My Actual Job Has Finally Begun!

Oh goodness. I didn't realize it had been TWO MONTHS since I last posted here. Sorry about that. Team Leader Training (TLT) ended just a couple weeks after that last post and the Corps Members got here to begin their month of training (Corps Training Institute, or CTI). That's when my real job as UDA began. I guess now I'm kind of at a loss for how to go about blogging. I used to do a day-by-day kind of format, but that's when I was doing things everyday that would (theoretically) be interesting for other people to read about. Now that my job is much more administrative, I'll have to figure something else out.

But I'll do my best to give you a general idea of UDA tasks.

Task #1: Every week, every team submits a Weekly Progress Report, or WPR. Obviously, this report just tell what they did that week. There are categories for quantitative tasks done on the work site, service learning, Physical Training (PT), Media coverage, team morale, things like that. UDAs are in charge of sending these out to the entire staff every Monday. Sun Unit's WPRs have mostly been getting better every week, but they still need quite a bit of proofreading before the whole staff can see them. The main problem is that they're supposed to be written in third person, and some people just can't quite remember that.

Task #2: Along with submitting WPRs every week, Team Leaders (TLs) also send me how many hours each of their Corps Members (CMs) got that week. I then enter the numbers into a giant spreadsheet that keeps a running total of everyone's hours. Everyone needs 1700 hours of service by the end of July in order to graduate from the program.

Task #3: UDAs are in charge of sending each team a package or large envelope of the team's mail that has been sent to campus. We've only done this once in the three weeks that the teams have been gone on their first projects just because there hasn't been much. No one wants to waste money to send a package that only has like 3 pieces of mail in it. Most of the UDAs also include their own things in the mail. I sent various puzzles and a quote ("It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life, that no man can sincerely try to help another without also helping himself" - Ralph Waldo Emerson) to each team, which I think I'll probably continue every time I send mail. I wish I could say it was my idea, but that's what last year's Sun UDA did, and I know my team always loved the puzzles (crosswords, logic puzzles, Sudoku, etc.). Sometimes teams also have something specific they need sent. One of my teams is in Houston, and there's going to be some kind of ceremony for the city of Houston to honor AmeriCorps. Obviously, they need to wear their formal uniform (steel toes, black pants, and white polo) for that, but one of the CMs didn't bring the black pants or polo. So I had to go into his room and find them in his closet to include in that team's mail.

Task #4: Every project round, one team from each unit lives on campus and has a project in the Denver area. I'm not really sure why, but the CMs on those teams have to have room inspections done every week. CMs who don't have local projects get their rooms inspected before they leave, but I don't know why local teams need room inspections every week. Anyway, guess who's in charge of the weekly inspections? Yep, the UDAs.

Task #5: Lots and lots of emails, phone calls, and texts. I'm sure this goes for other units and UDAs as well, but Sun TLs frequently call or email me with questions and requests. I also send lots of mass texts and emails. I TRY to just send one big email with all the reminders and announcements they need per week, but that hasn't actually happened yet. Other things just keep coming up after I've already sent the big email. I'm sure the TLs are all getting pretty tired of seeing my name in their email and text inboxes, but they just need to learn to love it.

So those are all the things I can think of that all four UDAs do every week. The rest of our time is spent with a lot of random things that come up. Also, all of our jobs seem to be slightly different because each of our Unit Leaders ask different things of us. Vaughn seems to be the most laid back and doesn't ask much of me, which just means it's more up to me to find things to keep myself busy. (And when I fail at that, I've gotten addicted to logic puzzles, specifically these .)

So yeah. That's how I spend my working hours. Next up will be my non-working hours, but I'll save that post for another day. Which most likely will be less than two months from now.

Oh, but before I end this one, here's where my unit is for their first projects:

Sun 1 (TL - Cody): Cal-Wood Education Center! My first project last year!

Sun 2 (TL - Brandon): Denver Mountain Parks

Sun 3 (TL - Matt): St. Louis Parks and Recreation

Sun 4 (TL - TK): Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks

Sun 5 (TL - Lupita): Boys and Girls Club in Denver (They're the team living on campus whose rooms I'm inspecting this round.)

Sun 6 (TL - GG): Project Homecoming (kind of like Habitat for Humanity, in New Orleans)

Sun 7 (TL - Meg): Houston Parks and Recreation

Until next time!

We Interrupt Your Regularly Scheduled Blog Post to Bring You...

A TALE OF HORRIBLE PAIN!

So AmeriCorps took us (all the TLs) out to dinner tonight at a Chinese buffet. I wandered around for a while and filled my plate with food that looked promising. Part of my plate was from a salad bar thing. I had red onions, green and red peppers, broccoli, carrots, and maybe some other stuff I don't remember. All delicious, right? I sat down with my food and the first thing I ate was a piece of green pepper. OH MY GOODNESS THAT WASN'T A GREEN PEPPER. In case you weren't aware, I canNOT handle spiciness AT ALL. I popped the piece in my mouth and chewed approximately 1.5 times before my mouth was on fire. I am very proud of myself that I didn't yell or cry or spit it out, I actually managed to chew it the rest of the way and swallow, but then the pain got worse. My thinking was somehow clear enough through the pain panic that I remembered that you're not supposed to drink water, you're supposed to drink milk (which of course was not present) or eat bread, but I didn't have any. I took a bite of egg role, but that didn't help. I took a bite of chicken, but that didn't help. Though I managed not to yell through this ordeal, a couple people around me noticed the (probable) pain on my face and asked if I was ok. I said yeah, that was just really spicy. They asked what, and I pointed to the pepper. They informed me that it was a jalapeno pepper. A JALAPENO PEPPER! I think it's the way it was cut that totally made it look to me like a regular old harmless green pepper. Meg went and got me a piece of bread, and Lupita had French fries (why there were fries at a Chinese buffet, I have no idea) that she shared, so that took some of the edge off. I was pretty traumatized though. All I ate after that were fries, green beans, and chicken. Why do people willingly eat jalapeno peppers? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?! Also, the stupid thing was covered in seeds, as peppers in restaurants frequently are. I'm pretty sure I have a jalapeno tree growing in my stomach right now, just lurking there waiting to destroy me. (Do jalapenos grow on trees? Or does the devil just keep them in potted plants in his backyard?)

Whew. Now that that's out of the way, I can tell you the latest TLT news. On Monday of last week, we had some boring meetings that aren't even really worth writing about, and then Habitat training all afternoon. Each unit did it at different times, so I was only with Sun people. We went to the local Habitat for Humanity warehouse for a guy named Bruce to teach us how to use tools that I've been using for the past six or so years. He taught us about miter saws, circular saws, chalk lines, drills, and hammers. We then had to pair up and go around to different stations to actually use each of the tools. We had to make cuts with the various saws to specific measurements and practice drilling and hammering. We practiced with all the things for a while, then he made us take a "test" with all the tools. Really the only part worth mentioning was that he wouldn't let us leave until we had put a 16-penny nail (those are the big ones) in a piece of wood in three hits. There were framing hammers there for us to practice with (huge heavy hammers that are pretty much made to sink 16-penny nails), which I have never used before. They're kind of nice when you get the hang of them. I got a nail in three hits a couple times during the practice, but it didn't count unless Bruce was watching during the test part. It took me a while to do it with an audience, but I did it a couple more times!

The rest of the week was pretty chaotic. We had a little mini-spike Wednesday through Friday, so Tuesday was all just getting ready for that. A spike is a project where the team lives somewhere other than on campus, remember. The mini-spike was just to show new people what a spike is like and prepare them for what's to come a bit better. Here's the silly part: So we're already split into four units, right? Well for this we were split into three groups, A, B, and C. We would be working and traveling with our group, but buying food, cooking, and checking out tools and dishes with our unit. Does that make sense? No. It does not. So Tuesday was spent with our units, checking out equipment and making a grocery list and shopping. The problem here is that there was no clear leader. This is a big group of leaders. My unit gets along really well, but there were a few differences of opinion in how to go about organizing the day.

Wednesday, we left for our spike. The plan was that each group would work with Habitat here in Denver for one of the three days, then spend the other two days working at the campsite where we would be living. Group A at Habitat Wednesday, B on Thursday, and C on Friday. Also, everyone had another day of service thing on Saturday, and group C would be working at Red Rocks Park that day. So Wednesday, A went to Habitat, B (my group) went to the campsite, and C went to Red Rocks for an orientation thing for their project on Saturday. They were supposed to meet us at the campsite after lunch. Well B got to the campsite, and Matt, the supervisor, told us that there was a change of plans and he was going to take us to Red Rocks to do the orientation with C. Even though it was an orientation for something we wouldn't be at. Ok, whatever, we do what we're told here. So we were all bored for about an hour and a half during this orientation, and then they unexpectedly put both B and C to work moving rocks. There were big piles of rocks along the road that needed to be spread along the trail because one of the projects for the Saturday thing was to build a couple rock walls. It was fine for a while, because most of the rocks weren't too big, we didn't have far to take them, and a few times we formed a line and passed them down while singing Disney songs. Then, we got to the fourth pile. This pile was made mostly of BIG rocks, and they had to be taken first down a really steep hill, then a LONG way away. We tried carrying individual rocks all the way from the pile to the destination (way too exhausting!) and also passing them down a line and throwing them down the steep part to people waiting at the bottom, but those didn't really work. We ended up throwing/rolling them down the hill right from the pile, and then people carried them together the rest of the way. Also, Red Rocks park is called Red Rocks for a reason. The rocks are all covered in red dust, which got all over us. Even though we have to tuck our shirts in with the uniform, everyone's stomach was red by the end of the day. It was ridiculous.

My group was supposed to go to Habitat on Thursday. However, we were told at that orientation that someone would need to be there to set up the Saturday thing (there would be like 200 volunteers there on Saturday that they needed to get ready for), but C was supposed to be at Habitat. B and C just ended up switching Habitat days so C could set up their own thing at Red Rocks on Friday. So on Thursday, we finished that pile of rocks. Then we were sent to help get rid of a bunch of Russian Olive trees, which are an invasive species. Two Red Rocks employees chainsawed them down and cut them into manageable pieces, and groups A and B (25 people) carried them into piles. Does that sound like a productive use of time? If it does, I described it wrong. There were about 20 of us just standing and waiting at all times. It was a little silly.

