Dang Tree Huggers

As noted in previous entries, I dislike tree hugging hippies. But I do like trees, especially really big trees. But this is just one part of the weekend, rope in a sausage factory, a darkly lit cave, the ocean and the West Coast’s largest Shakespeare Festival and you’ve got 3 crazy days (but an uninspiring blog posting).

This past weekend’s adventure started on Friday (along with AA the co-consultant, along with G the roommate) with an adventure to Ashland, OR. The original impetus behind our weekend trip was a meeting with the CRLA Trust as part of the job. After a brief 2 hour conversation with them, it was on to dinner and a show – Much Ado about Nothing at the outdoor Elizabethan stage, made to resemble the Globe theatre.


It could not have been a more beautiful night to sit out under the stars (in primo free seats) and enjoy a good show.

The next day (Saturday) it was off to Oregon Caves National Monument, a tiny 30 acre national park site hidden in the Siskiyou National Forest. But before we made it there, we made two important stops:
1) For food at a grocery store sized Harry & David store – their Flagship store neighboring their factory

2) A sausage factory and store! Mmm….their freshly made sausage was fantastic and their summer sausage. I think we spent about an hour wander back and forth between their frozen sausages, beef jerky and raw meats just trying to decide what to eat – it was tougher than I ever thought possible. Ultimately we decided, on what to eat and what to buy for the rest of our weekend camping outing. But more importantly AA & I decided that no matter what, we were coming back on Sunday on our way back from the coast to buy some to take home. And no, we did not see sausage being made, just being eaten

Finally, full of meat, meat bi-products, salt and spices we made it to Oregon Caves and took the tour. While the cave was great, it was no Meramec Caverns. But you can see for yourself here

The true highlight of Saturday (other than the sausage) was our camping site. All of the sites from Oregon Caves to the CA coast were completely filled that night (or so it seemed). So we just set out to find a nice spot somewhere in the Smith River National Forest. Who knew you could just plop your tent down anywhere in Forest Service grounds and not have to pay to legally camp? So that’s what we did. We drove up the almost sheer cliff to the highest point and set up our tents. There, AA, Sasquatch and I enjoyed a six-pack and watched the sun set.

Here was the view when we woke up the next morning. The white cloudy parts in the distance (not in the valley), were covering the Pacific Ocean – the coast was entirely fogged in.
After a long drive and a trip past an old red school bus full of furniture we made it to Redwood National Park. Those were some big trees.

I knew you when you were only this big

Damn huggers...no wait, I'm measuring for my new table

Next it was on to the beach – which we knew was fogged in.

Finally, the only thing that could make this weekend (and the car ride home) better, was another trip to Taylor’s Sausage by Oregon Caves. Two polish sausages later, I was in a food comma – who’d a thought only 2 sausages at 4 pm would make me full until lunch on Monday. Glorious sausages.

See photos from Saturday (OR Caves and camping) or Sunday (Big Red Bus, Redwoods & the Coast)

M is famous-ish. No, not really, but I am on the internet

Ok, so I'm not famous yet, but I am on the new Georgetown MSB (McDonough School of Business) website. A few months ago about 30 of us went to the new business school building to take some photos for the website. They just went live with the new site the other day and BAM there I am.

You can see my photo live on the website at: http://msb.georgetown.edu/acadamic/faculty/todays/

You Can Lead a Million Dollar Team of Managers to Water but You Can’t Make Them Do Anything and some nice photo links at the bottom

Whew…it’s been a tough week. All summer long I’ve been nervous about one day – the Park’s priority session meeting with the Management “Team.” That day was last Tuesday and I was right to be nervous. A large part of Crater Lake’s business plan is helping the management set operational priorities, since they never really had any clearly delineated priorities. The Superintendent, who is new and great, wanted his Management “Team” to coalesce and help create these priorities (he did not want to just dictate policies to them). This priorities setting session was so important for the Park that my bosses in DC decided to fly out a NPS facilitator from Seattle (something never done before for a business plan) and my boss from DC (something that happens for every BP).

Even with their help and the continued support of the Superintendent, our all day priorities setting session failed to yield the determination of Park operational priorities. In fact the Management “Team’s” only act as a team was to intentionally railroad the entire process. Ast Tuesday’s session was worse then trying to get a bunch of headless chickens to sit still – no one wanted to pay attention, participate constructively or do anything but complain about the process or their pretend lack of understanding (they’ve known about the process for over 6 months, have asked myself, my boss and the superintendent about it numerous times – only an idiot or a faker would not understand at this point).

By the end of the 8 hour day and despite the facilitator’s help, the Management Team decided that 95% of the 120+ action items identified during the first 5 weeks of the internship were critically important for the Park to accomplish within the next 5 years – a task impossible given resource restrictions. By failing to offer any guidance, the Management “Team” wasted an entire day of 12 people’s time at a cost to the Park Service of well over $5,000. I know this may seem like a pittance to the gov’s trillion dollar stimulus plans, but it really irked me. The BP is driven by the Park for the Park, yet several members of the “Team” are so against it because it may hurt their ability to expand their division.

