the Yak skin walls) will be my destination to serve people delectable delicacies. Said clients will either ski, snow-shoe or, should disabilities reign, be snow-machined the mile to the Tennessee Pass Cookhouse, part of the Tennessee Pass Nordic Center, located at the base of Ski Cooper, Leadville's closest mountain (natural snow). I'm pretty excited and can't wait to utilize their 25K of trails and my pass to the area mountains!

Interestingly enough, my first encounter with "shredding" wasn't on skis or a snowboard but my mountain bike. 50-yards from my house is the trailhead to the Mineral Belt Trail. A 12-mile, winding, climbing paved path that goes through some of the oldest mining claims in the area. This is where I run into the lack of oxygen problem. My roommates, Rocky, and I did it at a leisurely pace and the views were made only more spectacular by my tunnel vision. Around mile-8 we hit a gulch and trekked a fair bit through snow. Next purchase? Studded bike tires. A great time for sure and can't wait until enough snow flies to turn it into a x-country path....though I'll have to work up to the whole twelves miles on foot. Nothing screams fun like an uncontrolled downhill on wily nordic skis.

As of late, it's been exploring the town and gearing up for work in the snow. Brooke and Mike blew in from Kansas (having come from Alaska to DC and eventually back up to the good ol'

AK) for a night. Great times! Always fun to see Alaskan friends out of Alaska, makes me believe I really do live and work up there.

This was the last day of sock-less weather before some snow and colder temps hit. All in all it's been a fabulous two weeks and am really looking forward to a winter with great friends, food, and rippin' some gnar!

Thelma and Louise RIDE

The last time mom and I hit the interstates in a massive way, I was 15 and we were crammed in a little 5-speed Toyota Tacoma. This time – 11 years later, I could drive and it was a little 5-speed Subaru. Amongst the clutter, 2 pairs of X-country skis and poles went INSIDE the car, as I didn’t want to invest in those locking roof things. I’m pretty over the expense of a car but that’s a totally different post (I’m writing this while sitting at my fourth mechanic.) Mom was a great sport about getting crammed in with the rest of my junk show and after a slight panic attack that everything I had did NOT fit on my back, we pulled out of the driveway Thursday afternoon.

After an emergency stop in Cleveland to get smokies (such good little Hungarians!), we were westward bound. Couldn’t help but feel the need to settle in for the winter and I may have left flaming skid marks on I-80. This is a big country. Amazing there is no currency or language change throughout the thousands of miles we drove! Slept for a few hours at a rest stop and powered through until Friday night. As much as I detest what Wal-Mart stands for, we were able to feed ourselves for 5 days on $40. Apples, bagels, sardines, and peanut butter...oh and some goose liver for a treat. We also camped rather than hotel-ed it. No bed bugs and smells way better. And there is NO better feeling than changing one's underpants beneath a full moon!

Mom took most of the pics but the ones I did take were of the prairie and us. Lots and lots of prairie. The big sky factor totally caught me off-guard. Amber waves of grain and

everything else we learned about our country in those elementary school song rituals. One of many highlights of this trip was mom conceding that I was right in retrospect about map proximity. I kept saying we should shoot through South Dakota to see Mt Rushmore and the badlands. After seeing nothing but feedlots and chicken processing plants through Nebraska, we were dying to see something with a wow factor before I loaded her on a plane. "Gee Rachael, you know, South Dakota really isn't that far away." Pedal to the metal, NORTH!

After having spent a night in the car, we were ready to be horizontal. Chadron State Park was the perfect second night stop. Free hot showers and super helpful office folk. NW Nebraska was actually beautiful. Dollar cones at McDonalds and hot water for our Starbucks VIE coffee. Life was rich.

This is where we hatched our genius plan to tear through as much of Wind Cave Park and Rushmore before turning and burning to Denver...then promptly passed out at 7:30pm.

It was a lovely drive north, punctuated by gale force winds and intermittent spells of soupy fog. However, upon arrival at Wind Cave, we immediately saw bison, and mule deer, and prairie dogs. OH MY! Bison are HUGE and so much better adapted to the western way of living than cattle. They're native after all! A quick tour of the visitor's center, and it was off to Rushmore. Really, it was only an hour north so well worth it. Elevation was starting to wear on mom and I could almost see her head expanding as we reached 5,000 feet. By-passing the Crazy Horse Monument (total tourist trap!), we began the steady gain upwards. The drive was amazing. The rock formations and aspen groves within the pines were breathtaking. No wonder it inspired the task of Rushmore!

