Springtime in Idaho!

Beach across from the ice skating rink.  Just days later, all the trees have leaves, and 6 boats in the water now instead of just one.

 View from Mill Park beach.

Our drive to Hailey and Sun Valley for our 4 days Wilderness First Responder Recertification course.  So lucky to have Emily go to the original class two years ago with me and this re-cert too.  We stayed in Ketchum and it felt like a vacation!  Which was needed after all the commercial drivers license studying and FEMA online classes.  And we saw herds upon herds of proghorn antelope on the drive home.

Spring flowers in Idaho City.

More Idaho City.

Idaho City downtown.  We visited this quaint historic gold mining town off a Forest Service dirt road on our way home from our class.  It used to be the biggest town between San Francisco and Minneapolis!

A natural hot spring we scouted out on the way home near Lohman/Banks.

On our way past White Bird to pick up a stranded friend.

The table my brother made in high school wood shop.  I sanded the whole thing, concentrating on the nicks and age spots, and re-stained it with tea and vinegar.  Then beeswax for the shine.  This was after staining the two frames that Dave made.

Dave and I only had two days together, but they were spectacular.  We went on really long hikes on both days and I made some spicy Thai & Mexican meals.  This was at the end of a 6 mile hike up to Goose Creek Falls where I hope he gets to ride the new mountain biking trails a lot.  The next day was a combination of the hikes in the State Park nearby.

Natural hot springs north of McCall called Last Chance where Dave and I have soaked years ago.  We found them again!

Blossoms in Ponderosa State Park were all over the mountainsides, and along with these there were also pink and white trilliums, yellow and purple violets and the huckleberry bushes were starting to blossom too. Our drive down to Boise was wildly different than how we've ever seen it before, with the valley floor and all the ranches completely covered in purple blossoming camas flowers.  It was incredible!  We saw elk, white pelicans, deer and a bald eagle.  Hard to say goodbye to Dave, our condo and springtime in Idaho for sure. I'll be back late June and am so excited that we get to spend more time together them.  I'm headed to Palmer Station and fishing off the Antarctic Peninsula for the next six weeks on the smaller ship, the Laurence M. Gould.  Happy Birthday to Mike (15th) and Hanna (25th).  Love all you guys!!! Ildi

Idaho & California

 Dave and I went on a beautiful 12 mile spring hike in Riggins, Idaho up the Rapid River Trail with our friend Todd.  It was brilliant to see all the wildflowers and green grasses, and to go much further than we've been on the trail.  Nice to stretch the legs too.

 We saw this cow on the drive up to the trail head, and none of us have ever seen one with horns like this.

 A spring walk in McCall meant there was still snow on the beach and the lake was half frozen, but it was warm.

 The beach near us is snow free and now the lake is totally ice free too!

 Windy day at the beach in California, but so many beautiful flowers!

 I went to Reno for a week to celebrate Dad's birthday, and we took a trip to the coast.  Incredible flowers everywhere and it was so great to spend some time with my parents and visit Grandma too.

 There were two tall ships in Bodega Bay.

More flowers at the coast.

 At low tide we could see all the mussels on the ocean rocks and cliffs.  Beautiful!

 More Bodega Bay flowers.  We've never seen spring so brilliant there.

 We took a long walk in the Redwoods.

 There was flowing water everywhere, and wet trails.

 Flowers in Healdsburg, a new to us town that we visited and we took a new wine trail from Bodega Bay to 101, which was very curvy and hilly and beautiful!

This is Lake Tahoe on a beautifully sunny day.  We went towards South Lake Tahoe and stopped at all the lookouts because the Lake was so incredibly blue.  I showed my parents a private beach that Dave & I visited a few years ago that has great mountain views, and we had nacho fries at Izzy's, my favorite.  

Time flies by way too quickly, so the "bonus" week that I got to spend with Dave in McCall seemed like it vanished in moments.  It wasn't as cold as we thought it would be after Florida.  The crocus flowers are just peeking up and there's still a ton of snow in the State Park.  I spent a wonderful week with my parents and Grandma, thank you Szulok!  Love you.  And had an exceptional last day with Dave in Boise before he headed up to work.  I'm studying for my CDL which I will be taking within the week and my Wilderness First Responder refresher course at the end of the month.  Love you and thank you for looking at our pictures!

Sun Valley & Florida Keys

I went to visit my friend Julie in Sun Valley on my way to the Idaho airport before flying to Florida.  It was worth the detour to see the beautiful mountains.  Can't wait to go back there with Dave, as neither of us have been before.  Julie and I enjoyed the small town of Bellevue after a really long, scenic drive through Stanley by the Sawtooth mountains.

 Venice, Florida!  We stayed in Nokomis, enjoying the beaches on Casey Key and the shopping in Venice.

 It was so wonderful to spend the month of March in Florida with Dave's parents in a house in Nokomis.

 Bombax tree flowering at the Orange Groves.

Roger & Bette at Casperson beach, a really beautiful one that we got to enjoy several times.  This is where everyone gathers shark teeth because so many of them wash ashore.

 Waves at wild looking Casperson Beach.

 We went to see the Audobon Society's Rookery and it was wonderful!

