Fishing the San Jaoquin

Fishing the San Jaoquin
Originally uploaded by jono1515.

Days Off

I got another 2 days off while they ran more casing in the well at work. The first day I spent fishing down on the Owens River, and the second day we went up to Devils Postpile National Monument. Devils Postpile was pretty nice, you have to take a shuttle to the trailhead and then it's an easy half mile hike. We went on the interpretive walk with a forest ranger to the Postpile. I probably wouldn't have gone on the interpretive walk, but Dick came along with me and wanted to so I figured whatever, I have all day and I'm getting paid for this. I am glad we did the interpretive walk though, it was nice. After the Postpile, we hiked another mile to Rainbow Falls which is on the San Jaoquin River. It's pretty nice there too. After getting some pictures there we went back to Devils Postpile where I did some fly fishing on the San Jaoquin. I was really off that day, I missed about 8 strikes. I ended up not catching a single fish. I'd go back again, but you have to pay $7 just to get in the park and I'd rather fish for free somewhere else. The San Jaoquin is classified as a wild trout stream and hasn't been stocked in like 20 years. It has a rather healthy population of trout from 4 different species - rainbow, brown, brook and golden. I think golden are the only native species though.
Yesterday I lost about $16 worth of flies while I tried to fish a narrow rather overgrown gorge like section of the Owens River, I didn't catch anything and I've decided to take a day or two off from fishing, all the flies I've been losing are starting to add up.
We're back to work tonight and I'm really tired, on those days off I sort of switched back to being up during the day. It's going really slow though and I was lucky enough to be able to get a little nap in from about 2am-4am before anything really started to happen. We should be here for another 10 to 14 days, and that's just fine with me. People pay good money to come here and go fly fishing and hiking and what not, and I'm getting paid for it.
There's a new guy here being trained with our company which means one thing for me - I'm not the new guy anymore. It also means that we have someone to take the garbage out for us and do other stuff like that, it's not a bad deal.
I'll be putting some pictures up from the Devils Postpile and maybe some other random pictures soon. That's all for now though!

Looking towards Mammoth from the Owens River

Looking towards Mammoth from the Owens River
Originally uploaded by jono1515.

August 14

Last night at work was very slow, they put steel casing in the well and cemented it in place. So basically all last night we sat around waiting for the cement to set. Around 8 this morning the well site geologist told me that I really didn't need to be there and that I could leave as long as they could get a hold of me if they needed to, so I got a few extra hours off this morning and we don't actually have to be back until tomorrow at noon, which is when I'd be finishing my shift tomorrow. So I get tomorrow off too, but I still get paid for it. They are essentially paying me to go fly fishing is the way I see it!
Today's fishing was alright, not bad for my first time fly fishing this year. I caught a few rainbow trout, none very big (and the only one I got a picture of is down-right tiny) but I had a good time. The river is pretty open, no trees or anything. It just snakes across a high desert plateau. I wasted a bunch of time on a couple of fish that I could see, they were feeding but didn't want anything I threw at them. They were feeding on the surface and on the bottom but nothing worked! I tried terrestrials and dries and nymphs, the only things I didn't try were my wet flies and bass flies.
I got  a little sunburned because I completely forgot to put my sunscreen. As I was pulling up to park I saw a mountain lion. Not a very big one, but a wild cat none-the-less. My mind must've been focused on where the cat might have gone after it saw my car because I didn't think of my sunscreen again until I was heading back to the car. I'm glad to say that where-ever that mountain lion went, I didn't see it again. I enjoy seeing wildlife from my car, but have little interest is seeing it while I'm on foot. I tried to get a picture of it, but it was kind of far away for my camera.
Tomorrow I'll be back out on the river. I like working here at Mammoth.

Small Rainbow Trout

Small Rainbow Trout
Originally uploaded by jono1515.

