Every Mile a Memory

Fifteen hundred days. Forty-four editions of the E-newsletter. One job that has changed my life.

When I started at Game and Fish four years ago, I knew I was ready for a new challenge professionally. I never expected the impact this agency would have on me personally. From making life-long friends and meeting the love of my life, to learning new things about our environment and myself in the process, my time with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department is something I will forever treasure.

But my life, like the seasons, is changing. I'm scheduled to get married in two weeks, and will be relocating to Ten Sleep to start my life as Mrs. Outdoor Guy. Unfortunately, that means leaving Cheyenne and my job with the Game and Fish behind. So I leave you with my favorite memories and lessons learned from this amazing experience.

#10. Quiet Times. As in the kind of quiet that can only be found in a tucked away place off the beaten path. The kind of quiet you find fishing hungry little brookies in a high mountain stream or scouting elk from a hilltop at dusk. May all of us always have a quiet place to turn to in the future.

#9. Calamity on the Canoe Pond. About two weeks into my job, this friendly little gal, Janet, popped into my office and asked me to help at the Expo canoe pond. "It's super fun," she said. "You don't need any experience. You'll love it." Super fun, my foot. It was either blazing hot or cold, windy and rainy. I dunked my waders twice and got nailed in the back by a wayward canoe. But I learned some important lessons...kids will fall in love with outdoor activities if they have the chance to try them, and never, EVER, trust my coworker Janet.

#8. It's a bird. It's a Plane. It's an American avocet! When I started, I couldn't tell a woolly bugger from a woolly mammoth. While I'm still not an expert, I've improved my wildlife identification skills twentyfold. Just a few weeks ago, I was sorting images in the filing room for Wyoming Wildlife. I came across a stray slide of a bird, held it up to the light and quickly recognized it as an American avocet, filing it in its proper sleeve. It was a moment of pride, seeing my newly developed skills in action. There are so many weird, wonderful and wacky cirtters in this state. I can't wait to learn more about them all!

#7. Orienteering for Dummies. My friend Wendy and I decided a last minute scouting trip of our antelope area was in order. Armed with a map and a Big Gulp of Mountain Dew, we set off in my Pontiac G-6 sedan to see what we could see. We learned the lay of the land, that Wendy is the worst map reader in the world, that I am the second worst-map reader in the world and that surprisingly, the G-6 makes a pretty good off-road vehicle. We had a lot of laughs and got some pretty funny looks from the men out scouting. I still not sure if it was the little white car, our pink and purple cammo hats or my flip-flops. I decided that day that if actually hunting was half as much fun as scouting, it was a sport I'd love for the rest of my life.

#6. You Go Girl. I had the chance to attend Wyoming's Becoming an Outdoors-Woman as a camp participant several years ago. It was one of the best three days of my life. I was nursing a broken-heart and my self-confidence was at an all time low. Then spent the weekend with Janet, Lucy, Michelle, Al, Helen and Ken and all the other great BOW instructors, along with 45 other campers. I shot guns. I canoed down a creek. I learned how to fly-fish. It was a chance to learn some intimidating skills in a supportive environment and be surrounded by nothing but positive energy and encouragement. The weekend did wonders for my roll-cast and put an end to the emotional roller-coaster I'd been on for months. I lost myself in the wilds of the weekend and found myself all at the same time. What an awesome program.

#5. Electrofishing with the Laramie Region fish biologists. I overslept and showed up late, forgot my WGFD hat, left my keys at the wrong end of the stream reach and probably hindered their efforts more than I helped. But Lee, Steve and Mike were patient teachers. After a day of floating on the Platte, I had a heck of a sunburn and my arms hurt from wielding the heavy dip net, but I've never had so much fun on the water in my life. I held the biggest brown trout I've ever seen and vowed, one day, I'd catch a monster like that for myself. It was my first time helping with a Game and Fish project, and the first time I felt like a real member of the team. Thanks for making me feel welcome guys!

#4. Whitetail Fever. Last November, Outdoor Guy and I shared our first hunting experience together. I killed my first deer and first buck the first morning. More importantly, we didn't kill each other, which bodes well for our future as a couple. Hunting is a big part of his background and lifestyle, and quickly becoming something I'm passionate about as well. My new friend Darrell mounted the antlers for me. They're hanging in my office right now, but soon they'll hang in my new home in Ten Sleep. Maybe one day, we can hang our daughter's first antlers in their place.

#3. Bully for the bighorns. I got to witness the release of about sixty bighorn sheep from Montana into the wilds of the Laramie Peak area. When you really look at a bighorn, it's hard to fathom how it lives in the remote, rocky places it likes to frequent. They aren't very big. But what bighorns lack in size, they make up for in sheer pluck. It was amazing to see those little sheep bail out of their transport trailer and take off into the wild to make Wyoming their new home. One of the ewes tripped and fell coming out of the trailer and got ran over by the other sheep. Sometimes, when I take a digger in the parking lot or trip over the canoe trailer, I think of that little ewe and wonder how she's doing out there. Hopefully, Wyoming has been as kind to her as it has to me the last three years.

#2. Antelope Adventures. Or rather, pronghorn if one is to be technically correct. Wyoming has lots, more than 500,000, while Mexico's population is struggling. In the spirit of international cooperation, Game and Fish partnered with Mexican conservation organizations to capture pronghorn fawns to transport to Mexico to grow and live on a wildlife sanctuary, where they will be studied and possibly used as surrogates to help bolster populations of the peninsular pronghorn. I got to help with the antelope capture one year. I learned a few new words in Spanish and had the amazing chance to hold a pronghorn fawn in my arms while she nursed a bottle. Seeing her giant eyes and tiny hooves and thinking about her a year later streaking across the prairie at 45 miles an hour...well, there are simply not words for how cool that was.