This was a particularly foggy day at the Jetties.  We loved to come here because there were always a lot of birds and dolphins to see.  In fact, we saw dolphins every single visit!  And had delicious nachos sometimes.

Oscar Scherer State Park just minutes from the house we rented was a veritable southern jungle.  Beautiful palm trees and Spanish moss and bird calls.

 In the State Park.

 Snow egret at the beach.

 The Venic Pier where we went to see the fishermen catch sharks!  And we had some coconut drinks in pink chairs.

 The Venice Beach Pier.

Easter family photo in front of the Bougainvillea bush at the house.  We had a wonderful Easter together, with a delicious brunch (real corn beef hash for Dave and fried green tomato eggs bennedict for me).

 Our time at Casey Key flew by.  And the last days of our Florida stay, we rented a car and drove all the way south to Key West to visit our friends Connie and Andrew.  I caught this candid photo of Dave reading at our friend's pool in the morning with coffee.  We had a great stay there too.  They borrowed bikes for us so we rode all around Key West our two days there and visited beaches and piers.  Most memorable for me was all the flowering trees with yellow blossoms and plumerias of every color.

This was fun for us in Key west, riding our bikes along the beach we could see all the fish and other creatures in the ocean, including this lobster.  So happy Dave got to finally see Key West, as I got to already last year and knew that he would love the architecture, verdant trees and delicious, spicy food (we had the best Nicaraguan tacos ever! from a food truck by the beach.)

Here is our photo from our wonderful, super scenic boat trip in Venice of the Inter-coastal waterways.  What a treat!  Our captain said he sees manatees on these waterways a lot.  Can't wait till we see one in the wild too!

We had a wonderful time in Florida and it was exactly what I was craving, sunshine, family and a relaxed pace.  Loved all the grilled feasts we had, cards and fun times together.  Thank you very much Koehlingers! Love you guys!

Headed to Reno soon to celebrate my Dad's birthday.  We're enjoying our condo and warm weather in McCall right now.  Love you and thank you!  Happy Birthday Dad and Abigail (on the same day!).

Cape Shireff, Wauvermann's & WAIS Divide

Bottom trawl fishing for deep sea corals.  Muddy.  We caught all our samples in just one net tow!

Wauvermann CODAR site that we delivered parts and people to by small boats.

Blue Petrel.

Gentoo Penguins.

Night shift on LMG 1509.

Jennie, Matt & I preparing our small boats for the day.  We did a lot of Zodiac trips on this cruise.

Mount Williams on Anvers Island (near Palmer Station).

Blue eyed cormorant.

That's me driving the Zodiac, headed over to Wauvermann island.

Shipping vessel in the Straits of Magellan.

Gentoo penguins at Cape Shireff.

Sunset on Mt. Williams, the tallest mountain on Anvers Island.

Gentoo penguins.

The LMG as seen from the small boats.

Gentoo.

These guys were out everyday.

An elaborate iceberg.

Singing while driving.

Mid-water trawl fishing for krill with Jennie.

This mid-Oct to mid-November cruise was a lot more fun than usual because we did a lot of operations in the small boats, putting in Cape Shireff field camp and servicing a remote CODAR site, both on islands that were inaccessible by larger ship.  I was lucky to have some really cool gals to work with.  Had a couple weeks off with Dave in Idaho working on our condo and having some amazing meals, including our first dinner at Steamer's (steak and trout!).  Then I left December 4th to go through McMurdo out to WAIS Divide Deep Field Camp to fuel the aircraft, generators and stoves for two months.

The Sundogs (rainbows in arcs around the sun) at WAIS are frequent and always this stunning!

 The DC3 (Basler) from ALE Camp stopped by to take all our scientists out of camp at the end.

 Our beautiful Twin Otter KBH (photographed at a different field camp).  This is the plane that I spent most of my time fueling for the different science missions that they flew for Polenet.

WAIS camp from the air.  You can see our tents in the top center (yellow dots) and my two fuel bladders in the bottom right, as well as me dragging the fuel hose back into place.

 McMurdo Station from the top of Observation Hill; the NSF logo on the new fuel tank.

 Cross on the top of Observation Hill is to Robert Falcon Scott's men.

 More sun dogs at WAIS and on the right the galley tent.

For girl time, I took my friend Katie a few miles from camp to a spot where you see nothing but flat white in every direction via snowmobile.  Gorgeous and peaceful.  

 My home for two months; an Arctic Oven tent.  That you get to dig out of snow drifts.

I had fun making the inside of my tent look more home like.  Pretty great for -30F.

 Camp close was just the 8 of us, and by DC3 with a surprise visit from my friend Emily.

Back at McMurdo the supply ship and tanker had already been through.

My birthday was so fun!  Coffee with the ladies at the BFC, a bloody mary with WAIS friends and then hours of boating with my Marine Tech friends and these gals from WAIS.  Beautiful sunny day with no wind and lots of seals.

Quite a windy season out at WAIS, with wind that blew in snow everyday, causing nonstop shoveling.  Met some great folks and happy to have seen my friends at McMurdo along the way.  Glad to be back with Dave, who will meet me here in Florida in just days. :)