New Stuff!

Lots of new things are happening!

For one, I got a job! I’m moving to Missoula, MT also in a few short weeks to start working as the Outreach Coordinator at the University of Montana . I’m excited just to have a job, and Missoula is a cool town, so I think things will go well.
Dave also got a job! But his is in Laramie, WY, which is less than ideal for us. He’ll be producing short videos for the at the University of Wyoming, and he’s also very excited.

I don’t yet have a new place to live; I’m working on that, and hopefully will have something worked out in the next week. But I do have a new car!

It’s a Toyota Corolla, so the hope is that it will last forever. So far, it’s been really good.

Keepin’ on keepin’ on

So, we’re back from the East Coast Graduation Tour 2011, have watched both Eric and Carolyn graduate from college … congrats! It was a good trip, but too short even though it was long — we hopped around so much we didn’t really get to see anyone for very long.

Anyway, new things are happening! While we were running around, I 1) had a phone interview that turned into an on-location final interview in Wyoming! and 2) took the first steps towards becoming a bone marrow donor. The interview is next week, and I haven’t heard about whether or not I’m an actual match for the donation, but I’m guessing that I’ll know more about both the job and the donation by the end of June. The donation bit is a little poignant, as a woman who I worked with in NJ, who is my age, died from leukemia on Memorial Day. If you haven’t and you’re interested, it’s really easy to join the national bone marrow registry. All it takes is a mouth swab, and it sounds like the donation process is less invasive than it used to be.

Also, flooding. I know that the Mississippi River flooding had been on the national news, but things have actually been pretty bad here in Montana too, and unlike the Mississippi, it’s probably going to get worse before it gets better. Things haven’t been all that bad in Bozeman; we have a creek that runs through downtown that was flooding out some of the roads a few weeks ago. It’s still high, but not on the roads any more. However, in the eastern part of the state, towns are underwater and a couple reservations are in some serious trouble. The Crow reservation is seriously flooded; they had to lay off 150 people working for the tribal government in order to have the money to pay for disaster relief/recovery. That’s a big deal anyway, but it’s a really big deal on the reservation, because tribal government is one of the primary employers.
And all this is from rain. We still have way more snow in the mountains than we usually do this time of year, which means at some point soon it’s all going to melt once and come rushing down the rivers, and the flooding will happen all over again. Dave, Amy and I went to Costco last weekend to get a bunch of stuff to send to the Crow reservation; they’re desperate for clean water and baby supplies right now. If anyone is interested in donating to help out, let me know in comments and I’ll link to some organizations that are working to directly help flood victims right now.

As for less depressing things, it’s fake summer in Montana! It has been cold and rainy, and the garden hasn’t been doing well at all, but I defended so I’m just hanging out right now! Dave and I are moving out of our apartment and in with friends at the end of June, so we’ll be nomadic for a little while until we figure out where we’ll be for the next year (or few years). I’ll be sure to update everyone with our new address once I have it. For now, we’re starting to sell off furniture and pack up the apartment. I’ve also been finishing up some work at the VOICE Center; we have a summer to-do list, and since I don’t have much else going on, it’s given me something to do.

That’s all for now. Hopefully it’ll warm up here soon!

Master of Fine Arts!

I think just about everyone who reads this knows that I moved out to Montana almost four years ago to start a Master’s degree program in film. Well, I defended my thesis yesterday, and passed! Which means I’m done!

Dave and I don’t know what the next step is yet, and we’re not overly concerned about it (yet). We’ll be back East next week for some college graduations, and then we’ll come back to Montana and see where we’re at.

In the meantime, you can watch my final film.

“Missed Connections” from Megan Selheim on Vimeo.

Thanks for everyone’s support! I’ll try to get back to updating this blog regularly, especially now that I don’t have much else to do!

Happy New Year!

It’s been months, I know, but this past summer and fall semester has been really busy for me, trying to keep on top of things and actually be in a position to graduate in May. I think i can do it, but I’m going to disappear again for the next 5 months, apologies in advance. If I have the time, I’ll try to occasionally post pictures, just to keep everyone at least a little in the loop. And if all goes well, I’ll graduate in May and be better about keeping up this blog.