After that, Matt took us to see the amphitheater, since a lot of people had never been there. Then he took us to go climb around in a cave. Then he took us to an old CCC camp. (Tangent: The CCC is the Civilian Conservation Corps, which existed for several years after the depression. Men 18-25 years old could work for room, board, a uniform, and I think $25 a month. $5 would go to them and $20 would go home to their families. The CCC built the amphitheater at Red Rocks. They were nicknamed the tree army, because they also planted a ridiculous number of trees and build a ridiculous amount of trails in national parks. National parks pretty much wouldn't be the same without the CCC. My specific AmeriCorps program is called NCCC, pronounced N triple C, which stands for National Civilian Community Corps. NCCC is kind of modeled after the CCC. Oh look, a link if you want to know more. I think it's pretty cool. Also, my maternal grandfather was in the CCC back in the day, which I didn't know until after I already decided to join NCCC. End tangent.) The CCC camp had also served as a chapter of CCC alumni. We didn't get to meet anyone, but we did get to look around and see lots of pictures and read stories and stuff. It was really pretty cool.

Finally Friday was B's day at Habitat. The house was mostly done, there was just little indoor finishing work to do. I spackled and caulked all day. It's tedious and boring work, but I don't mind it that much. I alternated between working with other people and getting to talk and working by myself and getting to zone out and turn my brain off. Not a terrible day.

On Saturday, while group C was at the Red Rocks thing, A and B went to a different volunteer day, the Platte River Sweep. It was pretty cool. There was a bunch of free swag, which is always nice. Most of the volunteers were just picking up trash, but our group got to do some landscaping and painting railings and stuff. At the end, they raffled off like 30 things. I think like 10 of us won something. I won an umbrella. Someone else won a mini-grill/cooler combo. A couple of us won backpacks. A couple won lottery tickets (they didn't win). And we only had to work a half day.

That night was Oktoberfest in Denver. Your guess is as good as mine why it was in September, but whatever. It was fun.

Sunday was spent doing absolutely nothing productive except thinking about writing a blog post. Obviously, that didn't work out.

Which brings us to today. We had to check in all the equipment we checked out for the spike then do a debrief for the staff. Also, all the office team leaders had to sign in to their desktop computers for the first time and watch the boring video that tells us how to be secure with computers that are on a government network (like our desktops are). It was super complicated to get into, but then the video was boring.

In the afternoon, we had the first four of our twelve hours of Supervisory Skills. 1-5pm today, then all day tomorrow. Not much to say about that. It was fairly boring, but the guy leading it probably did as well as was possible.

And now it's almost bedtime. Good night!

Week 2 of TLT

The week started off with everyone's favorite thing: van safety! Oh, the joys of sitting in a room for three hours being told multiple times that the vans are heavier and more top heavy than cars and that you need to use a ground guide when you back up. Then, like last year, the rest of the day was spent in a van with the rest of my unit driving around. TK, Matt, and I were drivers last year, so Vaughn didn't make us drive that day, but the other six Sun people did.

Tuesday was learning about AmeriCorps expectations of TLs, and also learning (again) how to change a van tire, check the oil, put on the snow chains, and all that other fun stuff. Is it sad that I can sum up an entire day in just one sentence?

Wednesday was yet more safety training. I don't even remember what exactly we talked about, but I'm pretty sure most of it was common sense. We also had a little session to learn about how to motivate our teams to do PT (ooh! Another acronym!) and think of different activities to do with them.

After lunch, we got our technology packages! For office TLs like myself, that only meant our government-issued cell phones. But still, that's kind of exciting I think. They're even brand new this year. The TLs phones last year were pretty beaten up. Field TLs also got a laptop and a GPS, which I will also have for the round when I go into the field and have a project.

That night, a friend of one of the staff who is a yoga teacher came to do a class for the Sun and Water units (Earth and Fire had their class the night before. There's too many of us for one class like that.). The first third or half of the 1.5 hour session was really pretty hard. There were a lot of really difficult moves that not many people could actually do. After that, she slowed down and it got a lot more relaxation and stretching oriented. I didn't enjoy that intense part at the time, but I sure felt good when it was over.

The next morning, with half of us sore from yoga the night before and the other half STILL a bit sore from yoga two days ago, we had PT at 6am with two of the staff people. I remember that before I left for my last AmeriCorps year, I read somewhere that you do PT five days a week during CTI. I'm pretty sure I did official group PT like twice during that whole month. Apparently, they're a lot more serious about making TLs do it. Every Tuesday and Thursday we'll be doing PT. This first session was at 6am and lead by staff members, but every other one will be lead by fellow TLs (and I also heard we can decide as a group to do it after work instead of 6am if we want). The way-too-perky-for-6am staff members led us through some stretches and cardio stuff in the freezing cold of still-dark 6am-ness, then brought out the Fit Deck. The Fit Deck is something that was just been purchased, and they said every team will have one when they leave for projects. It's just a deck of cards each with a different exercise on them. They were split into four groups based on what part of the body it worked, and we rotated through them with our units. Some of them were hard, some were funny, and overall it wasn't too bad. It's nice when there are other people around for that sort of thing sometimes.

After 6am PT when the day actually started, we had an entire day with the Program Directors. These are the people who go over organizations' applications to have an AmeriCorps team and decide what projects we do. The three people were very nice and not bad speakers, but the room was the exact too-warm temperature that makes everyone sleepy. And we had to be in there all day, with the exception of our lunch break. Whew. That was a really long day.

Friday, we had a lesson in cultural competency. It started off where we were all at different tables in groups of five with a deck of cards and rules for a card game. We practiced the game for a few minutes, then started a tournament. The tables were numbered and the object was to get to table number one. (The two winners of each round move up a table and the two losers move down a table after each round.) When the tournament started, we were no longer allowed to talk. As could probably be expected from this situation, each original group had received a different set of rules. It was kind of interesting. We also had a session with the Resource Manager, who taught us how to document our use of our budget while on spike. Since the budget can be as much as like $6,000 of government money on a debit card (it is used for food and hotels during travel, groceries, laundry, etc.), it all has to be carefully documented on a complicated-looking Excel spreadsheet. We also had an activity where he gave us a huge packet of receipt photocopies and had us put them into the spreadsheet to make the budget balance out, and also find the charges with missing receipts on the bank activity printout. It was difficult and we didn't even have enough time to finish, but we all agreed that it will probably be much easier when it's our own stuff not a jumble of someone else's, and when we can update our form every few days or so and not do all the receipts all at once.

Also, as some of you may know, yesterday was my birthday. In the middle of lunch on Friday, everyone started singing happy birthday to be and also brought out a cake (that was from the local Super Target and was way more delicious than you'd expect a Target cake to be) and a card that everyone had signed. It was really nice.

We went out that night, first to hang out in a park in Denver and then go to a couple bars. They sang happy birthday again at the bar when it tuned midnight.

I had a nice relaxing day on my actual birthday also. After lunch, I went to a mall that was a bit farther away than I was expecting, but it was a pretty nice one. I haven't been shopping in a really long time. Then we went out again that night. It was a pretty nice birthday weekend.

I feel like there was something else that was kind of random that I wanted to talk about here, but I don't remember. Hmm. Maybe it'll come to me.

Team Leader Training!

Hello readers! I hope all 3.5 of you have been doing well since my last post. As you may or may not know, I'm back in Denver for a second year of AmeriCorps, but this time as a team leader! (More specifically, as a Unit Development Assistant [or because the government loves acronyms, a UDA], but more about that at a later date. You know, when I actually know what that job entails.) Even though I am an office team leader, right now ALL of the team leaders are in the same training, to learn how to lead a team. I'll have specific UDA training in a few weeks I think, but right now I'm with everyone else.

I feel it is important to note that I now get to wear a color! TLs wear the exact same uniform as Corps Members, except that TL shirts are green instead of gray. Have you seen gray and khaki together? It's not attractive. Getting to wear a color in general is exciting, but green also happens to be one of my favorite colors to wear.

So how's TLT (Team Leader Training, of course) going? Well, the other TLs are wonderful so far. I have of course met them all, but haven't had a chance to talk much with some of them still. I'm in the Sun Unit again, and the other Sun TLs are great. I am with TK (who you may remember was on my team last year) again, as well as Ashley (who will be in the office with me as a Support Team Leader, but more on that later as well) and Matt, who were both Sun Corps Members last year on different teams. We also have Brandon, Meg, Cody, Lupita, and Stephanie, all of whom have never been in AmeriCorps before. It is my understanding that most of the Sun TLs from last year didn't like each other very much, so I'm happy to report that I think this year will be MUCH better in that regard.

So what have I been doing? I arrived in Denver last Monday night and was able to stay with Amy, my fabulous tentmate from my shuffle team in Big Bend last year. She lives in Denver with her sister. The next morning I picked TK up from the airport and we went to campus, where we were apparently early and no one knew what to do with us. Meg arrived right after we did, so it was nice to meet another from our unit so soon. That day, we didn't do much besides check into our rooms and unpack. AmeriCorps also took us all to dinner at Old Country Buffet, because we're classy like that.

Unfortunately, there's not a whole lot to talk about right now. It's all been fairly boring meetings so far. There's been learning about the rules of living in the dorm, learning how to use government-issued laptops that are full of people's personal information safely, registering personal vehicles that people (like me!) may have driven to campus, learning the role and responsibilities of TLs, and of course the always enjoyable TB and drug tests. I'm TB free! (Also drug free, but that doesn't rhyme.)

The only interesting "official" activity so far was yesterday, when we went to a ropes course in Genesee Park. It's at a higher elevation than Denver, so obviously it was gorgeous. After a silly version of freeze tag in the morning, we had a pretty interesting activity. There were ropes laid out on the ground in like a plus sign, but then we found out it was really an x and y axis with a whole spectrum in between. Remember math class? First, we put ourselves along the x axis. One end of the spectrum was for people who go with the flow, are happy to do what everyone else wants to do, don't usually state their needs, that sort of thing. The other end was for people who are really opinionated, state their needs, make decisions quickly, etc. After we had plotted ourselves along that line based on where we think we are in the spectrum, we moved on to the y axis. One end of that spectrum was for people who tend to think logically and gather as much information as possible before making decisions, while the other end was more emotionally charged and made decisions based on feelings. Staying where we were along the x axis, we moved along the y to where we thought we should be for that second spectrum. So now all the TLs were plotted into four different quadrants. Interestingly, most of the Sun Unit was in the same quadrant. We were called Architects and Analysts, people who go with the flow and also make decisions logically.

We then split off into our units and did some group problem-solving activities. In one, three people were blindfolded. Four other people could talk but could not see the blindfolded people, and four others could see the blindfolded people but not talk. That last group had to communicate to the group who could talk what the blindfolded people had to do, and the talkers had to instruct the blindfolded people. I think all of the tasks were just walking around and picking up objects scattered around on the ground, but it was fairly challenging.

After that, we moved to where there were like eight rows of five large flat-ish rocks laid into the ground. We had to get the entire team from one side to the other on top of the rocks, but they had to be in the right order. We went one at a time. If someone guessed a wrong rock, they had to go to the end of the line and the next person had to start from the beginning. It wasn't that hard. It was just trail and error until we figured out the pattern, and then we had so many people that it wasn't hard to remember it.

