Leaving Kansas and the Biggest Sky...

That's right everyone!

It's finally time for Fire Two to leave Kansas and head on back to Denver for a final week of meetings, packing, friends, closing up, and fun!

Things have been much better here lately.  It could be because we're all excited to go back to Denver and then to graduate (and I'm excited for a break and to see family and friends).  Whatever it is, I'm loving it and I'm really enjoying this final time with my Fire Two family.

We've closed up all our loose odds and ends on the property, finished nature camp with a bang by having a big party/bbq/field day (complete with dish soap slip and slide), and had some final meetings with site supervisors.  My team activity was today and we did some team building activities on the ropes course followed by one of my favorite group closing activities.  Tomorrow we head to the course for some high ropes elements, followed by a lunch with staff, cleaning, packing, team dinner, and a quick trip to the store for some spike travel food.

We found out today that (due to hotels being full and us being SO close to Denver) that we got approval to drive a little further than in normally allowed so that we'll get back into Denver in 1 day.  So by Wednesday night I'll be back on campus in my "own bed" and can see some people I've really been missing!.

Thursday should hold some fun team time and a team dinner, and Friday there are some meetings before the weekend.  The transition week schedule has lots of fun things lined up and I'm planning on a post covering them when they're over.

For now, it's cleaning and packing for me as I get excited to finish this AmeriCorps NCCC adventure, take a little break, and start another year as TL.

Check back later for a Denver recap.

Shine On,

Christine

The Trials of Topeka

Hello friends!

I sit here, halfway through my final project as an AmeriCorps NCCC member, and there are so many feelings going on.  It's crazy to think that in 5 weeks time I'll be back in Denver for one final week of meetings and fun with all of the amazing people I have come to call my ameri-friends.  It's even more crazy to think that I'll be back to Denver about a month later to start Team Leader Training on September 4.

Erick and I are planning a week road trip from NJ out to Denver and I'm getting really excited not only for that but to get home and see my family and friends I haven't seen since Christmas (or longer!)  I'm ready for some R and R, family time, home cooked food, playing with my dog, and enjoying some summer time in Burlington too.

Our time in Topeka has been a bit challenging so far, though I can't complain TOO much.  The project has come with a lot of ups and downs, largly in part to the fact that we're the first AmeriCorps team on the project.  On my side of things, however, I get a good amount of variety.  2 or 3 days per week I get to help run the nature club programming for the youth.  We get to do activities with them and take them out to places like museums, the beach, or to volunteer.  I know it's been tough for everyone at some point, but I think we're a great team to be here breaking this project in.

This week, 4 of my teammates and I are taking a group of the youth campus for 3 days.  I'm a bit anxious but still excited and think we will have a fun time and it'll be a nice break from the usual activities of the project.

Speaking of projects, my sponsors from last round, The Grand Canyon Trust, recently put out a video starring yours truly and some of my shuffle round teammates.  It's about getting young people to care about and volunteer in environmental conservation.  See it here:




I think that's all from the great state of Kansas for now.  Stay cool out there, it's HOT in the sunflower state.

"People are capable, at any time in their lives, of doing what they dream of" Paulo Coehlo


-Christine

Sometimes you gotta get to Kansas

Hello friends!

It's been much too long since an update from my adventures, and I do apologize!  I write to you from my living room in a gorgeous house in Topeka, Kansas that I currently call home.  I will be here until July 19th and I think I'm finally settling in.

The team is here this summer working for an organization called The Villages, Inc.  They are a large group-home style community dedicated to housing and helping juvenile offenders while also promoting outdoor exploration and nature education.  We are here to complete a variety of tasks including property maintenance, trail construction, various building projects, invasive species removal, and running the summer youth programming (I'm one of 4 people doing that!).  

So far Topeka has been lovely and we're slowly discovering what there is to do and see in the capitol city.  The hardest part about the project so far is the weather.  We're in the mid-west now, which means a lot more heat and humidity than Arizona or Colorado.  Still, when it's temperate it's absolutely gorgeous, and I've been running a lot (sort of training for a 1/2 marathon) and doing the Insanity workout plan, which is tough!

In the near future?  We're going to the zoo today, have off tomorrow for memorial day, and are heading to Kansas City for a concert next weekend.  I'll also be attending a ropes course/team building facilitators training that weekend too, just before we start up with the youth programming.  

With only 9 weeks left before I return home to NJ, I can't believe how quickly my time has gone, but I'm also starting to itch for a reunion with my family and friends.  The big news?  I've accepted an offer to return to Denver at the beginning of September for another 11 months with NCCC as a Team Leader!  I'm SO excited about this opportunity, though it is bittersweet to be away for so long.  Erick and I are planning a week-long road trip from NJ to Denver in my car and I'm very excited about that.  Then it'll be applying to schools and working as a TL until I figure out my next move.  I think I've got just enough planned to be satisfied.  

