Life of a Desert Rat

Sorry for the delay folks, life has been quite a whirlwind since leaving Alaska.

I will go back to the beginning of my California adventure that started promptly after leaving Anchorage.

My second group of kids was a whole new adventure. The whole thing started with a few crazy coincidences: for starters, my coleader graduated from Montgomery Blair High School in 2006, we then continued onto Reno where I camped with someone who graduated from Blair in 2006 as well, and halfway through the summer, I was in a coffee shop planning our rec trip and we ran into one of my coleader's friends from Blair (class of '06 as well). Never before have I met so many Blair grads in one location so far away from home. That story aside...

I was actually working somewhere close to where I had been in my childhood, which was a new experience for me. I certainly enjoyed returning to an old stomping ground as an adult and share the beautiful area with a new group of students. Our work was disorganized to a point where I worried a little about their interest in continuing with trail work, but at the end of the summer, each one said to me that they couldn't wait to do more with SCA, so I suppose my mission was accomplished! With temperatures between 100 and 115 and mundane work, crew morale was a little bit difficult to keep up. But somehow we managed as a crew to truly enjoy our time together in this space. 

Some of our work involved a lot of fence repair

We spent one off day in Bodie Ghost Town, which was a whole new experience for a group of east coasters, and the next off day recovering from some dehydration and heat stroke issues. I would say my second crew more challenged my patience, risk management/response, and leadership abilities (and I say that with gratefulness, not bitterness), I was truly pushed by my California crew, but all in the ways to allow me to grow as a leader and an educator. 

I am officially hanging up my white hat (for now at least) and writing this from Maine...which I will save for a later post.

Hiking during our recreation trip in Yosemite

Conditions made having a fire hard, but we did give them one night of "camping"

Last night supper with their 2 "moms"

Their smiles are contagious, and both crews have me seriously considering teaching