After that, we went to where the ground was lava, and we had to get all of us from one spot to another using tree stumps and six boards. If we dropped a board or if someone fell into the lava, "something strange or wonderful would happen." We dropped several, causing us to go down to three boards and losing the use of a few arms, but then we got a board back later. That one was cool. We worked pretty well together, and our facilitator told us we took a path she hadn't seen before. Also, I don't think anyone in AmeriCorps has much of a personal space bubble, but we broke through those bubbles pretty quickly with people squished together on stumps and whatnot.

After lunch was the high ropes part of the day. I unfortunately didn't actually go up on any of the three activities due to a couple not-so-good knees and a history of stress fractures in my right foot. I have no desire to have my knees or foot hurt anytime soon. But I was still able to be a spotter, help belay, and cheer people on.

At the end of the day, we got back in our units with that x and y axis. Ali, our facilitator, told us to go back to the quadrant where we were in the morning. She then had the group decide if they thought anyone should move to a different position. Most people stayed about where they were, but they said I should move closer to the middle, where the two axes meet. I think I'll take that as a compliment, that I am pretty balanced.

Tomorrow we get to do the wonderful day of driving tests. I think I heard we might be driving to Rocky Mountain National Park or somewhere cool like that, but it's still several hours in a van.

I still haven't put any pictures from Big Bend or Saguache on this thing, have I? I'll try to do that sometime soon. Apologies for laziness.

Oh! But look on the side! I figured out how to make a nifty little text box on the left side that I will fill with those beloved-by-the-government acronyms as I think of them.

Also, I just noticed that this is blog post number 101. I posted on this thing 100 times in the past year. Crazy.

From the Continental Divide to Casa Bonita

As always, continuing where I left off…

That Thursday, our last night in Saguache, we had a barbecue for like everyone we had ever met in town. We were also joined by an AmeriCorps team from the Fire Unit. Their project had been in Denver but they ran out of work like a couple weeks ago. They had been going around to different places working, and they ended up in Saguache. We were leaving on Friday so they were going to work with the BLM for their last day of round 4. It was fun. We hung out in the park for a long time after everyone was done eating, then Heather, Jess, and I went to the Oasis with Matt and Miles. It was a pretty nice last night in Saguache.

We had found out like a month ago that our team got volunteered for an extra project after the Saguache project ended. Instead of leaving Saguache to go back to Denver on Saturday the 17th, which was when all the other teams were getting back, we left on Friday the 16th to go to Leadville, CO. There apparently had been a week-long project through the Continental Divide Trail Alliance (CDTA) and we were being sent to help for the last two days of it. The information we got about it said that it was some kind of youth project. I think we all agreed that it sounded like a cool project (minus the part where we thought we were going to do trial work with a bunch of teenagers), but we just didn’t want to do it that weekend. It was making us get back to Denver late and take away our entire second to last weekend of AmeriCorps. Well, we got there and were quite pleasantly surprised. It was absolutely gorgeous there. We were at an altitude of about 10,500 feet. It wasn’t a group of teenagers. There were three guys with the Forest Service, one guy from the CDTA, and several random volunteers of all ages. One of these random volunteers had actually hiked all 3,100 miles of the Continental Divide. I think I heard it took her like five months, which is better than the average six months it takes people. It was a pretty cool group. We arrived and set up camp on Friday evening so we could start work bright and early on Saturday morning. I learned from my fabulous teammate Heather’s blog that the CDTA sets out to complete only about 400 feet of trail per 5-day volunteer period. Why so little? Because the section they’re working on near Leadville has no trail at the moment. There is a flag line set out where they want the trail but there’s really not a trail currently. Our job was mainly to remove the bajillion rocks and the stumps and roots of trees that have been cut down from where the trail will go. A few people were also searching up the mountain for giant rocks that could be used for building a wall to hold the trail’s dirt in some sections. I was on rock-removal duty. It was really kind of nice to swing a pick mattock again. I hadn’t used one since Big Bend. It was really satisfying work. Most rocks weren’t too difficult to get out. Except, of course, for the iceberg-like ones that look like just a regular rock sticking out of the ground a little bit but are secretly giant boulders buried deep below the surface. Those are a bit more difficult. I think most of us enjoyed this little extra project. No one wanted to go at first but it ended up being a really nice way for my wonderful team to end its time together. We even got a goody bag complete with a super soft T-shirt out of it.

We worked Saturday and Sunday morning then set off for Denver. We arrived on campus and had about 15 minutes to shower and get ready for our last team dinner. (We always get a team dinner during spike travel included in our budget. Thanks AmeriCorps!) Haha, yeah right. It turned into like 40 minutes. Come on, no one had showered since Friday morning. This team dinner was extra special because we were going to Casa Bonita. In case anyone isn’t aware, an entire episode of the ever-popular South Park was devoted to the ridiculousness of Casa Bonita. (In case you’re curious, you can watch it here. Thanks again, Heather’s blog! And yes, we gathered to watch that episode before leaving.) Now let’s be clear. Casa Bonita is NOT known for its food. Actually, its food is known to be Mexican food that is as greasy and disgusting as possible (with the possible exception of the never ending delicious sopapillas). No, Casa Bonita is known for its cliff divers, Black Bart’s Cave, puppet shows, a mariachi band, and various other performers and ridiculousness. It’s pretty much Denver’s own mini amusement park posing as a restaurant. You stand in one of those lines that parks have where you go back and forth through the railings before arriving at the cash register where you place your order. (You grab a paper menu on your way into the line so you’re prepared.) I learned the hard way that you are not allowed to alter your order in any way. (Courtney: “And could I please get that with no sauce?” Cashier: *Points to giant lit sign with fast food-esque pictures of the food* “It comes like that. You can scrape the sauce off.”) I found out the reason for this soon enough. After passing the cashier, you wind through more of the line before grabbing your cafeteria tray and silverware. You move along the line to where the food is waiting under a red heat lamp. You tell the person what you ordered and they plunk it on your tray. You are then led through the maze of different rooms and levels to your table. After dinner we explored the various wonders of Casa Bonita. It was as ridiculous as the South Park episode promised. It was lovely. Oh! And Lindsey and Marquis also got to come with us. It was a dinner for everyone who has ever been on Sun 4. Christina also had a gift for each of us. It was a copy of Oh, the Places You’ll Go complete with a sparkly cover and nice note from Christina inside about how wonderful we are. We turned them into a Sun 4 yearbook and signed each others’ because we’re just that adorable.

Last Week in Saguache

We had been told that for our last week, we would be split up. Half would be camping near Stone Cellar Monday and Tuesday working on trails and using the horses to bring tools to another Southwest Conservation Corps group working up there. The other half would work with Dwight on that fence we had started on Monday and Tuesday. On Wednesday, the campers would return and join the other half to pull weeds with Clayton Wednesday and Thursday. Christina, TK, Jess, Becky, and Alex did the horses and camping while Tomm, Heather, Michala, Rob, and I stayed back. Let me tell you, I think we chose right. Michala was still working in the office because of her tailbone. Rob had not used any of his days off so he worked Monday then took the rest of the week off. Monday was pretty nice. Tomm, Heather, Rob, and I went back up that ridiculously bumpy road to Dwight’s fence. Remember how the last time we were there we had to reroute the road a little bit to get around some mud? The rerouted road went up a slight incline into the grass. Even with the gas pedal on the floor, the van wouldn’t make it up the hill. Dwight, Heather, Rob, and Tomm all had to get out and push the van while I floored it to get it up there. I of course found it hilarious and felt quite triumphant when I finally made it. The entire day was spent digging holes for H-brace posts and saw the digging of The Most Perfect Post Hole Ever by Heather and myself. We had a perfect area to dig in with hardly any rocks. Heather used the rock bar to loosen dirt and I removed it with the post hole digger. We were done in like 10 or 15 minutes and the hole was perfectly round and not much wider than the post. Perfection is a pretty nice way to start a day, don’t you think? I remember that on Monday we didn’t get much done because with the exception of that perfect post hole, everywhere else we needed to dig was full of rocks. That was also the day we found out that Dwight is a Beast. We knew him as this super nice and friendly slightly elderly man with white hair and a pleasant smile. What we didn’t know was that he can wield a rock bar like no one else. (There are slight variations on what a rock bar looks like exactly, but mostly it’s just a 6-foot metal staff that tapers at the end and weighs probably 15 pounds or so. It’s used to either pry rocks out of the ground or break rocks.) We kept running into soul-crushing rocks like Becky, Tomm and I did the last time we were up there with Dwight. We would take turns with the rock bar with varying techniques of trying to break the giant rock or trying to archaeology it out (I don’t know why we started saying that, but it’s when we would try to get the rock out by digging around it, not breaking it). Dwight would come over and juts wail on the rock with these beastly slams of the rock bar. He would be panting and sweating and we each independently planned what we would do if he hurt himself, but he broke some ridiculously huge rocks. It was insane.

That night, we had a lovely evening of sitting around in the quiet house. I grew up in a family of four. After my brother transferred to a college in Louisiana almost four years ago, usually when I am at home it’s just my parents and myself. And yet, after almost a year of AmeriCorps, having only five people home seems really quiet and empty.

On Tuesday it was only Heather, Tomm and I at work with Dwight. I made it up that grassy hill on my first try this time. Turns out you need to floor it from the beginning. Even with fewer people that day, we got so much more done. We dug more post holes than the day before and put in the cross beams for six H-braces. (Part of the reason that went so fast is because we had always had to do it with a hand saw, but Dwight is a chainsaw-wielding Beast. Goes much faster that way.) Also, at about 2:30, it started to rain really hard. Dwight told us to just take a break until it stopped. He sat in his truck and we sat in our van. It ended up raining for about an hour. After it stopped we worked for another 20 minutes or so, then Dwight called it a day. So even with fewer people and an hour-long break, we got SO MUCH done.

That night Heather, Tomm, and I watched Memento. We marveled at the fact that we all got a good seat in the living room and there was hardly anyone talking. (We don’t mind when people talk during non-dialogue parts, but we all hate it when people talk during dialogue. And that seems to happen a lot when there are eight of us or so watching a movie.) I love my team, but it was really nice to have some peace for a couple days.

The others were supposed to come back Wednesday morning and come join us wherever we were working on weeds with Clayton, but is anyone surprised that didn’t happen? Nope, not a bit. I would have been surprised if that actually happened. It wasn’t their fault though. I think there was some kind of problem with the horses or something. Since it was only Heather, Tomm and me again, we rode in Clayton’s truck. We pretty much just drove around until we would see a henbane plant or two along the road, then hop out and grab it. We ended up near some property Clayton’s family owns around lunch time. We stopped to fill up our water bottles at a stream on his property (delicious!) then had lunch at picnic tables outside of their adorable mountain house. No one lives their permanently anymore but it was really cute. At the end of the day we had the pleasure of accompanying Clayton to take the weeds we had pulled to the dump. This trip was actually highly amusing, but I think I’ll wait to say why until Tomm sends me the picture we took.

