Well, the fire season is nearly over... soooo close!  Officially I'm done on the 30th of Oct. but we're pretty much done fighting fire for the season.  The West is getting some unseasonably cool and wet weather, so the crew is just doing some projects for our local district, Southern Utah.  For the last 3 weeks or so we'll be clearing brush and doing some prescribed burns when we can.  All in all it was a pretty good season.  A little on the slow side overtime-wise but can't complain too much since we did better than most.  

I had an amazing three day weekend and spent it hanging out with LeAnna in Vegas.  So nice to relax for a few!  I've just got a three day work-week too since this coming weekend we're driving to Colorado for Devlin and Ana's wedding in Crusty Butt (aka Crested Butte)!  Should be fun, beautiful and COLD!  

In other travel news, we bought tickets to Ohio for Thanksgiving!  I'm so excited to head back home and see everyone... time flies, unfortunately.  I'll be home from the 20th to the 30th and LeAnna's doing the four day weekend thing.  And while we haven't gotten tickets yet, our current plan is to meet Ian in Spain for Christmas.   Ian, if you read this LeAnna's break is from the 19th to the 3rd of Jan.  although I think she wants to be back on the 2nd.  So there ya go, let me know if you can swing it.  

Seems like everyone I know is riding motorcycles these days (including Mom!) so not wanting to be left out I've been trying to learn with the help of my neighbors Chad and Steve.  Steve has a quiver of bikes and he let me take out his Kawasaki KLR 650 today.  Yesterday I drove around the neighborhood trying to get a feel for the clutch so today I thought I'd up the ante and took a spin around the Loop Road in Red Rock.  That went well too, so I decided I was ready for my first adventure ride so I took a 50 mile loop ride out to Goodspring, about 5 miles on highway and 45 on dirt and gravel BLM roads.  It was sweet.  Like mountain biking but scarier basically...  So here's a pic from that little adventure.

   

I also have a few pictures from earlier in the summer that I haven't had a chance to post till now.  The Dixie National Forest, where I work out of this summer, is basically split into East and West portions by Interstate 15.  We've done a lot of work on the East half this summer, cutting trees, clearing brush and doing some prescribed fires but I was intrigued by the West half...  It's clearly visible from the Interstate but since a large portion is designated Wilderness Area there are virtually no roads into it and it looked quite rugged.  Anyway, this was driving back from St. George one day and there was big rainstorm over the area that looked really cool since it was sunny everywhere else.  

The funny thing is that it later in the season we spent two whole weeks up there on the Mill Flat Fire and I got to know the area quite well after all.  We spent 6 nights camped out in the wilderness area and another 6 days getting flown up and back in a helicopter.  Unfortunately, it's all burned up now so it's not quite as pretty.