That’s it for now. Dave and I are finishing up the last leg of our holiday in Wyoming, and we’ll be back to Bozeman tomorrow night if all goes as planned. The semester starts next Wednesday, at which point I’ll disappear into my thesis and work, and see if i can’t make something of it. TTFN!

Leaving the Desert

The day we hiked around the southern end of the Growlers was our last day looking for Abbey. And we didn’t find him. I think we got close, but even being able to narrow the location down still meant a huge amount of ground to cover, and since it’s in the desert, we can’t hike through and camp for more than a day or two at a time, because the only available water is what you can carry, and we can’t drive through because it’s a wilderness area.

So we hiked a few miles in and looked around for a couple hours, and then hiked a few miles out and had dinner. We camped, and the next day drove back into the Cabeza Prieta, this time to check out a “ghost town.”

It’s called Chico Shunie, and as far as we can tell it’s an abandoned ranch. It was interesting to walk around — these types of places are great for the imagination, because they give you clues about what happened there, but never any answers. It makes me respect archeologists that much more.

After we left Chico Shunie, we started the long drive home. We left Ajo and camped just north, on the Barry M. Goldwater Range, a testing range for military aircraft shared by the Air Force and Marines. There is a portion of the range that is not used for target practice that is open to camping as long as you have a permit and let the military know you’re there. So we camped there, and woke up early because we were buzzed by a couple fighter jets. Eric left to drive back to LA that morning, and we drove up to Flagstaff to have dinner with one of Dave’s friends … and go to the Grand Canyon!

(I know my eyes are closed, but it’s the only picture of both of us at the Grand Canyon)

Anyway, the Grand Canyon is awesome. WAY bigger that you would ever imagine, unless you’ve seen it. And really pretty — all different colors, from all the different layers of rock that make up the walls. We drove along the south rim, stopping in a couple places to look and take pictures. We’ll go back another time to actually hike around, and maybe even go to the bottom.

After the Grand Canyon, we headed up to Page, AZ next to Lake Powell, where we had to stop and stay the night because of car trouble. But I fixed the car! Meaning i figured out the problem. Dave actually replaced the part. We just needed a new air filter, which is good because Dave was starting to have nightmares about needing an engine rebuild. Once the car was fixed we went up to Salt Lake City and had dinner with Dad, who was finishing a ski vacation in Park City. And then we went home.

Overall, it was a really good trip. I got to see a bunch of things I’ve never seen before, like Vegas, the Hoover Dam, the desert, Shannon’s house, and the Grand Canyon. We didn’t find Edward Abbey, but I’m ok with that. Dave still wants to find him, so we may go back sometime in the future for another trip. I started to read one of his books, Desert Solitaire, which is apparently the book that made him famous as a writer, and one of Dave’s favorites (by him). I don’t know; he seems like an ok writer, but from what i know about him, from the little of his book that i read, and from what i’ve gleaned from the other books written by his friends, i don’t care too much for Edward Abbey. He’s an environmental writer, but his brand of environmentalism leaves people entirely out of the picture, except for (surprise surprise) himself and a few of his friends. It’s hard to judge, especially since he was writing in a different time, and i don’t know him.

Anyway, that was our spring break trip. You can see more photos here on facebook.

In the Desert

(sorry i left everyone hanging … I’m sure the suspense was terrible …)

So, when we got into Ajo we met Dave’s brother Eric, who helped with the filming in the Cabeza Prieta.

In a nutshell, the Cabeza Prieta is a weird place, I’m sure partly to do with it’s location in Arizona. And by that i mean, it sits squarely on the fence between “national wilderness treasure” and “pipeline for illegal immigration and (purportedly) drugs from Mexico” with a little “live miltary training” thrown in for good measure.