The others got back around 5:00 that evening with tales of rain and cold night in tents. We definitely chose the right job for the week.

And that brings us to our last day of work in Saguache. Clayton had a meeting or something in the morning so he just sent us to an area where he knew there were TONS of weeds in a gulch. We found it and split up to cover more ground. Becky and I were walking along the gulch from the far end when we found we needed a shovel. Becky went to find one. I stayed down there alone pulling whatever weeds I could get just with my hands. I ended up being down there for a pretty long time. I yelled to see if anyone was nearby a couple times but no one answered. I started getting paranoid. If there would ever be a time in my life when I would get bitten by a rattlesnake, I was sure it would be right then. I filled my bag with weeds, so there wasn’t really anything else I could do. I started trudging back up the gulch to where we had parked the van. I actually passed Becky and Tomm on the way. They were heading back to where Becky and I had ended up with a shovel and another bag or two. When I got back to the van, everyone else had finished their areas and were ready to move on. I told them about Becky and Tomm and we decided to wait for them so they wouldn’t be left wondering where we were. We ended up waiting about an hour and a half. They had found a huge bunch of weeds. A couple people even walked about a mile down the gulch but didn’t find them. We actually started to get worried. It was a little silly. They came back near lunch time so we just decided to go ahead and eat. Clayton had rejoined us by that time and he brought us Pulling For Colorado T-shirts. He had already given us water bottles with the same logo. The rest of the day was fairly uneventful. We went to another area of the gulch and split into two groups. My group accidentally went into private property pulling weeds. Oops.

Week 8. Nearing the End!

That Thursday night, we all made a trip to Alamosa. The girls all saw Eclipse, the third Twilight movie, while the boys saw The Last Airbender. Funny how the second and third Twilight movies both came out during AmeriCorps, and the girls on my team got to see them together.

On Friday, we had planned to have another barbecue in the park to celebrate the Fourth of July. We love our barbecues here. We had invited pretty much everyone we know and were really excited about it. Unfortunately, it was rainy all day and pretty chilly. Only a few people showed up, including Will (one of the fire guys), Sarah (who works in the office), and some fire guys we hadn’t met yet who are here temporarily from Wyoming. We didn’t get rained on because the park has an area with a roof and picnic tables. It was cold but we still had fun.

On Saturday, I believe we watched more World Cup. At least some of us did. I don’t remember who played right now. TK and Heather have watched pretty much every World Cup game from the same table at the Oasis (the only restaurant/bar in town, conveniently located less than a block from our house). I’ve watched most games with them, and a few other people come occasionally. That night, Heather, Jess, TK, and I all went back to the Oasis (or as the cool kids call it, The O) that night when it was being a bar instead of restaurant. We had heard that nights when there are Ultimate Fighting Championship fights are the busiest there, and Saturday was fight night. Will, Miles (a fire guy who lives at the bunkhouse), and Matt (an AmeriCorps VISTA with the BLM who also lives at the bunkhouse) were all there as well. It was pretty fun. When the O is being a bar, it doesn’t really have a set closing time. If there are no people, it closes early. If people are there, it’ll stay open. The seven of us were there playing pool and playing crappy songs on the jukebox way later than anyone else, but Travis the bartender didn’t seem to mind.

On Sunday, the Fourth of July, we went to Salida. We had seen posters for the activities on the Fourth, including a parade and a band. The parade was ok but nothing like parades in Alton. We had planned to stay for the band but it was kind of lame. We also found out that we were invited to a gathering at Josh’s house (he’s yet another fire guy) so we left Salida early. Heather, Jess, Michala and I went to Josh’s, where we got to see Miles, John (a fire guy who used to live at the bunkhouse but then moved to Alamosa to do fires at Sand Dunes) and Kent (yep, another fire guy). It was pretty fun. We hadn’t seen any of the fire guys in like a month because there was a huge fire near the Sand Dunes. It was especially nice to see John, since he moved away.

We had Monday off since everyone at the BLM did. Most of us went to the Sand Dunes to sunbathe. We checked the weather and saw that it wasn’t supposed to be windy like it was last time we were there. Unfortunately, it seems we are not able to have a pain-free trip to the Sand Dunes. Instead of sand blowing into our legs like a thousand tiny knives like last time, the ridiculously hot sand burned our feet. Oh my goodness, it was painful. You couldn’t walk barefoot because it was just too freaking hot. Keeping flip flops on made it really awkward to walk through the sand and was still super hot. It was also really rocky where we were walking and rocks kept getting between my feet and flip flop. We walked until we came to the first dune so we could lie on a slope. We were all super sweaty just laying there. It was kind of pleasant though. When we were on our way out we saw John in the parking lot. He and another fire guy were standing outside their fire truck in the Dunes parking lot to just talk to people about the fire near there. It had been something like 500 acres but they’ve gotten it a little more under control.

Tuesday began our weed removal adventure. We would be working with Clayton, who turned out to be really cool. The weed that needed removing was Black Henbane. It is an annual plant that has probably about 20 seed pods on each stalk, with roughly 1,000 seeds in each pod. While the plant is green and alive, it poses no threat. When it dies and dries out, those millions of seeds just blow away in the wind. They are then able to germinate for the next 35 years. This plant also grows really quickly. It is also poisonous to humans and to cows. Apparently eating the seeds produces a mild hallucinogenic effect. And it’s not native to the area. You can see why this is a problem. So Clayton just took us along the road (he in his truck and us following in the van) until he spotted an area with a lot of these plants. We would stop and hop out to rip them out by the roots. We quickly realized that this was not usually a job for all seven or so of us who were in the van, so we split into two groups and alternated who got out at each spot. Clayton said he wanted it to be a chill day since it was getting back to work after such a long weekend. Not bad at all.

That Wednesday I took one of my allotted days off that I had not yet used. I chose to use one that day because it was Spain playing Germany in the World Cup semifinals. (Hey, I can use my days for whatever I want!) TK was also taking that day off. During halftime when I went to the restroom, Christina appeared in the restroom. Then when I came back out to the table, there was Heather. Apparently the team was pulling weeds not too far away and requested to come back into town for lunch. Also, it looked stormy out, so they were waiting to see what the weather would do before going back out. They ended up going back to work for only like another hour or so before the storm came.

Thursday was another day of pulling weeds, but it was a really short day. The BLM wanted to have a barbecue for us to thank us for all we’ve done and scheduled it for that Thursday at like 3:00. So we pulled more weeds with Clayton all morning but finished the areas he wanted to get done at about lunch time. He then decided to give us a little treat and take us to Penitente Canyon which was way out near La Garita. I think. He said there are really cool places to hike around there and you can climb up the canyon walls. Unfortunately, by the time we got there we only had about 20 minutes to look around. Clayton didn’t want to make us late for our own party. It was really cool there though. The barbecue was delicious. It was fajitas again, at a newish campsite we hadn’t been to yet called Big Springs. Again, one big wok full of meat (this time is was pork, which I didn’t eat, but the rest was delicious), another full of potatoes and onions, and another for warming tortillas. Mmm, yummy. It was really nice. Almost everyone who works at the BLM came to thank us.

That weekend we did…something. The only day I can remember clearly is Saturday. We had our Day of Service, which we are required to organize and do both second and fourth rounds. We went back to Alamosa (where we had worked in the homeless shelter and community garden before). There was this thing called Restaurant Walk going on that day and the food bank was part of it. (There’s a whole network of places that all benefit La Puente, the homeless shelter, like a coffee shop, a thrift store, the food bank, and some kind of place for kids. It’s actually pretty cool. All those places are staffed by volunteers and AmeriCorps people, like the AmeriCorps Directs with Habitat in New Orleans.) For the Restaurant Walk, you pay like $10 or something then get to walk around to a bunch of different restaurants and get samples of food. Sally, the AmeriCorps person in charge of us for the day, split us into two groups. Michala, Jess, Becky, Tomm, and I all worked at the food bank in the morning. Sally had made chili for the food bank to give out for restaurant walk but we were only supposed to sit at a table with a bunch of AmeriCorps information for when people come in. Pretty much no one was interested. Which means that we just had to sit there for a few hours. Super easy. Since no one was there, we got to split up and take turns walking over to the coffee shop for a beverage and to listen to the live music going on for a bit. And we got hours for it. The other group was pulling weeds in the community garden all morning. The two groups swapped after lunch. Pulling weeds wasn’t too bad. There were so many that we all just sat in a group and talked while we pulled the weeds we could reach, then just scooted over a bit. The day was cut short by the appearance of a huge thunderstorm later in the afternoon. Not a bad day of work at all.

That evening after dinner, several of us decided to go enjoy some beverages in the park (don’t worry, it’s legal). Eventually, the rest of the team joined us. It was extremely enjoyable. It was also some pretty good bonding, just the 10 of us hanging out. When everyone started deciding to go home, Heather, Jess and I went over to the bunkhouse. Heather had mentioned to Miles that we might come over sometime that night since it was our last full weekend in Saguache. We went to the house and no one was home, so we decided to go to the O. Oh look, there are Matt, Miles, Travis the bartender, and no one else. Matt and Miles started on this whole thing about how they were at the O to drown their sorrows that we hadn’t come over. Matt said Miles had made hors d’oeuvres for us (300 mozzarella sticks, he said) and then ate them all because we didn’t come. A 40 square foot cake was supposedly also made, but they had to eat that too. It was hilarious. They’re both really funny.

I’ve asked Becky, Michala, and Jess what else we did that weekend and none of us can remember. I don’t think we really did anything else interesting. Memorable last weekend, huh?

Pictures are coming soon! I promise! (Maybe not until after I get home, but soon!)

