Indescribable Heavenly Joy

To say that I love Autumn would be an understatement. With all my heart and soul I embrace it when it arrives. I love the preparation that the forests go through for the coming winter. If you are out in nature enough you can actually feel and smell it in the air as well as your soul. The arrival of fall also means that another summer has passed and its time to relax and welcome with open arms the warm welcome of my friends and and family scattered across the west.
    It has been a slow fire season for me up here but I couldn't be any happier. Being immersed in nature in Alaska offers excellent opportunities to ponder life and reevaluate the necessities of it. Besides the fear that there is a huge grizzly bear hiding behind every bush waiting to kill me there are very few distractions to bring you back to reality. Millions of acres of open country for a man to roam in. I feel like I found something this summer that I lost a long time ago... A heart that is happy from the simple fact that I am alive.  When I first moved out west I was so enthralled by the very existence of nature. I had that awestruck look in my eyes like a blind man who just received his vision back while standing in front of Mt Everest. But over the years I became somewhat numb to it all. Spoiled by all the acres of burned country I have seen. All those years mopping up and looking at the ground. It hit me last week when we were on our final project of the year down in Wrangell - St Elias national park. I decided that its time for a change that would require me to to give up the security of a steady paycheck to pursue a deeply buried dream that I have suppressed for many years... Becomming a NOLS instructor.  A change that would put that sense of fullfilment back into my life. This is something I have been praying about for quite a while and waiting on a confirmation from the Lord about. The Lords timing is so perfect and amazing.
    So when I was down in Wrangells it came. On the drive in to the park I was alone and was listening to a randomly chosen sermon from a church that I used to attend in Whitefish. As it turns out this sermon wasnt so random and it was as if it was exactly spoken for me. Its been great to actually hear Him this summer. I know He has been talking to me my whole life but latley I have been able to be quiet enough to actuall hear what He has to say. I wont delve into the details because i doubt it would make sense to anyone but me.
     Then as if that wasnt enough one night after work a buddy and I got dinner and a beverage at the local watering hole. In making small talk with our very attractive waitress I found out that she happens to be engaged to a guy that I took a NOLS course with back in 2004. Crazy. Low and behold the guy lives part time in McCarthy and ownes one of the adventure guiding companys there in town. So he came down, had a beer and we cought up where life had taken us over the past eight years. It was almost as if what happened next was God himself being like " you think thats cool, check this out" and in walks a beautiful redhead that I took the NOLS emt class with two years ago. My mind was blown. Its truly amazing how the Lords timing works. Its good to be humbled by the awesomness of these experiances. Just when you think life is good, when you believe in the Lord He make it exponentially better. So with that, I have decided I am done making plans, and I am going to just go where the wind takes me. I will go where my heart leads me.

"Right where you are"

     In the words of Bob Dylan, " It's not dark yet, but its getting there." This state is finally growing on me. Maybe its the changing of the seasons that has brought with it a change in my heart. The weather is so inviting right now, beckoning me to come out and play  Bright sunny days for running around and cool crisp evenings that require a small fire in the wood stove. It all happened so fast too. I left for two weeks and when I returned the bugs were mostly gone, the leaves were changing and the sunsets were taking up temporary residence on the horizon once again. I had forgot how much I love the transition between night and day, not to mention the moon and stars. Up here in the summer you forget about the universe thats around you. You just get use to to the constant sunlight and lack of the alpine glow that I so dearly love.
     It has been a slow summer in regards to fire activity up here but I am welcoming the break from having my nose to the grindstone. I so enjoy having a summer in conjunction with working a fire job. My feet do a little jig whenever they are able to be free from the confining space or a fire boot. Life is to short to not wear sandals in the summer!

     So at the beginning of the summer I bought an old vintage 1980's motorcycle to commute to work on. I felt like I was in Easy rider on this thing. So free, out crusing on the open road. But shortly after purchasing it the hog broke down and I am not a mechanic so it sat for the rest of the summer. It will be a good winter project. Anyways my coworker also bought a bike this summer. However hers is a bit nicer than mine...2012 BMW GS650. Its really nice. So towards the end of the season after the newness wore off of it she handed me the keys and told me to go put some miles on it for the weekend. And that I did. I rode south till my heart was content then pulled over for the night at a view spot for Denali. It was there that I truly believe I felt the Lord speak to me. That evening while smoking my pipe and watching an unobstructed sunset over "the great one" I felt the Lord say to me "Right where you are". This was I believe in response to a question I had been asking myself all summer... "Was comming to AK the right choice?" It was good to hear confirmation on this. So with that I relaxed and settled in to one of the most spectacular sunsets I have ever witnessed.