That's all from me for now.  We've got great accommodations here, including internet, so hopefully I'll be more regular up here again. 

Carpe Diem!

-Christine

Living the Mission

Hello all,

I wanted to share with you my blog post that I've written for the Grand Canyon Trust this week. We were all asked to write about something we've learned or something that we will take with us from this project. Here it is, enjoy!

“I’m so jealous, you get to go to the Grand Canyon.” These were the words repeated to me over and over again as I prepared for a two-month stint in Northern Arizona with the Grand Canyon Trust. “It’s not the ACTUAL Grand Canyon,” would be my constant reply, trying to help my fellow corps members understand that I wasn’t about to spend my eight weeks along the Colorado River with amazing cliff views and breathtaking night skies. What the Grand Canyon Trust actually was, I had no idea at the time, so imagine my surprise as I found myself under a spectacular sky of stars after our 15 passenger van crossed over the Colorado river and drove past the towering Vermillion Cliffs. No, this was not the Grand Canyon, it was the Colorado Plateau, spanning four states and including one of the world’s natural wonders with so much more.

My first impression of Kane Ranch was that I must have been in volunteer heaven. I was fed delicious food morning, noon, and night during orientation. The ranch was an adorably cozy home with a real dining room table, perfect sized kitchen, beds, and room to sleep outside. As a long term volunteer, these were luxury items. Soon I began to realize what other commonplace things would become luxury items as well: electricity, hot water, ANY water, warmth, light, internet. I learned how to wash dishes without running the water at all, how to shower quickly enough that there would be hot water for 9 showers after mine, and how to limit my cell phone usage so that I wouldn’t have to use too much electricity to charge my battery. I wrote letters, bundled up, and put some new batteries in my headlamp.

The adjustment to this conservative way of life was not nearly as difficult as I expected. In fact, I found myself appreciating the amazing surroundings and the simplicity of life in the House Rock Valley. Little did I know, the Grand Canyon Trust was working its mission statement into not only my volunteer efforts, but into my way of life.

The mission of the Grand Canyon Trust is “to protect the Colorado Plateau – its spectacular landscapes, flowing rivers, clean air, diversity of plants and animals, and areas of beauty and solitude.”

There I was, only a few days into my time volunteering with the trust, and I was falling in love with the beauty and solitude of my worksite, waking up to the landscape every day and being thankful that places like the House Rock Valley still existed for me to visit.

I could have easily been fed facts including the size of the Colorado Plateau, the types of plant and animal species living in the area, and the threats to the region…and I was. The thing is, I was also experiencing this area firsthand. Eventually I would restore fencing for one of the fastest land animals in North America, hike down the Paria River and drink from a natural spring, remove invasive tamarisk to make room for willow, learn about the coal-fired power plant on the Navajo Reservation, and much more. Landscapes, rivers, air, plants, animals, beauty, solitude.

I have worked with a large handful of non-profits and never have I lived out a mission statement so fully in my work and daily life. The Grand Canyon Trust values volunteers not only as workers, but as stewards, continuing the appreciation of and passion for the beautiful land we live on.

My work with the Trust has changed the way I see the world around me. If that’s too cheesy for you, suffice it to say that the Trust has changed the way I live my work. It is this passion for all parts of work that I will take with me when I leave Northern Arizona and continue my adventures. Not only will I continue my love for this area, but I will also try to truly live the mission of those I work with next.

Ghandi was right when he said we should be the change in the world. My only addendum would be that we should truly live the change in every aspect of our work and life.

-Christine

Tumble On

Hello helloooooo!

I'm posting from a lovely little coffee shop in downtown Flagstaff, where most of my team is spending our AmeriCorps NCCC spring break. And let me tell you, it feels nice to do some relaxing in civilization.

We returned Tuesday, a day early, from our AMAZING experience in the Paria Canyon. Only 5 of us went, including my team leader, and it was both weird and nice to have a smaller group working on the project. While in the canyon, our job was to continue working to eradicate tamarisk along the Paria River's benches. Tamarisk is an invasive plant species that is not only very hard to get rid of, but it also takes all the water and such from native plants such as the willow, and pushes them out of the riparian ecosystem. Removing tamarisk will allow plants like the willow to flourish.

Our group hiked into the canyon the day after my birthday (on which we slept under the stars at the trailhead). It was a long hike (12 miles!) with heavy packs (or so we thought) but we made it to the Big Spring campsite before dark, setting up camp and collapsing until the next morning. The coolest thing about Big Spring was the namesake, a natural spring from which we got all our drinking water, no filtering needed! I'd say it's one of the coolest things I've experienced in NCCC so far. Some other cool things: quicksand (lots of it), hiking in the water every day (even though it was cold in the morning!), the stars, learning how to backpack and camp, surpassing the sponsor's goals for us, and making it back out alive (despite having to carry more stuff out because we didn't have horse packers).