Weeks 6 and 7

Week 6:
That week was kind of strange. We were working with Lisa on a barbed wire fence up near Stone Cellar again. The first plan was to come back to town at like noon on Wednesday because we had a short project here we could work on. We would then drive back up Thursday morning to ride horses (a “service learning day,” but really it was just for fun because the BLM people are nice to us). It was nice to be back at the cabin. It’s so pretty up there. So we made the 1.5-hour drive up there on Monday with both our van and cargo truck. As soon as we unloaded the truck, Becky and Michala drove it back down because they both had doctor appointments. Becky has had a cough for a while and unbeknownst to me, Michala’s tailbone had been hurting pretty bad for like two weeks even though she hadn’t fallen down or anything. They didn’t get back to the cabin until that evening. Becky had gotten an inhaler and Michala had found out some news. She had a cyst on her tailbone that has been there since birth, but all the bouncy car rides we’ve been doing made it inflamed or something. Apparently this happens to soldiers a lot when they ride around in Jeeps all the time. So she had an appointment on Wednesday to get it drained and they said she’d probably have surgery to have it removed on Friday. Eek. Christina drove her back down to our house that night since she couldn’t do the work at the cabin and wanted her to work in the BLM office on Tuesday. We found out Christina’s plan on Tuesday. She found out when she was in town that our Wednesday afternoon project was cancelled so there was no reason for everyone to go back to town before Thursday and riding horses. TK and Heather were both taking a day off on Wednesday to watch the USA/Ghana World Cup game. Tuesday after work, TK, Heather, and I would drive down to Saguache. On Wednesday, they would watch the game and I would take Michala to the doctor in Salida in Christina’s car. After the game, TK and Heather would drive back up to the cabin bringing with them all the food needed for those extra days at the cabin and things needed to ride horses since everyone expected to be back in town before that. I would stay at the church with Michala Wednesday and Thursday. Whew. So confusing. Michala’s doctor appointment was fairly traumatic because the local anesthesia shot they had given her didn’t work. She also found out that she can wait another month until she’s back home after AmeriCorps is over to have the removal surgery. She also found out that she needed to get one of those donut-shaped pillows to sit on until she has the surgery. So we went to the medical supply stores and started looking around. We couldn’t find the pillows so we found a person. Michala said “Do you have any of those donut-shaped pillows?” and the lady said “Sure! Do you want chocolate or glazed?” Gotta love a medical supply lady with a sense of humor. She showed us the options, which were not what we expected. We expected like a clear plastic inflatable thing. What they had were fabric-covered foam things in either red plaid or navy blue. We both agreed that she should get the plaid because it was so silly looking and it’s silly enough to need a butt pillow anyway. We laughed about it for the rest of the day. It looks like a Scottish dog bed. It looks especially silly on our couches, which are kind pastel and floral. When the others came home and saw it, Becky immediately decided it needed a Scottish name and called it MacDougall. So that’s how MacDougall the Butt Pillow came into our lives. Luckily Michala had already decided to laugh about it instead of being embarrassed by it.

I’m going out of order here. Monday of that week while Becky and Michala were gone, the rest of us built a new barbed wire fence about a 20 minute drive up a terrifying rocky mountain from the cabin. Building a new wire fence is WAY easier than repairing an old one. Only the middle two wires needed to be barbed. The top and bottom wires could be smooth. My favorite part was pounding in the metal posts. Post pounders are fun. They’re kind of like a metal tube that is closed on one end with handles on the sides. You put the open end of the tube over the post and pound away so the top of the post hits the closed end of the tube until the post is in the ground enough. We finished that fence on Tuesday. I’m not entirely sure what everyone else did Wednesday while I was with Michala. They rode horses on Thursday. (I didn’t mind missing out to stay with Michala because while I’m much more comfortable being near horses after that training we had, being on a horse still makes me nervous. And they were going to be riding like five miles.)

That Friday night most of us went to see Robin Hood at the two-block-away movie theater. They’re only open Friday through Sunday and show one movie per weekend. We were not impressed with it as a Robin Hood story, but it was pretty good as a Medieval action movie.

On Saturday, the five girls on the team all went to Salida. We had a delicious dinner at the Boathouse Cantina, went to one other bar, then came home pretty early. AmeriCorps has turned us all into old people.

Week 7:
Week 7 started with my two least favorite days of my entire AmeriCorps experience thus far. We were scheduled to be surveying baby trees all week. We had been told something about how we’d have to use maps and a GPS to find these trees and document them or something. It sounded like it might be kind of cool. Oh how wrong we were. On Monday we were missing Michala (who would be working in the office all week to avoid bumpy car rides), Becky (who had been randomly selected for a drug test), and Christina (who had to take Becky for the test). The rest of us were sent to work with Sarah and Kevin. We drove out to the woods and were put into two groups. I was with Tomm and Alex, led by Kevin. Oh my goodness, the work was boring. You have to use the GPS to find a set of coordinates that were already programmed in. Then one person holds the end of a tape measure on that spot while another person pulls the tape out to 11.8 feet. That person then circles the spot while still holding the tape and counts all the baby trees in the circle. Someone else documents the findings. We developed a system. I would find the spot with the GPS (which I got pretty good at by the end of the day). Tomm and Alex would come do the circling and counting while I took off to find the next spot. Kevin documented. I feel bad saying this because he seems like a nice enough guy, but Kevin is possibly the dullest person I’ve ever met. I tried to make conversation and be cheerful but it just didn’t work. A bad omen for the day: When the groups first separated and we were walking down the road to our first spot, I realized I didn’t know Kevin’s name. I asked and he said Kevin. I said “Oh, I’m Courtney. Nice to meet you.” He said nothing. He didn’t say it was nice to meet me. He didn’t ask Tomm or Alex’s names. Nothing. Every time I tried to ask conversation-starting questions, he would just answer the question and that was the end of it. Very frustrating. With boring work like that, you need to make it interesting somehow. It just didn’t happen for us that day. And it wasn’t just a horrible job because it was boring. I’ve had boring jobs before. It was also physically pretty hard. The reason the baby trees needed to be counted was that they were in areas of prescribed burns. So everywhere we had to walk was literally covered in dead tree trunks and branches. Sometimes when you step on them they would be sunk into the ground and stay still and sometimes they would roll out from under you. You never know which it will be. The area was also really hilly. There was little shade and it was pretty warm that day. If something is hard, it’s usually also interesting. If something is boring, it’s usually also easy. Nope, neither of these were true for that day. Adding to the misery of the day was the fact that we HAD to wear pants, long sleeves, and hard hats. To count baby trees. I would have wanted to wear pants anyway because we had to walk through a lot of brush but I don’t think anything touched my arms all day. And hard hats? Seriously? What do our heads need to be protected from? Partially due to my compulsion to ask WHY for everything we do here and partially in an attempt to make conversation and get Kevin to talk, I asked a few different times why we had to wear these things. I did not get an acceptable answer. The long sleeves were apparently to protect our arms from getting scratched by branches. Heat stroke and overheating sound less safe to me than a few scratches on my arms (which, PS, I’ve had many of already). One time, after asking about the hard hats yet again, Kevin said he’s been hit in the head with branches a few times. (He’s been doing this for several years.) I said but I’m not that tall. (He’s tall.) He said no, from stuff falling out of trees onto his head. I would rather face the highly unlikely possibility of something falling out of a tree onto my head than be awkwardly top-heavy all day and have my scalp covered in sweat. By the end of the day I was just carrying my stupid hard hat around most of the time.

Heather, Rob, Jess, and TK, who were with Sarah for the day, didn’t mind it much at all. They loved chatty outgoing Sarah and even invited her to the barbecue we’re having on Friday to celebrate the Fourth of July. Blah blah blah.

On Tuesday morning before work, the only thing keeping me going was the thought that surely we would switch up the groups and I would not be with Kevin again. Also because the plan was that since we all knew how to do it now, we could go out in pairs with each other, not groups with Sarah or Kevin. Unfortunately this was not the case. The only people from the team who would be out there that day were Heather, Rob, Tomm, Jess, and I. When we met at the BLM office in the morning like always, Sarah came out and said that Heather and Rob would be with her and Tomm, Jess, and I would be with Kevin. I immediately feared for my sanity. I think Tuesday was even worse. It began with the crushing blow of not switching groups. We were also in a different area that day which was much hillier, making the hiking much harder. I was doing the GPS part again for most of the day. It was much harder to navigate there because there were a lot more adult trees that I would have to go around which made it way harder to keep a straight course to the next point. Ug. At least it’s over now. Kevin told us that day that he heard we would be working on a fence somewhere Wednesday and Thursday (that was the previous Wednesday afternoon’s cancelled project). Thank goodness.

Tuesday night we watched another gem from one of Tomm’s horror movie four-packs. The cover said it was called The Kraken: Tentacles of the Deep. When TK put the DVD in his laptop, he clicked on the thing that said The Kraken: Tentacles of the Deep. When the movie started and it showed the title screen, the title was Deadly Waters. We were confused. A little ways into the movie we realized that the description on the back of the DVD case for The Kraken: Tentacles of the Deep matched the movie we were watching. The star was Charlie O’Connell, Jerry O’Connell’s brother. He had three different faces that I could tell: there was angry face, happy face, and flirting-with-the-blonde-main-character face. The plot wasn’t quite as awful as Raging Sharks but the acting was worse. It was pretty ridiculous. I’m starting to forget what a good movie looks like. It’s been a while since I’ve seen one.

(I wasn’t feeling well on Wednesday so I didn’t go to work. The rest of the team did indeed build a fence with Dwight. It was a log fence, which we haven’t done before. I don’t know much about that day though.)

On Thursday, we were with Dwight again. Our task was to put in the wood corner posts for a soon-to-be-built barbed wire fence. He didn’t even bring any wire because the only goal was to put in the H-braces that would go on each corner of the square fenced-in area. We set off to the far away location of this future fence. First Dwight and Dave (who I later learned is an actual shaman, but I did not get to talk to him at all that day) in the BLM truck, then Alex and TK in our truck, then the rest of us in the van, driven by me. We drove down the highway as usual then turned off onto a dirt road, also as usual. The dirt road turned into gravel, which then turned into rocks. The rocks got bigger and bigger. Soon we were bouncing along so violently that we wondered if the van would actually fall apart on us this time. As has been happening more and more frequently during ridiculous situations on this project, I got a laughing fit. The road was just SO BUMPY and there was nothing I could do about it. It didn’t help that I could see the rest of the team bouncing up and down in the rearview mirror. Also, as the road got bumpier, it also got narrower. This meant that I couldn’t avoid scraping past tree branches every few seconds. I had tears running down my face I was laughing so hard. Then it got worse. We got to a part of the road that went fairly steeply upward and was covered in mud. The BLM truck made it up ok, but our truck couldn’t. If our truck couldn’t, there’s no way Gertrude could make it. Alex and TK made several tries up in the truck, even trying going off the road into the grass a bit after Dwight and Dave had cut down trees to make room. It just wouldn’t happen. We were told that the worksite was only about a half-mile from where we were and we could just walk, but for some reason we decided not to do that. The whole team got out of the van and helped clear brush next to the road. Dwight got out his chainsaw and cut up the huge fallen trees in the way. That’s right, we were rerouting the road. I think we would have just walked the rest of the way but Dwight and Dave were worried about other people getting stuck there. Then we backed up our vehicles to go on our new road. The truck almost got stuck again trying to get up onto the grass, but I learned from their mistake. Apparently you just have to go fast. I was randomly chuckling for the rest of the day just thinking about how silly the drive to work was.