Mammoth Lakes

I've been in Mammoth Lakes since Tuesday night. It's pretty nice here. The drive here was also pretty nice. Once you're in Nevada and heading South on I-395 it's really scenic. The highway goes along the Eastern Sierra Nevadas and has some really spectacular views. Mammoth Lakes is up pretty high, about 8000'. I'm still not quite adjusted to the elevation, so I get out of breath running up the stairs still... or maybe I'm just out of shape!
We got here about 3 days earlier than we needed to, but had no way of knowing that when we got here. The job has been slow to get going. So we've had 3 days to get all set up instead of 1 which is really nice. Our boss took us out to lunch and dinner the first night, that's a big deal for him because he's usually pretty cheap. It was probably the best dinner I've had since I was home in July! Any, it looks like they'll be drilling tonight so I came home early to try and get some sleep before my shift that starts at midnight. I'm going to be tired tonight though because I could only sleep for about 3 hours. I'll sleep good tomorrow for sure!
The drill site here is right near town in the Inyo National Forest. It's like a 5 minute drive from the condo we're staying at. The town is pretty nice too, lots of restaurants and some outlet shops. Tons of people around here too, apparantly this is a pretty popular place to visit. I plan on doing some fishing here as I've heard there's some pretty good fly fishing around here, there's a couple of cool looking fly shops around town too that I'll need to check out.
That's all for now, I should try to get some more sleep!!

Bottlecreek Road Rig

Bottlecreek Road Rig
Originally uploaded by jono1515.

One of the rigs in the Geysers I worked on in July '05.

busy night?

busy night?
Originally uploaded by jono1515.

So we still haven't really been doing much here at work, in fact last
night was so slow that some of the rig hands weren't even doing
anything. We actually found one guy sleeping on the sub-floor of the
rig! They had been looking for him for awhile before they found him.
We got some pictures, but this is the best one. He was there
sleeping for about 3 hours, I think. Not really a good place to
nap though, if anything bad happens to the well that's pretty much
the last place you want to find yourself. We were trying to move
one of those man-lifts that painters use so we could get a better
picture but he woke up. They were going to just leave him there to
wake up sometime after his shift had ended, which would have been
really funny. But that just shows how busy we are around here, not
busy at all.

Pictures From Cape Cod

Pictures From Cape Cod
Originally uploaded by jono1515.

Pictures From Cape Cod

Pictures From Cape Cod
Originally uploaded by jono1515.

Pictures From Cape Cod

Pictures From Cape Cod
Originally uploaded by jono1515.

Pictures From Cape Cod

Pictures From Cape Cod
Originally uploaded by jono1515.

Back to Work

I haven't posted any updates in a while because I managed to get time off to go back east to spend a little time in Saratoga and also to go to Cape Cod. I found out for sure I could go home less than a week before I ended up leaving and was a little worried I'd have trouble finding cheap airfare but I did manage to get a cheap roundtrip ticket (that made stops in Las Vegas and Chicago, making it a long day). It was really nice to be home, It would have been nice to have a had an extra week but really I'm pretty lucky it worked out at all. I had forgotten how hot and humid it gets in NY, probably because when I left last February it was like -10.
Cape Cod was a lot of fun, we spent a lot of time at the beach and fishing each night. We caught a couple of stripers, and my brother managed to catch a 36" conger eel and a 19" fluke while we were trying to catch some small scup for bait. After the beach we'd drink mojitos and play croquet. It was really nice to see my family and some of my friends again.
I came back to California a few days ago and started working right away. The first 2 days were all mixed up as to what hours I was working, I worked some daytime hours and some night hours but now I'm on the night shift for the next couple of weeks it looks like. I don't mind because there's not much to do during the day up here anyway. I'm finally getting paid my full wage rather than the training wage, so I'm finally making some decent money! The jobs we are working on right now are even more boring than what I did up in Canada. They aren't really drilling here, they're working on existing wells and all we do is monitor the hydrogen sulfide levels (which can get pretty high and lethal here) and add chemicals to the well when they do get high to clean it up. We test once a day and check the pumps and chemical levels once an hour and that's about it. I'm noticing that each job site has it's positives and negatives, the site I was on earlier this week we didn't have internet on site like we did in Canada, but I had cell phone reception. The new site I'm on now in the Geysers doesn't really seem to have any positives.
I've been talking with some friends and I think I'm going to be moving to Tahoe in California sometime this fall. It will be nice to be around people I know and having housemates makes everything cheaper. Portland is a nice city but I'm not there often enough or for enough time to really settle in. Honestly, right now I have no idea when I may be back in Portland. I may get a week off in August while they move a rig in the Geysers, but who knows.
I'm also giving some serious thought to teaching English in Taiwan. I know a girl that works at an English school there that can get me a job. I think it would be a pretty amazing experience living in such a different culture. I don't think I would go do that until sometime next spring though, I'd like to try to get a full year out of this job and save up some money and then go teach. And I'd probably only teach for a few months.
For now, I'm just glad to be making money again.