The Cabeza Prieta is designated wilderness, meaning that in addition to all the other protections found in places like National Parks, there’s usually no motorized anything. ANYTHING. Which definitely includes cars. However, somehow, anyone can drive in certain parts of the Cabeza Prieta. Our first few days there, we drove in and camped at Charlie Bell Pass.

And in addition, the Border Patrol and arms of the state and federal Fish and Wildlife Service can drive in more places that the public can’t drive. So it was weird. At Charlie Bell, we didn’t run into any illegal immigrants or Border Patrol. We just hiked around, and realized almost as soon as we got there that we were too far north to find Edward Abbey.

Even though the men who buried Abbey haven’t told anyone where he is buried, a couple have alluded to the location in books they’ve published. So we made an attempt to correlate the two accounts and figure out where the grave is. Clue 1, he’s buried in the Cabeza Prieta, in a volcanic mountain range. The Growler Mountains, where we were looking, is the only volcanic range in the Cabeza Prieta.

(the tiny range in the middle is actually much bigger — i put these photos together in photoshop, and it gave it a major fisheye perspective.)

Clue 2, he’s buried at the south end of the range. We started at Charlie Bell Pass to the north, then realized it was too far, and started heading south. After leaving Charlie Bell, we headed to Temporal Pass, which is near the middle of the range. We had to hike about 8 or 9 miles, first down a dirt road and then into the desert some, to get to the pass where we stayed one night.

We had to carry all our water, so we couldn’t stay longer. But by that point we figured the grave was probably farther south even than Temporal, so we weren’t too concerned. However, Temporal Pass, according to the US Fish and Wildlife Service, is a main thoroughfare for the illegal immigrants who are coming into Ajo. And they weren’t kidding. We never saw anyone, but we definitely heard a group, and the pass up there is littered with stuff that people drop on their way into Ajo.

The people crossing the desert, if they’re lucky, are driven across in the dead of night in trucks and vans. You can hear them sometimes depending on where you’re camping. The less lucky ones walk across, and Temporal Pass into Ajo is the final leg of that trip. The pass is covered in empty cans of food, empty plastic water bottles (the ones you buy at the grocery store), plastic bottles of juice and mexican soda, and even things like shoes and pants. Having hiked in that desert fully equipped, I don’t know how they do it. I feel like if they can hack it across that desert, maybe they deserve automatic citizenship.

Also, sidenote, i saved us from utter starvation. We had packed everything we needed for dinner after a 9 mile hike, but someone (not me) forgot the pot to boil the water in to cook everything. I happened to carry my tin cup that Dad got me for camping years ago, so we were able to jury rig dinner by cooking it in tiny parts in the cup, and then mixing it all together in a makeshift bowl we cut from a plastic water jug. Otherwise, we would have been doomed to a dinner of Clif Bars, and no one wants that.

Anyway, we hiked out of Temporal Pass that next morning and drove into Ajo to spend a night at the motel taking showers and charging phones, went out to breakfast, and then drove into Organ Pipe National Monument, which butts up against the Cabeza Prieta at the southernmost end of the Growler range.

To the Desert

So, after not getting married in Vegas, Dave and I continued down to Arizona to work on his thesis film. On the way, we drove over the Hoover Dam, which looks like something directly out of an Ayn Rand novel.

They’ve been afraid of terrorists blowing up the dam pretty much since 9/11, so they are very slowly constructing a bridge that you drive over instead of driving over the dam itself. When it’s finished, people will still be able to walk on the dam, but they won’t allow any cars.

The dam itself is pretty impressive. It’s enormous, and backs up Lake Mead.

There’s a parking deck on one side of the dam, so you can park your car and walk around. We spent about an hour there, not counting the traffic actually driving across the dam.

And then we went to Phoenix! To see Shannon!

I can’t explain why i don’t have more pictures of Shannon. But she was an amazing host, giving us her bed and driving us around Chandler/Tempe late-ish at night to get dinner. She has a great house, in a development complete with lemon trees, although there weren’t ripe lemons when we stayed. Which means we’ll have to go back. And she has two little dogs that protect her from things, including things that aren’t dangerous, and bark a lot until you ignore them for a little bit at which point they sort of go about their business (which is mostly barking, but at other things). It was great to see Shannon and her house; I just wish we had gotten there earlier so we could have spent some more time actually hanging out.