Once we finally got there, we began The Day That Stole Our Souls. We were in groups of two or three on each corner on the future fence. Becky, Tomm, and I were a group. There were two unclaimed corners. We started at one but discovered it was really rocky. Since we didn’t have a rock bar at the time we decided to go to the other one which was down a little hill and nearer a creek. Big mistake. We started digging our hole and ran into a huge rock about eight inches down. We knew we couldn’t get past it so we just moved over and started a new hole. Same thing happened. So we moved over again. Turns out the third time is indeed a charm. We managed to dig our 30-inch deep post hole in our third location and finished right before lunch. After lunch, since three wood posts would need to go there eventually, we each carried an eight-foot, six-inch diameter wood post the long-enough distance from the truck. We got that first post in without much problem. We then moved in to our next post hole. About ten inches in, we hit another rock. It was jutting out from the edge of the hole and went about halfway across it. We couldn’t just start a new hole like we did before because this one had to be a certain distance from the first, otherwise the cross piece for the H-brace wouldn’t fit. We thought since we could expose one side of the rock, surely we could get it out. We then spent the next two and a half hours or so having our souls sucked out by this rock. Imagine the frustration. We tried just slamming it with a rock bar (which we had gotten by this point) to break it up. We tried widening the hole to find the other side of the rock. We tried prying it up. Nothing worked. Luckily everyone else finished early-ish and we got to leave at about 4:00. Also luckily, my soul was mostly restored as I laughed my way down the bouncy road back to the highway.

Week 3-5

Week 3:
Week 3 was our week at Kerber Creek. There is a whole big explanation that I don’t remember about why and how Kerber Creek got messed up. I think the main problem is the town of Bonanza (which I am unable to say without ridiculous emphasis on the NAN part of the word). BoNANza is much smaller than Saguache but used to be quite the bustling mining town. I don’t remember what that really has to do with the creek, but I’m pretty sure it was involved. Anyway, the creek doesn’t flow very well in lots of parts. This is bad because it runs into the Rio Grande which apparently hasn’t actually reached the Gulf of Mexico for like eight of the past ten years or something. The BLM is trying to get Kerber Creek to run better so it will help the Rio Grande. The mine did something like deposit a bunch of chemicals or something which both killed a lot of the vegetation around the creek and also widened the creek in parts. Steve said that the creek flows best when it is a narrow deep channel. Widening it makes it flow slower. I don’t quite remember how this helped narrow the creek channel, but our main job was to install wattles. What are wattles, you ask? They are 20 foot long mesh tubes filled with hay. They come on pallets rolled up so they look like cinnamon rolls. To install them, you unroll them and put them in kind of a U shape along the creek, with the ends pointing away from the creek. It is fairly hilly in most places along the creek, so the wattles catch whatever dirt and stuff might be falling down the hill and into the creek and promotes new growth. When you have in where you want it, you hammer in a few wood stakes to hold it to the ground. Yes, there were several vampire slayer jokes with the stakes. The work isn’t hard, but carrying the wattles to where they needed to go was pretty unpleasant. They’re heavier than they seem like they should be. It was also really windy that day and straw was flying everywhere. Everyone had straw in every pocket of their clothes as well as sometimes in their hair and mouth. Gross. We had to do this in several places along the creek, and as usual, we finished before they expected us to. The last day of the week, since we had finished everything else, we had a pretty silly assignment. We were sent to some private property to fix the wattles the forest service had installed there about a year ago. A lot of people who own land along the creek are cooperating with the BLM’s mission to fix the creek, but only if they don’t have to do any work for it. We went along the creek, which sent us into a huge cow pasture. Let me tell you, it’s pretty unnerving to have a couple hundred cows staring at you, many of whom are also mooing angrily while standing in front of their babies. It was also silly because it was pretty much a job for one person, but there were 11 of us (including Kim, a BLM employee who is writing her thesis on…something relating to the creek). We were split into two groups, one on each side of the creek, but it was still usually just one person doing the little work we had to do and the rest just walking along behind them.

Week 4 and 5:
Week 4 began our two weeks of trail work and brought us yet more confusion. The BLM had said from the beginning, even since they first applied to get an AmeriCorps team, that the weeks we were working on trails we would be camping because the worksite was so far from the church where we live. We planned our meals for the week thinking we would be camping. We packed up on Monday morning to camp. We got to the BLM office in the morning like always and set about finding a camping stove to borrow, and a table, and an extra water jug, and all sorts of things. We were also told that Christina would have to drive back into town every day to get more water for us because there wasn’t a water supply where we would be camping. Then, as Jess and I were going with Steve to find more equipment, he said something about how we could drive back into town to take a shower every day if we wanted to. We said we probably wouldn’t because it was so far, and he informed us that it was only about 20 minutes away. We told everyone else and we all decided that it was way too much trouble to camp when we were so close to town. Ridiculous.

Anyway, these two weeks we were either working on trails with Jake and Jimmy or working on fixing up a campsite with Dario and the Southwest Conservation Corps. We alternated and were split into different groups most of the past two weeks. The first day we did trail work was not much fun for me. Jake and Jimmy were really fun to work with. Jake is 19 and Jimmy is 21, so it was nice to be with other people our age. They’re both pretty funny. The bad part was that the plan for the day was pretty much just to hike this eight-mile trail, each carrying a different tool, and fix anything that needs fixing along the way. We stayed together as a group the whole time. Most of the things that needed fixing were just things like a tree fallen across the trail, or some big loose rocks in the trail, or some plants that are growing into the trail too much. None of these things take 12 people to fix. What ended up happening is that the 3-5 people in the front of the group who would see the problem first would fix it, and the people in the back of the group would stand there. As usual, just like in Big Bend, I was toward the back of the group. I got a lot better (and by better, I mean faster) at hiking by the end of Big Bend, but I’m still a pretty slow hiker compared to a lot of people. Especially going uphill at an altitude of probably like 9,000 feet. I spent most of the day being like fourth from the back. Literally, the only actual work I did that day was this: There was a little section where Becky and Tomm used McClouds to chop out some grass in the trail and I used my flat shovel to smooth the dirt out again. Also, later, there was a random hole in the trail that needed to be filled because horses go on that trail a lot. Other people filled it with dirt, and I used a tamping bar to pack the dirt in. That’s it. That’s all the work I did all day besides just hiking up hills. That is not really my idea of a good day of work.

The day after that, Jake and Jimmy had to be in some kind of training all day, so we were sent to the Buffalo Creek campsite to work with the Southwest Conservation Corps. Most of us were kind of excited to be meeting more people our age. We’ve been really wanting to hang out with other people lately. We hadn’t seen people much since Memorial Day. The BLM people we had hung out with before were mostly the fire management guys, and they have been away a lot on fires and working a lot of weekends. We had been determined to make them our friends, but that’s difficult when they not around and we can’t see them. Anyway, we looked forward to the chance to meet more people. The SCC group was pretty cool once we got to know them a bit better. They had four guys and four girls. I think I ended up working with them more than anyone else did (most of the rest of the team really liked the trail work, but I’m kind of burnt out on it, so I think each time there was a campsite group I was on it) and started really liking most of them. Their program is only like a month long and they came about halfway through our stay here, so I think we’ll be leaving at about the same time.

On Monday of Week 5, Rob and I were the only ones from our team to be working at the campsite. After meeting at the BLM office at 7 like always, we were told we could go ahead and leave because Dario and Aaron, the BLM people in charge of the project, were already there. We arrived at the campsite at about 8 only to find the gate locked. We called Christina and asked her to radio someone and she told us that Heather (not our Heather, a Heather who works for the BLM) had just left the office and would be there in about half an hour. So we waited. While we were waiting, someone drove up. We found out that his name was Calvin and that he was there to take away old picnic tables, but he didn’t have a key for the gate. So we all waited. Luckily I had brought my book along and read for a bit while Rob took a nap, then I decided to take a nap also. Finally, at about 9:30, Dario and Aaron showed up. So we got to start the day with a nice long nap in the truck. When we got in and joined the SCC group, they asked us if we were having fajitas with them. We asked what they were talking about, and they said that Dario had said he would make fajitas for them for lunch that day. We said we would love to have some if there was enough, but if not we had brought our lunches like usual. (Brief tangent: Sometime in the past couple weeks, Steve invited us to his house for breakfast. It turned out to be a cookout breakfast for a bunch of people in the BLM, including us. Steve had a campfire set up outside of his house with a thing the BLM loves to use that is like a wok with legs attached to stand it over a fire. So we got to Steve’s house and Dario was at the fire with a wok full of potatoes and onions. Then Steve and other BLM employees brought out scrambled eggs, tortillas, cheese, and everything else needed to make breakfast burritos. Oh my goodness, it was delicious. End tangent.) So when lunchtime rolled around that day, it turned out that the county commissioners or someone important like that was in the area to look at noxious weeds or something, so the BLM had a huge cookout lunch for them, lots of BLM people, and the SCC. They graciously let us have some. There was one camping wok full of potatoes and onions, another full of chicken with red, green, orange, and yellow peppers, and a third wok for warming up tortillas, some of which were homemade. I had one regular sized one and one small one. It was SO GOOD. The only bad part of the day was the hail we got after lunch, but it didn’t last long.

Also, on Thursday of Week 5, we had some horsemanship training with Gerard. This coming week (the week of 6/21 through 6/24), they’re going to let us ride horses a little, but we needed to have training before they would let us. Horses have always kind of freaked me out. They’re so big, and so powerful, and fairly unpredictable. Even just going near them without a fence between us makes me kind of nervous. During the training, everyone had to take a turn doing several different things. We had to go into the corral and “catch” a horse (put a halter with a lead rope on them), lead it out of the corral, then back in. We had to brush a horse and pick up one of its feet to clean out the hooves. We had to attempt to put a saddle on a horse. Goodness, that was hard. I was the only one who couldn’t do it. Saddles are freaking heavy and really awkward, and horses are tall. Gerard showed us his way where you can use the saddle’s weight as momentum and kind of spin as you fling it upward, kind of like a shot put. When he did it (and he’s a few inches shorter than I am), it just floated right up there. I tried three times. The third time I came close, but I pretty much just flung the saddle at the side of the horse each time. After that, we had to take a horse into a round pen and make the horse run in a circle in both directions. Then we had to do the “pivot exercise.” You hold the halter rope right under the horse’s chin with one hand and put the other hand on their neck. You push the rope and pull the neck to make the horse turn in a circle, being careful not to let it step on your feet. I didn’t do so well at either of the round pen things, but oh well. We can’t all be good at everything. At least by the end of the day I felt much more comfortable being near horses.

