Counting Chickens

The title of this morning's blog post is somewhat of a stretch. It harks back to a line from a blog post dated February 13, 2010. For newer LBRs and others who may wish a refresher on NVUM, the February post was the 100th of this blog and is worth re-reading. Click here to find it.

Even though it was clearly a case of "counting our chickens before they were hatched," the chickens have clearly come home to roost on this whole NVUM "Big Wheel" thing.

We had a few phone conversations and email swaps yesterday with RJ. He's the guy who won the contract for the NVUM process on the Sawtooth. (Click here to read all the nit-picky gubmint contracting stuff and the award notice, etc.)

As ya'll know, we are heading up to The Icebox of the Lower 48 this week to do our first NVUM interview at the Salmon River Campground about 4 miles downstream from Stanley, Idaho. As ya'll also know, we've said that we would withhold judgment on our further participation until we know whether we like this dude, RJ. Well, in the meantime, RJ has decided he really likes us. He now wants us to tackle a whole long calendar of interview dates from May 22 through June 6. This proposal would entail being away from home for over 2 weeks, leaving May 21 and returning maybe June 7 or thereabouts.

My, my, how the pendulum swings when that Big Wheel keeps on spinnin'!

We don't know quite what to think about all this. It was foretold in the February 13th blog post but it still seems a tad bit surreal. Talk about counting chickens!

Here's what's attractive to us about the idea: 1)We'd get to explore an area of Idaho that's totally unknown to us. 2)We'd get to visit some Dear Friends who are almost "family." 3) We'd also get to explore Owyhee Country for a few days. 4) We'd net at least $1,000 after expenses, probably more. 5) We'd get to hang out near a very large developed hot springs for days and days.

As you can easily see, there are some compelling items in the list above. We haven't made a commitment to RJ yet on this new idea. As you can imagine, we've sure talked it to infinity since yesterday. It's all quite eerily in line with that February 13 blog post, so much so that it almost seems like a karma shoe. (If the shoe fits...)

We will probably made at least a tentative decision on the idea today, pending our first encounter with RJ later this week.