We left Shannon’s house in the morning, and drive down to Ajo, which is the town closest to the Cabeza Prieda National Wildlife Refuge, where we were doing the bulk of the filming and camping.

Married in Vegas!

woo!

Just kidding. But we did stop in Vegas on our way down to Arizona. That place is ridiculous. We didn’t go into any casinos, mostly because i was tired, but we got stuck in traffic driving down the strip so we got to see the Bellagio fountain dance to Big Spender from the car. That was pretty cool.

I’m still uploading photos to post here, but i do have an album on facebook you can look at in the meantime. We didn’t find Edward Abbey, but we did get tan.

To Arizona

For Spring Break, I’m helping Dave film his thesis in the Cabeza Prieta desert outside of Ajo, Arizona. We leave tomorrow, to arrive in Ajo on Friday, and will be back in Bozeman definitely by Monday, March 22.

Dave’s thesis film has to do with Edward Abbey, an environmental writer who is a big deal in the West but who almost no one on the East Coast has heard of (based on my own anecdotal evidence). He was writing mostly in the 60s and 70s, and his best-known work is probably the Monkey Wrench Gang. He died in 1989, and is supposed to be buried in the desert in Arizona. So we’re going to go explore the place he loved best, and see if Dave can’t get a film out of it. Dave’s brother is driving from L.A. and meeting us Friday, so it’ll be the three of us for a week.

So i should have some awesome desert pictures. I’m really excited — i’ve never been to this kind of desert before (the kind with big serious cacti). We’re off tomorrow morning, we’ll have sporatic email/cell phone service until Friday, and then we disappear into the desert for a week. We’re planning on going back through Salt Lake in time to meet up with Dad on his sweet ski vacation, so that’s an added bonus.

And that’s it! I’ll have a longer “here’s how it went” update when we get back in two weeks.

Making Bread!

So, Dave and I have started baking bread!

When I was living with Kris in Virginia, there was a New York Times article about no-knead bread and decided to give it a try, with marginal results. Part of it was the recipe, and part of it was that i didn’t have a dutch oven that could go in the oven.

Well, for Christmas Dave got me a cast iron dutch oven, and I decided to give the bread a shot. Only this time, I also had a doctored recipe from Cook’s Illustrated, which added some ingredients and added a step to the process. And it turned out awesome.

So, the recipe i used:

In a bowl, mix 3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, 1/4 t yeast, and 1 1/2 t salt. Add 3/4 c + 2 T room temperature water, 1/4 c + 1 T lager (like budweiser), and 1 T vinegar. Mix it up until you form a wet dough, then let it sit and rise overnight, 8-12 hours.
Next day: take the ball of dough and knead for 5 minutes on a floured surface. place a piece of parchment paper in a skillet and spray with cooking spray (I use aluminum foil, and that seems to work pretty well). put the kneaded dough on the parchment/foil and let rise for 2-3 more hours. 30 min before baking, put the dutch oven in the kitchen oven and preheat to 500 degrees. When the dough has risen, pick up the parchment/foil and place into the dutch oven. cook with the lid on for 20-30 min, and then take the lid off for another 10-15 min. Let cool before slicing.

Note: the awesome part about the dutch oven is the crust it makes. However, once the bread is wrapped in plastic the crust won’t be crunchy anymore, so if you’re making this for a function, make sure it bakes the same day it’s going to be eaten.
Also — the beer and vinegar are for flavor. It’s important to use lager instead of another kind of beer, because other beers have additional flavors in them that will make the bread taste crappy. The recipe recommends white vinegar, but i’ve also used red wine and rice vinegars and they all taste good, just a little different. I’ll let you know if i come across one that doesn’t work.
And, Dave and I are messing with kinds of flour to use. I just pulled a loaf out of the oven that was 1 c whole wheat flour and 2 c all purpose flour — it looks good, and will probably taste good too.