Mendo

Camp Mendocino was awesome! It's about a four hour drive from North Highlands in the middle of a redwood forest (which is not as legit as some of the redwood forests further north, I'm told, but it was impressive nonetheless). The road down to camp took 40 minutes to travel due to the fact that it's basically a one-lane road with a small shoulder; to say the road meanders is an understatement; and the main things to avoid (besides the sudden drop-offs along the sides) were logging trucks, which could be very unfriendly. Luckily all of our drivers are masters of the 15-passenger van and we didn't have any issues!

Once you get down there, the camp is beautiful. The Noyo River runs through it as do the “Skunk Train” railroad tracks. To see the train come through was pretty neat and it definitely reminded me of the Adirondack Railroad and it seems to have a similar purpose.

Our accommodations were nice: open-air cabins and bunk cots. It got cool at night but it was never uncomfortable.

Tuesday was spent getting acclimated and Wednesday was spent working on a service project. Each team was assigned a different project and Silver 5 was lucky enough to get the awesome task of building a rock retaining wall! The wall is going to house a raised garden that the campers will take care of and even harvest from. We collected the rocks, mixed the cement, and got to lay the rocks out. We didn't get to finish it due to the size of the task, but there was another team who finished it up for us during their stay the next week! Here are a couple of pictures from our part of the wall building:

The rest of the time was spent doing team building activities and both high- and low-ropes courses. I had never done a ropes course before and it was pretty great! The highlight was definitely the zip-line going downhill through the woods and over the creek. We also journeyed to see The Great Tree, a 15 minute walk along the railroad tracks from camp. Pictures don't really do it, or really any environment we've found ourselves in so far, justice. However...

                                                                                                         Me with The Great Tree. So big!


                                       
                                    The tree is slowly devouring the steel cable that used to hold up...


                                      
                           ...this bridge that used to cross the creek. The tree clearly won that battle.

All in all, a great four days! It was nice to get off campus for a few days and it was even better to get to be able to go somewhere so beautiful. Though I must admit, it was pretty nifty to be able to turn my phone on Friday and not see "searching for service".

No Phone

Our team leaders are not kidding when they call our little world out here the "AmeriBubble". It feels like I was in Clinton months ago but as of a week ago I hadn't even landed in Sacramento yet.

The flight out was gross. Somone (I do not know who) canceled my flight and never told me about it! So when I showed up to check in, the flight I had been switched to was just leaving. LAME PLANE. So my trip turned out to be: Syracuse to O'Hare (where I experienced a wicked long layover (which had me flashing back to when friends and I were stuck there after Midwest Conference 2008)), O'Hare to Phoenix and finally from Phoenix to Sacramento. I rolled up to McClellan Air Force Base a little after 1am local time (4am EST, for those of you keeping score at home). I wasn't too tired the next day because we got to "sleep in" til about 6:30am but it still felt like sleeping til 9:30am for me.

We've accomplished quite a bit in less than a week. We were separated into temporary, alphabetically assigned teams ("pods") and I loved both my pod (Pod 4!) and my pod leader, Vaya. Most introductory activities are done in pods so we sat through many long training sessions together: Red Cross courses like CPR, First Aid and Disaster Relief along with NCCC courses about our policies, projects, and expectations. We ate and cooked meals together, lived together, and got our uniforms together. And there was a wonderful display of pod 4 love last Saturday during the pack test.

The pack test is taken by anyone who wishes to be a part of a Fire Management Team (FMT). FMTs are AmeriCorps members who will be trained as full-fledged wildland firefighters: their main duties are responding to fires, enacting perscribed burns to clear fuel (brush, etc.) for potential fires, and burning away invasive species of plants that damage the natural forest environment. To pass the pack test you must walk (not run) 3 miles in 45 minutes while wearing a 45lb vest. All 5 people from pod 4 who took the pack test passed (myself included!) in part because of the love that Vaya, Laura, Cassie, and Danny showed us from all the cheer and sign-making/waving they did for us.

We have since broken up into our permanent teams and now I'm a member of Silver 5, one of the 4 FMTs on the Sacramento campus! There are 28 teams total (four units: Silver, Gold, Blue, and Green with 7 teams each) and pod 4 was broken up among them, which was harder on me than I anticipated. For some reason our pod just clicked really well and I'll actively miss all of them when we move into our permanent rooms near our new teams. Silver 5 is awesome though, and we'll all get a chance to get to know each other this coming week when all of the Silver unit goes to Camp Mendocino, about 4 hours north of us, to do service work. I'm really excited to get going and do something other than sit in training sessions. Not that they haven't been informative, but I'm pumped to just get moving!

I'm not sure where most of my projects will be yet, but I'm positive that my second round project (4 rounds = 4 projects this year = 1 project every 2 months-ish) will be in Sacramento. This is because the training that the FMTs will receive is given right on our campus. I'll be glad to get to know Sacramento and have a home away from home versus a place I go back to between projects. My first order of business is to secure a bicycle (obviously).

Hopefully there will be project related things to post in the near future! And look out for pictures (particularly of our work at Camp Mendocino) sometime after next Friday. Also, I will have no phone service while at Mendocino so if you text me, please know that I'm not responding because I don't feel the love; it's just that the love doesn't reach my phone.

Much love to 'Cusians and Clintonians alike! Question or comment as you like, but know that questions and comments kind of make my day =)

Cheers!

Prologue

Soon I'll be landing in Sacramento, CA to start my 10-month term as an AmeriCorps NCCC (National Civilian Community Corps) volunteer! It feels like this all happened fairly quickly and, well, that's because (in some ways) it did.

I applied for AmeriCorps NCCC in December of 2009 after hearing that my friend, Molly, was having such a positive experience during her term. I was drawn to the hands-on nature of NCCC as well as the potential for travel. I received and returned all the necessary paperwork, had a brief just-so-we-know-you're-not-a-psycho phone interview in January, a legit phone interview in March, and then heard through the Facebook grapevine that I wouldn't hear anything until the end of May.

The end of May came and went, so I had written it off until I got a call in early August from one of the NCCC representatives asking me if I wanted to leave for the Vicksburg, Mississippi campus within the next two days. I had to say no for a number of reasons so I was completely shocked to get an email a few weeks later saying that I had the option of accepting a spot on the Sacramento campus. After polling trusted sources and so much internal debate I accepted my position with just over a couple of weeks until my departure date, October 7th.

I'm excited to have this opportunity to learn, help out, and travel! Hopefully this blog will be a decent way to keep in touch with friends and family on the Right Coast during my time out Left.

A few bullet-points about the program:

• I'm in the Pacific Region, meaning that while my "home base" is Sacramento (where we'll receive most of our training), my campus serves the following states: Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, Oregon, California, Alaska and Hawaii (plus the Pacific Territories, but only in emergencies).
• After the initial month-long training bonanza we'll be sent out on 4-ish "spike" projects for the remaining 9 months of service with each project lasting anywhere from 6-8 weeks. These projects can be anywhere in our region and relate to a number of issues including: "rural and urban development, energy conservation, infrastructure improvement, disasters, and environmental stewardship and conservation".
• The campus will be divided into permanent groups of 10-12 people. These groups will go on spikes together and remain together for the entire term.
• Each person in NCCC will end up serving at least 1,700 hours before the term ends in late July, 2011.

So, California or bust! I fly out of Syracuse at 815 this morning (10.07.10), a mere not many hours from now. I suppose it's time for a nap.

Also, just to clarify: the blog title refers to the fact that one of my favorite bands, CAKE, is from Sacramento. Hooray! Keep an eye out for CAKE-related tidbits in the future and I'm not just talking about their upcoming album.

Cheers!