california

I've been up in Cobb, Ca for the past week. It's nice here, but the house has nothing. I brought a little tv so I could watch dvd's but there's no cable and you can't get any channels with the antenna. There is a phone line here though so I do have dial-up internet, but the house doens't have unlimited local calls so I don't spend much time online either. All in all it really doesn't matter that there isn't much to do here, I leave for work at 7 in the morning because it takes an hour to get down to the office. By the time I get home it's usually just about 7 at night, so I have dinner and check my email watch a tv show or two that I've downloaded and go to sleep. I'm only going to be here until next Wednesday anyway, I managed to get time off to go home! I'm really excited and I already know that I won't have time to do all the things I want to do, but that's ok. Cape Cod is going to be nice. Really nice. It's all working out pretty well right now, I'm working right up until I leave and then there should be work waiting for me right when I get back, in fact I may have to change my flight to come back earlier for work. I'm just glad I got the week off and can go home for a bit, see some familiar faces!

Roadrunners

Roadrunners
Originally uploaded by jono1515.

This is a pair of roadrunners I came across this morning at the drill

site today. I took my chances taking the picture, the site is on a naval

base that develops and tests new missles and things and cameras are

banned. Roadrunners are fast and not big on being around people so I

didn't have much time to take the picture, so there's a reflection from

taking it through the windshield of my car. I cropped the picture so you

can actually see them, they blend in really well with the ground and I

couldn't get very close. They're the first roadrunners I've ever seen

though!

Back to work

I'm finally getting back to work! I had most of June to relax and check out Portland. It was nice to have so much time off. I might have gone back to New York but the whole time I was off it looked like I might be going back to work in a few days.
Right now I'm relaxing at the motel in Ridgecrest, I drove down from Portland yesterday (15hrs!). This morning I went and picked up a few things from the drill site down here in the Mojave Desert. I was going to go for a jog, but it's so hot outside that I really don't think I want to. And there is no escaping the sun! There aren't any trees here really so there isn't any shade at all. I'm really glad it's a dry heat though, humidity would really make it unbearable.
Tomorrow I drive back up to Windsor and I'll be working in the office for a week or two. It'll be good to be making money again! Work in the office is really easy. My boss is kind of disorganized and it almost takes him longer to find things for me to do than it takes me to do them. Not that there isn't a ton of stuff to be done, he's just so disorganized.

Relaxin!

It's nice to have some time to finally sit back and relax! I spent a few days in Vancouver on my way back to Portland. It was really nice to see some of my friends. The drive was pretty easy overall, the border was a lot easier than I anticipated. Due to my lack of a work permit or anything for the time I was in Canada my story was that I was visiting friends. You'd think they'd have a few questions to ask a guy with New York license plates that's spent the last 6 weeks visiting friends in Canada crossing the border in Washington. My luck has got to be running out, I've crossed the border too many times without any hassle. One of these times they're going to rip my car apart and hold me up for a few hours, it's bound to happen.
I'm waiting to hear from my boss, I'll probably be heading down to California this weekend for a few days. I'll be going back down there for a longer job towards the end of June. Until then I'm just going to enjoy my time off.

I'm leaving!

I'm finally going to get out of here, for real this time! They finished drilling the well late last night and I'm going to Vancouver this weekend. I'm leaving early, we won't really be finished until around Tuesday next week. I need to get back to Portland to pay my rent by the 1st and I wanted to see some friends in Vancouver so I'm taking off on Saturday. The backhoe driver is giving me a ride down to Pemberton after he's done on Saturday and I may end up staying at the Pemberton Hotel Saturday night if I miss the last bus out. That's just fine with me, I hear they've got a band that plays in the bar next to the hotel and that can't be any worse than sitting up here for another night.

May 26 Hike Up Mt. Meager

May 26 Hike Up Mt. Meager

These are some pictures I took on my hike up the mountain. Going up from
the rig there isn't a trail so it's a little more difficult than walking
down the logging road a few kilometers. Also, it gets a bit steep as you
get up near the year-round snow cover. In fact, I wasn't sure how I was
going to get back down when I got up there. I was really wishing there
was two feet of snow and that I had a pair of skis, it would have been a
piece of cake then. My hiking boots would have been nice too, Merrell
clogs really didn't cut it. Beautiful view from up there. For the most
part, I was hiking right along a ridge that dropped off into a cirque to
my left, and I really mean dropped off.