The result, our plan is kind of stalled as we figure out another way to determine what the Park’s operational priorities are. While the BP contains more then the priorities related sections, these priorities are really its core – without them, it’s just outside recommendations and analysis of their current operations, certainly not worth the $25,000+ the Park Service is paying for the plan.

Despite this week’s cruddiness, I have been going on my regular adventures. Last Saturday, I took a solo hike to Andersen Falls – which I dubbed Annebelle Falls, in honor of her birthday on Saturday.



As you can see, it was lush, watery and full of flowery goodness. I even had the opportunity to fill my waterbottle from a small natural spring – mmm was it good water. Afterwards I went for a chilling swim in the nearby Rogue River (the water temp was still in the 40’s so I mostly skipped rocks and dangled my feet).

This weekend I also took my first full drive around Rim of the Lake – it was at sunset.

Additionally, because of the darkness of the Park, I had the opportunity to watch the space shuttle pass overhead on Monday night and witness a beautiful starry night over the lake.



See all of the photos from my trip to Annebelle Falls, my Rim drive or my space station/starry night.

M is longing to be outside

Status Update: M is longing to be outside.

The NPS blocks Facebook and related websites (for good reason), so I know you all were longing to see a status update from me. Well, there you go.

Why do I currently long to be outside? Multiple reasons:

1. It's beautiful out - high near 80 today, nary a cloud and I'm at a National Park;
2. It's Friday and most of the Park staff is out;
3. We (AA, the co-consultant, & I) have been uber busy this week - already put in 40+ hours before today started;
4. I have an outstanding view from my office and I'm tired of looking at it today, I'd rather be out in it.

That's a better status update than you'd ever get from any of those other sites.

Anyway, while I'm updating everyone - C is gone back to DC, but we had a bunch of fun last weekend. We hit up the Cougar Hot Springs (a cascading pool of hot springs that emerges at 110 degrees from a little cave), Eugene Oregon and the Oregon Coast (Florence).

I think we'd both say that the highlight of this weekend (excluding the naked hippies we saw in the hot springs), was definitely sandboarding in the Oregon Dune National Recreation Area. Sandboarding is like snowboarding, only you replace the snow with the sand.

Anyway, it's nearly 1pm here (4pm in DC), so I think it's about quitting time (or at least lunch time). So I'm headed outside.

Check out the whole album from our trip to Cougar Hot Springs, Eugene & the Coast/Sandboarding. As a quick note, there are no pics from the hot springs (too many naked hippies to take photos) or from Euguene (half of the town was boarded up and depressing), so really these are just Coast/Sandboarding pics.

Quick Update - Spending Time with C

Super busy spending time with C (she's visiting this week at the Park) and working... but wanted to share a few pictures with you all:

Pictures from our July 4th weekend trip to the Willamette Valley (for Pinot Noirs) and Portland. We visited:

• Visited a bunch of wineries (and a christmas tree farm)
• the Japanese Gardens,
• the International Rose Test Garden,
• Went up an aerial tramway,
• Saw Reed College (where my grandpa went for a short while),
• Hung out with a DC/Cato friend,
• Spent our 4th at the Portland Blues Festival (with bands, food carts, fireworks and unfortunately a fair amount of hippies) and
• Drove through the Columbia River Gorge (and past Mount Hood) on our way to CrLa.

This week, while I worked, C's been busy hiking reading and having a great & relaxing time. Together, we took a little hike to Godfrey Glen and then went out later and took some wicked night shots (see one below). Friday we're off to hot springs and the coast.

Just an Ordinary Tuesday - a pictoral essay of my day

Tuesday was as ordinary as you get here at Crater Lake; the Lake was just placid and blue.

I thought it would be a great day for a boat ride with some friends. As luck would have it, the Interpretive Rangers were going for a little cruise too.

So I hiked down to the trail to the boats and got in.

On our cruise we saw some interesting formations, including a rock that was previously the side of a volcano.

We sailed some more and after an hour and a half, we arrived at a strange island. It was made out of black rocks and was full of trees. My friends thought it was magical island. I thought it looked cool.

So we hiked to the top of the island. On top of the island, all of the trees were dead.

I was scared.

It turns out the island was a volcano too. I was doubly scared.
Then we found snow and went sledding. I was no longer scared (I’m in the blue shirt standing).

When we got back to the boat, we saw a mysterious floating log. Legend says it’s been floating upright since the 1930’s. So we pushed it over.

My friends and I became fearful. This place was a sea of oddity and definitely evil. We headed home. On our way, we had a run-in with an old Phantom Ship. I thought it was a pirate ship. But we escaped.

And we even saw a castle high on the cliffs. No one was home though.

Finally, we made it back to the cliffs where we started. I was glad to be back home. It was a hair-raising day of mystery, adventure and scariness. I hope next Tuesday won’t be as terrible as this one.

See all of the photos from this Ordinary Tuesday here.