It has been over a year now since the huge changes started in my life, and about seven months since this chapter has begun. I never really had time to think about what the future held for me since I had a huge pile of crap I had to sort through and deal with. I made it through all of the whirlwind just fine and things have gone very well. I got to do a considerable amount of travel to many places (as you will see in my earlier posts) and saw several places on my life-list (no buckets here!).

I was always confident things would be okay. Now, YOUR “okay” may be different than MY “okay”, but that’s, well… okay. I landed on my feet and in pretty good shape. I have great friends, both old and new, and family has always been there.

I just passed my first six months here at the Refuge. It has been a great experience so far and I have gotten to see, do, and learn so much. The next six months will be busy but will be fun and very rewarding. I developed an interpretive program for the Refuge and I will be presenting it to the public myself. This will help the visitors understand what we are doing here, and show them the importance of nature. I am really pretty excited about doing this program, plus it gives me some really great experience to do interpretive things at other places I may end up. I am still fine-tuning after consulting with my friend Rod, who volunteers here and does interpretive walks at Olympia National Park and is very good at what he does – he used to be a teacher and knows how to present things. He is just a really great guy. He made a few suggestions but thought it was well-written and thought I could even do it as a walking program and told me how he does that. He took my daughter Meghan out on the beach when she was here to show her some things out there about research on The Spit.

It has been so cool so far. I have had kids walk up and hug me and say “thanks”, people thanking me for volunteering and for the info I give them, and people giving me things as a thanks. I give them a bit of history and they are fascinated by the things I have researched about the area and The Spit.

It really has been an amazing journey so far and I know it is only the beginning…