Vacation!

You might have noticed this depressing little pie chart I put up on facebook a while ago. In the process of

gathering my work data for taxes I threw together this very telling chart of ‘Where I spent my life in 2013’. You’ll notice I spent 53% of my year on the rig last year. That’s a lot and also not so much. I had some training time in there, which was nice. And most magnificently, I also had quite a bit of vacation/days off. Why do I subject myself to spending 53% of the year on the rig? For my career? Obviously. To gather valuable experience? Clearly.  For the money? Well of course. To earn enough days off so I can take a month long vacation? Bingo.

This year I agreed to work Christmas and New Years and then take off the entire month of January. I pitched it to my boss as though it was coming from a deep rooted need to help out in a time when we were shorthanded, but actually ticket prices were significantly cheaper by waiting until after New Years and I was able to do a lot more travelling.

Hawaii

I started out meeting my family for a vacation in Maui for 10 days. It seems silly to fly 15 hours from Mexico

Jeremy and Shelby with their aquarium fish.

to go to the beach. And it is. But that’s where my family was and so that’s where I went. We had a great time. My mom, my brother, my brother’s girlfriend and I all did a zip line tour that was awesome. My dad treated us to a fishing trip which ended up mostly being about spending the morning on the water and seeing the whales all around us. The guides were awesome and it seems like we were more victims of overfishing than lack of experience. We still managed to grab a couple fish suitable for the aquarium.

Lake Tahoe

Me, Zach, Meredith and Laurel on Lake Tahoe

Now came the part of the trip where I was expecting to freeze my butt off. I went to Lake Tahoe to meet 3 of my cousins and do some skiing at Heavenly. The weather was either beautiful or horrible depending on the way you view it. At that point they had almost no snow for a month and it was in the 50s during most days. Luckily Heavenly makes snow so the skiing was surprisingly good for the weather. And of course the company was awesome. We got to celebrate my cousin’s 21st birthday in the casinos and make some memories for the next family reunion. We took a boat out on the lake and toured around and my cousin arranged a snowcat ride for us, something I’ve wanted to do forever but never had the connections for. All and all it was a great ski trip and I didn’t freeze!

Alaska

Next I travelled back home to Alaska. Even though it’s cold and dark, I still love visiting Alaska in the winter. It’s just as beautiful as in the summer, just in a different way. The dark and cold give me an excuse to curl up by the woodstove and read, by far the most relaxing part of my vacation. I was only there for a few days and again, the weather was unseasonably warm. It was around 40 degF most days and I got to see the city melt, which is most definitely the most unpleasant part of winter.

Houston

This was an originally unplanned stop. My dad accepted a job transfer to Houston and so they will be moving down south. While this works out great for me as I fly through Houston all the time, it will be a big change for my family as a whole. It’s been about 25 years since my parents lived anywhere except Alaska or internationally. I went down with my family to do some house-hunting and catch up with friends in the area. It was a pretty rushed trip and in a surprise move, it had the exact same weather as Anchorage. Of course Houston is not prepared to handle this sort of thing and so it was absolute chaos. Good times.

Washington DC

This was definitely a highlight of my trip, both for the sights and for getting to see friends. I’ll be doing a separate post with the pictures and highlights because we managed to cover quite a bit of ground in 4 days!

Anyway there you have it! The real reason I live on rigs half the year! To travel and see new things for the other (less than) half.