Leave Everything Exactly How You Found It

That's basically the rule of the West, or so I've heard. Doing chores around the ranch isn't particularly fun but all I have to do this week is clean the dining hall after meals so it isn't that bad.
First day of work wasn't too bad either. It's basically 8 mind-numbing hours of staring at a computer screen. I get a 15 minute break whenever I want in the morning and afternoon along with an hour for lunch but I can imagine it still getting pretty rough. I got to be best friends with my ipod today though so I can't complain too much.
Just finished a nice steak dinner, we were going to have a bbq by the lake but it started raining so we moved it inside. Food was great though!
I ran at 6:30 this morning before work started at 8. My alarm was set for 6 but I overslept and couldn't run as long as I wanted. Did 50 minutes on GDR right. There's this one hill that kills me. As my grandfather used to tell me as a kid, those false summits, they'll get ya. All in all, great day.

At first I was a lone wolf...

but then I found another...and it became clear that my wolf pack had grown by 1 hahaha. Up top are pictures of my new ice bath - probably colder than Princeton's slush buckets. I found a running buddy. He runs for Team Blitz, the running club at William and Mary. Did an easy 7 this morning. The hills on the way out were brutal.

Great Divide Ranch

Flew into Missoula at 10 last night. The plane ride was an hour and a half of me talking to an interesting woman named Cecily, who was returning from a couple years of doing service work in Costa Rica. She had a very heartfelt story and it was nice to meet such a pleasant person. Anyways, was picked up by this guy and the van ride to the ranch was a daze. I slept in the back seat for the majority of the ride, only to be woken up by a series of bumps on the road. Turns out that we had just entered the 12 mile long driveway of the ranch, a beautiful dirt road that I plan to log hundreds of miles on.
The ranch itself was completely different from what I had imagined it to be. Google Earth was wrong! I'm literally in the middle of nowhere. Also, there's another intern here who runs and we went for a run this morning. I'm not used to being at 6000 feet and it was harder and the combination of that and hills make normal runs challenging. It was freezing this morning as well. It was 40 degrees when I ran and it actually snowed last week. It's going to be a great 10 weeks.
Entrance to the Ranch:

Calling Big E. Deal

Waiting in the Denver Airport to go to Missoula. Really boring - I've walked around for a long time with nothing to do but I've finally found two friends. They're both interning at the ranch as well. Denver's a lot flatter than I imagined.

Good to Go

Bought my ticket and I'm ready to head out this Saturday at noon! There are no direct flights to Montana from Newark so I'll have to transfer twice, once in Washington and again in Denver.
Also, did my first run double since indoors today. I'm feeling great.