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".