I'm pretty sure this is where I last left off in my field adventure tales.  I had finished up the rowdy party week with the firefighters and then spent the next week camping in a random spot (closer to my mapping area) with my boss. 

Okay, this might have not actually happened during this particular week, but I remember it happened on a Monday, and I'm pretty sure I haven't mentioned it yet.  I saw a strange animal in the woods.  It sort of looked like a badger, or maybe a wolverine.  It had light brown fur with a narrow dark stripe on its forehead.  Four short-ish legs and a kind of round body.  I tried to take a picture of it but I was afraid it would attack me with its ferocious sharp teeth (which it may or may not have had) and didn't get too close.  This is all I could get.

There it is, right there, inside of the red circle

The more I think about this, the more I'm pretty sure this didn't happen during that week, but whatever.  On Tuesday, I worked by myself.  My boss decided we would get stuff done faster if we split up and worked in separate areas.  Ok, sure, that's fine.  So I went off to my little area for the day. 

On my drive over to where I wanted to work, I had to go up and down three hills that I called the "evil, hell hills."  The worst part about them was the way that they were positioned made it hard to tell where the road went after the hill.  On one of them, I had to turn around a sharp corner, go down into a ditch and then back up a steep slope.  This particular day, I happened to arrive at just the right time for the sun to be positioned right above the hill in such a way that I could not see a darn thing.  I had no idea where the road went, and if I went too far off the path, I would either end up in a  deep rut or off the side on a steep, tree filled slope.  I ended up having to stop and get out twice just to see where I was going.  It was super stressful.  I spent the rest of the drive shaking because I was so upset about it.

I had to stop about 1.5 km away from where I wanted to go, and walk in the rest of the way.  I have a hard time navigating.  Have I mentioned that before?  Probably.  So, most of the time, I use the GPS to help me.  But the GPS was being bad that day.  It led me all over the place and I never seemed to get closer.  I was getting so angry that I started yelling at everything.  I yelled at my backpack for not zipping when I put my sweater in.  I might have yelled the f-word into the sky when I found out I forgot to take a waypoint for the truck, even though J reminded me I should always take a truck waypoint.  "Always, always, always, " he said.  Nevertheless, I was very grumpy.  Arrrrrggghh.

I finally found two spots I wanted to dig holes, and then called it a day.  I figured out my way back by following a drainage to the road and then walking up the road back to the truck.  It wasn't really that hard but I like knowing where I'm going a little bit more than I did that day.  Perhaps I need to improve my navigational skills. 

The next day, my boss and I worked together.  I was still grumpy plus I had cramps so I was definitely not in a mood for a lot of hiking and digging, but what can you do?  I had to dig with the heavy Montana sharpshooter instead of my wimpy girly wooden sharpshooter that was shortened specifically for me (or so I heard).  It was no fun. 

The camp site itself was pretty decent, as campsites go.  It was really cold that week, so nighttime was not super awesome, but it could have been worse, I suppose.  That was the week my tent zipper started ripping open and my headlamp started not working.  But it was the week before my sleeping bag zipper started being a jerkface.  So, not everything was bad.  Yay!