And last but not least...

#1. Outdoor Guy. Eighteen months ago, I relented and let a mutual friend set us up. I never dreamed that "do you want to go chuckar hunting?" would turn into "Do you take this man?" Whether he's answering my endless questions about working in a fish hatchery, teaching me how to wrap meat, kicking my butt on the Wii or teasing me about making pie, his love and support never waver. He's endured months of teasing about being "Outdoor Guy" from his coworkers who read the e-newsletter. Now he can just be Ben, the best friend and partner a girl could ask for.

Thanks for sharing this amazing journey with me.

Giving the Gift of the Outdoors

Men are hard to shop for. Outdoor men are downright impossible.

With Outdoor Guy's birthday looming on the horizon, I'd been contemplating what to get him this year. He's a great gift giver, somehow sifting through the mountains of information and conversation I inundate him with to find the one or two offhanded statements I make about some treasure I'd like to have. For Christmas, he bought me a new iPod docking station to replace my broken one, and this great gold necklace. The perfect combination of practical and romantic.

I thought I'd return the favor and find the absolute most perfect birthday gift. After all, the boy has endured six months of endless wedding conversations about tuxes and flowers and pew bows and caterers. I wanted to give him something really cool because he's been so great about the perpetual prenuptial planning. He foiled my plan to buy him an iPod by buying one himself with his tax return money. So for the last several months, I've been trying to listen closely and compile a list of things he mentioned he wanted someday: an ice auger, snowshoes, a trail cam, a fletching tool (whatever that is), a bow case or a new sight, among other things.

I decided on the fletching tool because after a friend loaned him a book on bow hunting, he's started to get all amped up for hunting season and pour through archery catalogs on a nightly basis. So I sat down to my computer, signed on to the Cabela's site and went to order my betrothed the perfect birthday gift. I was so going to win future wife of the year award!

My keyword search on the World's Foremost Outfitter site turned up 83 results. There were fletchers, fletching strippers, something called a fletching jig and a weather vane. Hmmm, I knew we didn't need a weather vane, but which fletching thing-a-ma-jig had he said he wanted? And what was the brand? I recalled something about making sure it was a right-handed something-or-other, and it had a weird name that I swore I'd remember when I saw it again. I started reading the product descriptions, hoping the details would jog my memory.

"This is an all-metal, self-supporting fletching tool that will accept any size shaft and lets you fletch straight, offset, right- and left-helical. A permanent magnet assures uniform placement of all feathers and vanes. A self-centering nock receiver can be adjusted for feather spacing of three-fletch, four-fletch. Includes one clamp, instructions, and wrenches. Optional nock receiver available for fletching three-fletch, cock-vane down."

Or not...Was that even written in English?

So, maybe I'd just buy him a trail camera instead. My search for a suitable trail cam yielded 50 products to pick from, some of them costing in excess of $600. That kind of money was not part of my economic stimulus plan, that's for sure.

I asked aroudn the office, but no one seemed to have any good advice. In the end, I broke down and asked Outdoor Guy. "If a fletching tool magically showed up in the mail, which one would you want it to be?"

Not very subtle, but it got me an answer and it got him a new toy to help tide him over to hunting season. I also learned more about arrow building, and I learned a valuable lesson to help ensure future marital success...

Next year he's getting a sweater.

Greenery Vs. Gunpowder

There's a vase of flowers sitting on the edge of my desk. Bright, happy, sunshiny flowers that make me long for spring green-up and gurgling trout streams. I'd spent the holiday weekend packing all my worldly possessions to go to Ten Sleep and moving the rest from my house to my parents' house, where I'll be living the next few months. I kept it together right until the last load of stuff was packed in the pickup and covered with a tarp for the 350 mile trip to my future home. About halfway across town, I started to cry.

Tears, apparently, render even the toughest outdoor men helpless. Particularly Outdoor Guy, who tried to not make any sudden movements or say anything to make it worse. He sent the flowers the following morning, just to make me smile. Not only did they make me smile, they've given me great insight into the male-female dynamic, and a new way to acquire my dream shotgun.

Women walk into my office, notice the flowers and immediately ask if it's my birthday. When I say no, he sent them just because, they smile and tell me how lucky I am.

Men walk into my office, notice the flowers and ask, "What did he do?"

Men don't buy the argument that the flowers were just to make me happy. "We always have a reason," said one coworker. "Either we've made you mad and we are trying to make up for it, or we plan on making you mad and the flowers are a preemptive strike."

They muse as to what Outdoor Guy might have done, or what he's plotting that he knows I won't like. He could be planning some sort of large, expensive hunting expedition to which I'm not invited; he spent money for the honeymoon on any number of outdoor items – a boat, a gun, a gun safe, a 4-wheeler, a hunting dog, a new spotting scope; he invited his ex-girlfriend to the wedding; he invited his ex-girlfriend to be IN the wedding.

I'm sure none of those are true. Pretty sure at least.

My favorite response, however, came from a former coworker who dropped into the Game and Fish for business and stopped by my office to say hi.

"Birthday? Anniversary?" he asked.

"No. Just to cheer me up?"

"So he sent them just because? Wow, he's making the rest of us look bad," he said as he stooped to sniff the cheerful bouquet.

"Everyone else seems to think he's trying to get out of the doghouse."

"Nah," he replied. "I've seen you when you get really mad. If he'd really messed up that bad, he would have sent you a shotgun."

Flowers or firepower? It's food for thought for this outdoor girl. I better hurry up and decide. Pheasant season, I mean Valentine's day, is almost here...