I can't believe how beautiful of a place I get to work in every day, but I am happy to be spending some time in the real world. I'm staying in a local hostel (everyone is so helpful!) and my teammates and I are committed to eating as much delicious food as we can while we're here.

We will be returning to the House Rock Valley on the 9th to start our next hitch on the 10th. Team team will be camping on the Paria Plateau for 7 days doing road closures. Then at some point we'll move to another ranch home to finish out the project. In other news, I've got my TL interview with Denver on the 27th, so wish me luck!

I'm excited to keep working on this project, but also to find out where I'll be going for my last 10 weeks of service from May-July, back with my original team. We should find out in a few weeks.

That's all from me for now. Keep tumbling on!

-Christine

Well they say the Grand Canyon is something to see

Hello everyone!

I’m sorry for not updating sooner about my Grand Canyon Trust adventures. We only get access to internet once a week and last week was pretty crazy, as you can imagine.

We’ve done some awesome stuff here so far, and we’ve actually finished the first and second sections, or hitches, of our project. When we got here, the first thing we did was start on our orientation hitch. Our sponsors taught us so much about the area, including the history, environment and wildlife. The area is so amazingly beautiful and our more permanent housing is nestled in a valley among cliffs and canyons and plateaus. We are living in tents but we have access to this incredibly cozy little ranch house with a great kitchen and even a dining room table!

We’ve also completed our first work hitch: pronghorn fence restoration in the House Rock Valley. The pronghorn is a small antelope that also happens to be the fastest land animal in North America. They roam the valley, but have a hard time moving around due to the barbed wire cattle fences for the free-range cattle that ranchers keep all over. Because of this, they have limited access to water and encounter challenges when trying to escape from predators. So, we spent our work hitch removing the bottom layer of barbed wire fencing and replacing it with smooth wire, which we raised to 18 inches (studies show the pronghorn move much more freely when the wire is at this height) so that the pronghorn can move comfortably under the fences without being injured. We finished about a 1.5 mile stretch of fence, so that’s pretty awesome!

As for our next adventure, we have off until Wednesday, when we are splitting up to complete two separate tamarisk removal projects. My group will be backpacking 10 miles into the Paria Canyon, a slot canyon that is supposed to be incredible. We will stay there for about 7 days before we hike out. Needless to say, we’re all so excited about this (though the days off are nice).

After the Paria Canyon hitch, we have a few days off for spring break, when my team will be heading to Flagstaff (and some people to other places from there) for some rest, relaxation, and hopefully a lot of fun and exploration! Then we’ve got a hitch of road closures with camping on the Paria Plateau, and another with some rock moving, followed by some little things before we ship back to Denver and then who knows where. It’s amazing how quickly the project is going already (and the 10 months, to be honest). But, I’ve submitted my Team Leader application and I’m hoping for an interview some time in April and (hopefully) an acceptance some time in May.

Meanwhile, I’ll be doing things like hiking a slot canyon on my 23^rd birthday (Wednesday, by the way). I don’t hate it. I’ll probably update when we’re out in flagstaff, so check back around the beginning of April. Until then, stay adventurous

-Christine

America, Bikes, Canyons, Denver

Ok, so America is a bit of a stretch, but we do get things done for America anyway...

I don’t want to write too much here and have it all get lost in the shuffle, but I thought I’d post a quick update while I can (since I won’t have internet very often on my next project). I’m getting SO pumped for this round. We leave on Monday for spike (Grand Canyon Trust!!!) and get to Marble Canyon, AZ (30 minutes from our housing) on Tuesday afternoon sometime. We’ve gotten some pretty good info about the project since we’ve been back in Denver. The team will be in cabins for the first few weeks, working a changing schedule that’s 7-8 days on and then 3-4 days off. Starting at the end of March (right before my birthday) we’ll begin our backpacking section of the project. Once a week we will be trying to get to town (which is 1 hour 15 minutes away and is in Utah!) to do laundry, get food, and have some cell and internet access. I’m apprehensive about so much…the team, the project, the conditions…but I’m also extremely excited for this incredible adventure. I’ll try to take lots and lots of photos and post them here when I can!

Second big thing I wanted to do was tell everyone about my friend Andrew Lassiter. He rocks. Legit. And starting in May he is biking 4,300 miles, from Charleston to Santa Cruz, to spread the word about affordable housing and build homes along the way. His group of 27 riders is one of 8 “Bike and Build” groups participating. He’s an amazing guy and this is a great cause, so I want to ask everyone that can to HELP HIM OUT! Every dollar donated funds a mile of his trip, which is so amazing. To donate, visit his blog at andrewlassiter.tumblr.com and click the donate button at the top. To learn more about Bike and Build, the other teams, and his bike route, check out bikeandbuild.org.

Please please support Andrew, he’s the greatest! That’s all from me, look for an update next time I get cell service!

-Christine