Coming back...

Maybe it's the beautiful sunny weather or maybe it was time spent joyously in my garden but I sure had a hard time coming back this turnaround! I spent most of the time home actually sleeping! I had morning naps, mid morning naps, just-before-lunch naps, after lunch naps and naps for any reason that I could think of! After months of being deep down tired I finally just rested. So maybe that is why I dreaded coming back. The hardest part of coming back is not what you would expect. It's not getting up at 4am to catch and early train to Toronto or the train switch there for Hamilton. It's not th expensive taxi ride from the GO terminal to the little mountain airport they have there. It's not the flight or the stop over in Saskatoon either. What really sucks about coming back here is the bus ride from the Albian Airstrip back to Wapasu camp. That's when it really hits you that you are back. It's the realization that you haven't even hit 'Monday' in the 14 day long week of work that you are about to start. Yes. The bus ride is when your mind really starts asking you 'what the fuck am I doing here?' It does get better though. It gets better when the goddess of routine catches you in her arms and starts making you comfortable. When you have your clothes put away in their familiar spot. It makes sense when you step out of your room and finally know whether this time you turn right and not left in order to hit the laundry or the dining hall. It makes sense when you see you friends from work and you start feeling comfortable again. Finally, it makes sense when you get to work and when you have your tools in your hands. When you start doing all of those things that work is to you it all makes sense. It is supposed to reach 28+ degrees today and yet there may be thunder showers. At the moment it is hot and the dust is starting to climb into the still air as our little convoy of busses has just left the camp. It is hard to dress for these types of days as we are required to wear long sleeves so we will likely be hot as a fox in a forest fire. Add to that the potential rain so we may end up wet and cold. Then there is the question of 'jeans or coveralls?'. As a rule if I am doing more Ironworker stuff (rigging, climbing, hoisting, bolting) I wear jeans. It if I am a welder today (grinding, welding, etc) I likely opt for the coveralls. The good news is that as the job winds down and people move on more than there is a wider range of work that they will ask we apprentices to do. We now have 1000+ hours in the field and have picked up enough useful skills that we can do that. So today how I dressed was a guess (jeans) but how I dress tomorrow will be the result of what I do today. Have a great day! :)