Earlier that day, we were sent to go pick up some old fence posts from near Great Sand Dunes National Park. We were told that we could go pick them up, then just hang out in the park for like an hour before bringing the posts back to the BLM office. What actually happened is that we drove around the dirt roads by the park for about two and a half hours, trying to find the posts. We had a map, but apparently some roads on the map didn’t actually exist. Half the team was in our cargo truck and the other half (including me) was in a BLM truck. We couldn’t take our van because we would be driving through sand and they didn’t think Gertrude could make it. In the process of one of the many U-turns we had to make, Alex, who was driving the cargo truck, got it stuck in the sand. (Tangent: Have I mentioned Alex yet? Due to some bureaucratic silliness, Marquis from my regular team and Alex, who was on Sun 5, switched teams. So with the addition of Alex, and without Marquis and Lindsey who’s foot is still broken, our team is rather different. I miss Lindsey and Marquis, but the addition of Alex hasn’t been bad.) We had to tie the cargo to the BLM truck to kind of tow it out after several unsuccessful attempts at pushing it out. So silly. We finally found the posts after so long of driving around then it only took about 20 minutes to load the posts. So silly.

I would now like to write about possibly the worst movie I have ever seen. When we make the great hour-long pilgrimage to Wal-Mart, Tomm likes to get movies. A few times, he’s gotten those things that are like a four-pack for $5. You can guess at the quality of these movies. So a few nights ago, we watched one of his new purchases, a gem of a film entitled Raging Sharks. (I suppose it’s only fair to mention, spoiler alert.) We put the movie in, and the first thing that happens is that there are aliens who send a capsule thing down into the ocean. Are we really watching a movie called Raging Sharks? We then meet the crew working on a deep sea lab, led by a doctor and his wife. They found some weird red crystals that the resident scientist says are like nothing else on the planet. Oh yeah, and there are a bunch of killer sharks. Raging sharks, if you will. When they attack the lab, we see the exact same shot of a shark biting some kind of pipe THREE TIMES. Literally, the same shot. After each time, it cuts to the interior of the lab and some lights flicker. (The movie was also full of stock footage. We saw the same generic shots of sharks swimming around, a boat bobbing along the waves, and a submarine too many times to count.) There are also a couple more scenes of shark attacks, and then sharks are never seen again. The majority of the movie is not about sharks at all. There was a guy there who we were told was with some kind of agency, checking up on the lab and making sure everything was up to code or whatever. After that shark attack on the lab, they call a nearby submarine to come help them. The sub captain says they’ll be there in 35 minutes, but the doctor in the lab says they only have 20 minutes of oxygen left. They decide to go outside the lab to try to fix it, despite the raging sharks, but it somehow breaks more. Now they only have 10 minutes of oxygen, they say. Now we find out that the guy checking up on them is actually with the “black ops” and has been sent to kill them all because they are finding out about the red crystals, which the government wants to keep secret. He kills everyone in the lab but the doctor and his wife. How convenient. Half an hour after they said they only had 10 minutes of oxygen left, they manage to kill the black ops guy. After 40 minutes, they’re starting to get a little woozy. The wife falls unconscious. With fires burning all over the lab, sucking up the oxygen that was supposed to run out 30 minutes ago. The sub gets there and believes that everyone in the lab is dead so they sail away. Suddenly, the aliens appear again. The doctor sees them, but his wife is unconscious and the sub is already leaving. I honestly don’t know what the aliens did, but it was probably something with the crystals. Then we suddenly see the doctor and the wife on the submarine. I think we are supposed to assume that, supposedly oxygen deprived and with his unconscious wife in tow, the doctor swam fast enough to catch up with the sub. I feel like this description does not accurately show how horrible this movie was. We were all laughing hysterically most of the time.

This past weekend (I’m writing this on 6/20) was really fun. There’s apparently a really famous whitewater festival in Salida every summer called FIBArk, pronounced exactly how it looks. Through careful research (I read it on a T-shirt I saw), I found out that it stands for First in Boating the Arkansas. Apparently the Arkansas River is really good for whitewater activities, especially the part that goes through Salida. They have this festival every year with all kinds of rafting competitions, a fair, and live music. Both Friday and Saturday, we got there at about 4 or 5. We watched whatever competition that was happening then had dinner. Heather, Jess, Michala, and I all went to this one pub for dinner on Friday. It was SO delicious. Heather and I both had veggie sandwiches that came with cucumbers, lettuce, red onions, sprouts, cream cheese, and guacamole, all on some delicious toasted wheat bread. We also got to sit outside on the patio. We decided that we wanted to come back for dinner on Saturday, variety be darned. Saturday we were joined by Becky and also Jimmy from the BLM, with whom we managed to meet up. It was just as delicious as the first time. So both nights, we finished the awesome dinner right around the time the music started. Friday it was an electronic band called BoomBox, and Saturday it was a bluegrass band called Hot Buttered Rum. They were both pretty good. Why have I never discovered electronic concerts? They were so much fun to dance to. Most of us danced till the music was over. Friday night we just went home after the music, but Saturday some of us wanted to stay out. Heather, Jess, and I went to a bar with Jimmy and Will, one of the fire guys we ran into after the concert, while the others went home (Will gave us a ride home since he lives about three blocks from us). We got a little more dancing in there. It was a really fun weekend.

And now the blog is only a week away from the present! I'm so close!

Current Project!

Transition week in Denver was, well, transition week. Full of silly meetings and obligations. The whole week is either free time or wasted time. But oh well. The best part was that I left on Friday to go to my brother Carl’s graduation in Lafayette, LA. My flight was supposed to leave at about noon to go to Dallas then on to Lafayette. When I got to the airport to check in, the lady asked me what time my flight left. I told her noon, and she said “Well your flight is still showing on time, but every other flight to Dallas before yours has been cancelled. There are bad storms in Dallas.” Awesome. I got to my gate which was super crowded with all those people who were supposed to go to Dallas earlier on cancelled flights. My flight time got pushed back an hour, then another hour, then another hour, then the gate attendants just said that they didn’t even know if it would be able to leave at all that day. Awesome. I waited in the line to talk to a gate person for about an hour. I talked to the people in line around me. It sounded like a lot of people were trying to get to graduations that weekend. By the time I got to the front of the line, my flight from Dallas to Lafayette had been cancelled. Brief tangent: Why are people rude to people who can give them something they want? The poor woman at the desk looked completely frazzled. I even heard people being rude to her when I was nearing the front. That’s usually not a good way to get what you want, people. It’s not her fault that there are storms and the planes can’t fly. Anyway, I was as polite to her as I could be and smiled as much as possible. She booked me on the last seat on the only other flight to Lafayette that day, which left at like 7:30 and printed out a boarding pass for me. She also booked me on a flight from Denver to New Orleans the next morning in case I couldn’t get out of Denver that night. (The plan for graduation was to go to the ceremony in Lafayette on Saturday early afternoon then everyone drive the two hours to New Orleans to celebrate. So I would miss the ceremony but get to meet them in New Orleans for the celebration, which is really the most important part anyway.) Luckily, my flight finally left Denver at about 5:45. I didn’t really know what I would do though, because I wouldn’t land in Dallas until like 8:30, which is obviously too late for that connecting flight to Lafayette. Oh well, I got on the plane anyway. When I landed in Dallas I got myself to the gate listed on my boarding pass as fast as my gimpy foot could take me. (About a week before I left Big Bend, my right foot started hurting. I think it was a stress fracture, even though an X-Ray didn’t show one. They don’t always show up on X-Rays, and I’ve had stress fractures in that foot before. Stupid foot.) When I got to the gate, it was empty. I stood for a second wondering what to do. At the next gate over were a female gate attendant in uniform and a guy wearing jeans and a flannel shirt behind the counter looking intently at the computer. I went and stood patiently at the desk while they determinedly ignored me. The woman left without ever talking to me. The guy told me he didn’t work there, but he could help if I just needed something looked up on the computer. Um. Ok. I showed him my boarding pass and asked if that flight was horribly late like I was hoping for it to be. He looked it up and said it was just about to start boarding like four gates away from where I was right then. Amazing! I called my family, who I had been updating on my transportation issues, on my almost-dead phone and told them I was about to get on a plane and to pick me up at 10:30. It was pretty much a miracle that I got to Lafayette that night. There was someone on that flight who I overheard saying he was glad the flight left because he was going to the UL-Lafayette graduation tomorrow. I turned and said that’s where I was going, and he asked what time mine was. I said noon and he said his was at 3:00. I forgot about big schools and their multiple graduations.

That was a really fun weekend. I was really looking forward to meeting Nikki, Carl’s girlfriend. We didn’t do much after I got there because it was so late, but I’m so glad I got there in time. The ceremony wasn’t as long and boring as graduations usually are. My aunt and cousin from Memphis came to the ceremony as well as Greg, one of Carl’s friends from high school (my parents were there too, obviously). Then I got to see Carl’s apartment and go to my first sushi restaurant. Then I got to drive through the worst rain of my life to New Orleans. We went to the hotel in New Orleans we were all staying at and ordered pizza before heading to the French Quarter. It was pretty nice to be back in New Orleans after spending two months there. Several more of Carl’s friends met up with us there, including Andy, another high school friend. I had a great time with all of them. The next day, most people wanted to go to Café Du Monde. Due to leaving the hotel later than intended, getting a bit lost on the way there, and having to park far away, we didn’t have time to get there in time to enjoy it before someone would have to take me to the airport to go back to Denver. Everyone was hungry so we needed to find somewhere to eat nearby. I am quite proud of the fact that I remembered a quick Mexican place we went to a few times when I was there for my project called Filipe’s that I was pretty sure was only like two blocks from where we were standing. I was right! Everyone loved it. Perfect ending to the weekend.

And that brings us (finally!) to my current project. It is with the San Luis Valley Public Lands Center in Saguache (pronounced sa-WATCH), CO, which is the valley between the Rockies and the Sangre de Cristo mountains. We’re also working with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the US Forest Service. I’m not sure how all these organizations are connected, but they all seem to be coming from the same office. Saguache has a population of about 500 people. We live in a church. Actually, I think the building where we live used to be the church, but the church is now next door. This building has become more like a house. There’s a big room that used to be the sanctuary (which is where we all sleep on the floor with sleeping pads – yes, the pews have been removed), a pretty decent kitchen, and a little living room with a couch, two loveseats, and a TV complete with a VCR. There’s also a bedroom with two twin beds. At the beginning of the project, we said we would rotate who gets the beds. Tomm and TK took them first, and I think no one really cares enough to get the beds for themselves. It’s really not bad at all. Even the part where we all sleep in the same room isn’t that bad. And the town is so small we can walk everywhere we want to go. The grocery store and the only bar/restaurant are both less than a block away. The movie theater and used bookstore are about three blocks away. The park and the public library (which has the only wireless internet in town that we know of) are six blocks away. The BLM office is only about a mile away, and it has a little workout room we can use. I can’t even tell you how nice it is to be able to walk everywhere. Corps Members aren’t allowed to drive the vans alone, so it’s pretty much impossible to go anywhere by yourself. You have to find at least one other person to ride with you, but usually it’s several people, so you all have to agree on a time to leave, and usually someone isn’t ready when you agreed to be (I’ve been that person myself, but it’s still annoying), and then you have to be at the place until everyone is ready to go, etc. etc. etc. Don’t get me wrong, I got used to all that a long time ago, and it’s really not as big a deal as I just made it sound. But now, for our last project, it’s really nice to have more independence. I can walk to the library when I want. I can walk to the gym when I want. I can walk across the street to the store and just grab a snack if I want. It’s wonderful!