Some poor guy couldn't take a picture to save his life but you get the idea here. We hiked all around the base, mellow but significantly less oxygen. After sucking our lungs back into our bodies and taking one last snap of this truly glorious feat, it was time for coffee. Little break to write postcards and people-watch then on to Jewel Cave where we didn't get into the underground tour (just fine for those claustrophobic folks) but did get to watch the chipmunks enjoy our bagel crumbs.

Camping that night at Two Moons in Wyoming's Glendo State Park was probably one of the most hilarious/nerve-racking nights I've passed in my tent. Getting off the freeway in darkness, lit only be the full moon...and the 10 bars lining Main Street, we followed signs to the park, further into the darkness. We made jokes through gritted teeth when we pulled up to Whisky Gulch CG and narrowly avoided getting stuck in a mud pit AND hitting a roadside cow. Finally pulled into a site at Two Moons, abandoned for the season (with locked bathrooms) and listened to the cows moo, screech owls banter, and trains chug along all night. There was literally not a soul for miles so any snapping of branches was slightly disconcerting.

Awoke to near frost, broke camp and pushed on to the Sierra Trading Post outlet. Holy gear store! Drooled for a spell then made it to Fort Collins for lunch with Tara and to introduce mom to the Colorado State Univ. campus. Lovely day and fabulous lunch :) Later, arrived at Lizzy's to crash for the night and up early to send mom on her way. Whirlwind as per usual but I'd say we wet our pants laughing at least once a day. My full album is on facebook and more to come from the mom, who after this trip, I've dubbed mama-razzi. Can't wait to take another interstate by force but am so happy to be one huge step closer to stopping the transition for a few months.

A Seasonal Lifestyle

Before departing for the season, 4 other ladies and I decided it was high time for a girls' weekend! I've heard nothing but praises about the town of Homer. Clear skies, beautiful ocean views, and great camping and local shopping on the spit.

Realizing it was the end of the season, we braced ourselves for minimal crowds and sales. Turns out we missed most of the shops by a day. This may be because we spent the previous day at the Ring of Fire Meadery taste-testing and then perusing a used book store for hours. We grabbed some dinner at the wildly overpriced and equally cheesy Crabbie's...they played the Indiana Jones soundtrack folks. On a budget after dinner and still recovering from a "staff meeting" the night before, we looked for a spot to hole up for the night. It was cold, windy, and not so "leisure sport friendly". Camping is usually the go-to move for visitors but the fog was so dense, it was literally like driving in soup. Too bad hotels are outrageous, even in the off season. Braving the elements, we set up our tents and passed out by 9pm, a little soggy but listening to the ocean waves crash nonetheless.

Morning brought the sound of cars zooming up the road so we packed up, shook the sand out of our tents and went in search of caffeine. Everything on the spit was boarded up except a great gas-station type store that sold AK pins for $2! They shut the water down so people vacate, except for the Land's End hotel. Again, the gas-station store to the rescue, and a cup was only 80-cents!!!!! Best deal in years! Downed the coffee and decided bloody mary's could make this ladies' adventures perfect. Just so happens the Salty Dog Saloon was right in front of us. After forgetting about daylight for a bit, we ate sandwiches on our tailgate and headed to Seaside Farms. How adorable! I highly recommend going to, at the very least, the website. It is a for SURE stop next year. Farmers Market for some jalapeno jam and headed home. Love my ladies and was so happy I got one last weekend with these great girls!

This panoramic is of Nicole checking out some glaciers across the bay. Almost surreal.

Since beginning my winter transition, it's been nothing but packing, unpacking, and winter job searching. This six month cycle is really just never ending displacement. I still find it curious how I can sleep in my sister's twin bed, put my laundry in and out of my backpack but find the most peace of mind back in Painesville. Maybe it's the yellow lab who is at my side "helping" with everything.

Leaving for Leadville, CO in a few days. Making the drive across country with all my belongings, mom, and a plug in water boiler so we don't even have to stop for coffee. Look out Nebraska, we're blowin' through! No idea what I'll be doing this winter but it will probably involve skis, wine, and good friends. Stay tuned!