Also, Steve, our sponsor, is the most enthusiastic sponsor ever. He is SO excited to have us here. He keeps offering us things like fishing lessons, extra sleeping pads, air mattresses, coats (we didn’t bring our because you know, it’s summer, but it was colder here than we were expecting), etc. He even offered to let us come to his house to play with his dogs if we wanted. It’s kind of amusing, but he’s really nice.

So now on to the project itself. The BLM (or whatever organization we actually work with) has divided our time so that we’ll be working on a different project with a different supervisor in and around Saguache almost every week. I’ll do my best to catch up with what we’ve already done. (In case you were wondering, the way I was able to write in so much detail about each day of Big Bend is that I was writing in a paper journal while I was there since I couldn’t use a computer much. I haven’t been doing that here so far. Oops.)

Week 1:
Our first project was for the Town of Saguache. The town has recently purchased a large plot of land from a private owner. Their plan is to eventually build like a recreation center kind of place for the local youth. However, the previous owner seems to have used the land as their own personal junk yard. But not just any junk yard. It’s the biggest Crap Pile this side of the Mississippi. The town has already removed tens of thousands of tires, yet there were still at least a few hundred more in the Crap Pile. There were old appliances, toys, tools, books, and unrecognizable broken things. You name it, the Crap Pile has it. I think the Crap Pile was about a square mile or so. At least, that’s about the size of the land we worked on. Our job was to put all the metal in piles to be recycled, put all the wood in piles to be burned, put the trash in the dumpster, and put aside things that could potentially be sold. We did all of this as well as filling a dump truck two or three times after we had filled the dumpster. We did it all with the help of Charles, the 19-year-old BLM summer worker who has an obnoxiously smug expression on his face all the time, is mildly incompetent, and has told us multiple times about his involvement with the Air Force ROTC. This project wasn’t all that terrible, but it was pretty darn boring. And with a Crap Pile that big, it took a while before we really saw any results.

In the middle of that week, we were invited to a sloppy joe dinner at the Baptist church in town. We all went because we wanted to meet people. They were all really nice, as could be expected.

Matt, a guy working with the BLM through AmeriCorps VISTA, worked with us one day. That weekend, Matt invited us to his house (conveniently right down the street from our house) for a party. There were several other BLM people there. It was a little awkward, but it was nice to meet a few other people in town so soon after getting there.

That first weekend we also went to the Great Sand Dunes National Park which is about an hour and a half away. I didn’t even know about it until I found out I was coming here for my next project and someone told me, but there are huge sand dunes in the middle of Colorado. It has something to do with all the mountains everywhere and the stream that runs through it, but I don’t remember the details. The day we went, the weather forecast was calling for (unbeknownst to us) winds of 50 mph with gusts up to 70 mph. Oh my goodness, it was windy. The dunes were really cool, and the ranger leading the tour we went on was really good, but it’s really hard to pay attention to much when sand is hitting your entire body like thousands of tiny knives. It was pretty painful for most of the time we were there. It was also pretty chilly, especially with that strong wind. Luckily I had a sweatshirt on which protected my arms, kept my hair from getting blown around with the hood up, and kept sand from getting in my ears like it did to everyone else. Unluckily, I was wearing shorts. Thousands of tiny knives. After the tour, we started to climb the dunes, but it was so cold and so painful that most of us didn’t make it to the top. Despite the thousands of tiny knives, I’m glad I got to see the dunes.

Week 2:
The second week we were working with Mark. Not only does he work with the BLM, he is also the pastor of the Baptist church where we went to that dinner last week. We were working in Saguache Park, which is like an hour and a half from Saguache. (Gold star to whoever can figure that one out.) Since it’s so far, they arranged for us to stay at Stone Cellar, a cabin in Saguache Park. I think the cabin is owned by the BLM (or one of those other organizations) for its employees to stay at when they have to work up there. The cabin had only a pump leading to a well in the backyard for water. There was a modern outhouse for a bathroom. There was no electricity in the cabin. There was a propane stove and a few weak propane lights. The elevation of Saguache is about 7,700 feet (yep, this is a valley and it’s that high up) but Saguache Park is closer to 10,000 feet. Our job was to repair a whole bunch of barbed wire fencing. Mark, who has been dealing with barbed wire for a few decades, said it’s way easier to just build a new fence than to repair an old one. Woo hoo. I’ll never look at a barbed (or barbless) wire fence the same way again. The next time you see one, you’ll notice that there will be wood or metal posts fairly close together along the fence, but then every once in a while you’ll see bigger wood posts in a sort of H configuration with wire going in an X across it. This is appropriately called an H-brace. It is used to pull the wire from to make it tight. Our fences used metal posts, not wood ones. The metal posts have little protuberances (yes, I’m pleased with myself for the use of that word) that the wire can sit on. You then take a piece of regular wire and wrap it around your barbed wire on either side of the metal post to hold it onto the protuberance. To do this, you use fencing pliers. Fencing pliers are supposed to be able to do everything you need to do on a wire fence. There’s the part with the pliers, of course. There’s also a nook on the side where you can cut wire. There’s also a blunt side you can use as a hammer (when you use wood posts, you use metal staples to hold the wire onto it that need to be hammered in). There’s a pointy side opposite the hammer part that you can use to remove those staples from the wood posts. It’s supposed to be the miracle all-in-one fencing tool. Since I'm in a coffee shop in Hippietown (AKA Salida) right now, not the Saguache Public Library which seems to hate pictures, I've taken the liberty of Google Imaging a picture of this so-called miracle tool:
In reality, it’s the most useless tool I’ve ever used in my life. Most regular pliers are kind of curved so it’s easier to grasp curved objects, right? Fencing pliers have a curved part, but it forms a circle that is bigger than the wire. Thus, when you try to grab some wire, you have to grab it at an angle or else the wire will just slip right through that hold. The “hammer” part is pretty wimpy. You can’t actually hammer in one of these giant staples with that silly thing. You still need a regular hammer. The wire cutter part is ok I guess, but the times I cut wire with it, it was really difficult. Pretty much the only good part of that awful tool is the pointy end. If you need to take out one of those giant staples, the best way is to put the pointy end under the staple and hammer the point farther under with a regular hammer. I consider myself fairly good at using tools and doing things with my hands, but I would get so frustrated trying to wrap the regular wire around the barbed wire to clip it to the post. There was even a time when I was working alongside Rob putting those clips on. We were just going along the fence together, passing each other when we finished one. At one point, he finished FOUR posts in the time it took me to do ONE. And this was at the end of the week after I had gotten a bit better at it. Most of you know how frustrated I get when there’s something I can’t do. Urg.

Was the weekend after that Memorial Day weekend? It might have been. I’m too lazy right now to get up and look at a calendar. Let’s just pretend that it was, shall we? Memorial Day weekend was really fun. On Friday (we don’t work Fridays because we work ten hour days Monday through Thursday) there were auditions for a children’s play that the San Luis Theatre Company is putting on. Heather, Becky, Jess, and I all went. We all actually really wanted to audition (the add in the newspaper for the audition said it was open to children ages 9-90) but the performance isn’t until August, so AmeriCorps will be over by then and we’ll all be at home. But we decided to go to the audition anyway just to meet the director and whoever else and see if we could help with the set or anything. There were only a few kids there, so the director (a really friendly woman named Virginia) said we could stay and play if we want. Um, of course we want. The audition only consisted of all of us sitting in a circle with scripts. Virginia randomly assigned parts to everyone and we just read through parts of the script. It was fun. The play seems pretty cute. It’s called Doc Doc Goose. It’s about Dr. Goose (as opposed to Mother Goose) who runs a clinic in Nurseryland. A bunch of different nursery rhyme characters come in to get treated for various physical ailments, like Jack B. Nimble coming in to get treated for burns he got jumping over a candle while practicing to be a stunt man. That sort of thing. The play seems pretty cute and we’re all sad we can’t be there for the performance. Oh well.

On Saturday, there was a Blow Out Book Sale to benefit the public library. It started at 9am. Books were $0.25 each or a grocery bag full for $3.00. One time earlier in the week when I had been in the library, I overheard a rather incriminating conversation. One of the librarians asked the other who was working the book sale for the first shift. When Librarian #2 told her who, Librarian #1 said "Oh, good, so she'll be there early. I'll get there a little before 9 to try to find something good." You think you can play that game and get away with it, do you Librarian #1? I immediately resolved to get there a little before 9 as well. As it turned out, I only found 6 books that I had even the slightest bit of interest reading, but I still felt triumphant in not letting the librarian beat me.

After that, Heather, Becky, Tomm, Michala, and I went to the Saguache Memorial Day parade. It was, well, pretty sad. Especially since Alton’s parades are always such a production, and that’s the only M. Day parade I’ve ever been to. There weren’t many floats and there wasn’t any music whatsoever. It was the quietest parade ever. We still had fun though. We had long ago realized that we are far more enthusiastic about Saguache events than people who actually live here are.

After the parade we went to the fair at the park. There was some pretty decent live music and vendors set up. It was fun. We mostly just sat around in the park and listened to music. Later that afternoon was a Vaudeville variety show featuring all local talent. Some of the talent was more talented than others, but that’s to be expected. We all had a great time. I think the best one was The Amazing Greg, who was listed as doing a magic routine. It turned out to be him doing ridiculously fake magic tricks but it was hilarious.

Sunday was the annual grand opening of the Saguache Museum. No, I don’t know why it closes every year. It probably just closes in the winter when there aren’t that many people around. Pretty much all they had at the outdoor part of the grand opening (which was the only part you could get to without paying admission) was a barbeque, some homemade ice cream, and a woman demonstrating making soap the old fashioned way. The soap part was fairly interesting but that’s about all it had going for it. No one minded that the afternoon was kind of lame because that night was the main event. It was a performance by the Salida Starlettes. (Salida is one of the nearest “big” towns, about an hour away from Saguache.) Who would have thought that Salida would have a Burlesque troupe? Not me. Most of us went to the show and it was really good. Some of those women were really talented. What a weekend. I don’t think any of us expected Saguache to have so much to offer.