Our Time Is Running Out

I know that this is horrifically overdue. But, as it happens, I have two weeks left on the Eldorado National Forest and three weeks left in AmeriCorps overall. Time to reflect? Probably.

Pre-Good Weather

It took FOREVER for the weather to finally turn from constant winter (it snowed on June 1st!) to the constant summer that all east-coasters always associate with California. This delay in The Transition caused some frustration for all firefighters, not just for our team. Bad weather meant mostly shoveling snow all day around various locales that the Pacific Ranger District is responsible for...




...even the heliport!

We would also watch documentaries about wildland firefighting, tragedy fires and the Forest Service. We also watched a couple of other videos that focused on decision making and leadership. While the videos were informative, these days highlighted a simple fact – Pacific simply didn't need a team this early (March-April). The fire season in this part of California usually goes from June/July to October/November. We leave on the 13th of July – entirely unhelpful in terms of being considered a fire resource for this forest.

Thanks to Josh for this photo!

So while the above picture became a joke in terms of fighting fire, our team has not been without meaningful project work since we've started seeing nicer weather.


Earlier in the project our supervisor, Fred, focused on having us obtain our “A Faller” certifications. After a few practice sessions, most of the team took the practical exam of felling three trees for a C faller (a very experienced, consistent and talented faller of large, complicated trees). So now I can fell small trees! Despite the fact that my card says I can only fell trees 8” in diameter, most of the trees that my teammates and I cut during our training and our exams were larger than that since we were in the presence of more experienced fallers.

With these certifications we cleaned up our practice area on Badger Hill and we also helped fell and buck a large number of diseased trees on Poho Ridge. We piled the tree remains for burning at Badger, but the treatment for diseased trees is just to scatter the branches and trunk rounds so they can rot without running the risk of spreading their illness.


Post-Bad Weather

If there were a C Faller equivalent for raking leaves and pine needles, Silver 5 would have those certs without a problem. We've raked up: Cleveland Corral for the wonderful Faye couple who maintain the property; the compound here at Pacific; the compound at the Crystal Basin Station (home of Engine 54 where Fred is the Assistant Fire Engine Operator); the compound of the Amador District Office; and we have also literally raked the forest floor in order to unearth previous fireline that had been cut a year or two ago.

Under a different supervisor, Karl, our team has had more project work cutting line. This is because Karl is the Fuels Technician attached to Engine 53 (the engine housed on the Pacific station) and he plans all of the prescribed burns for our home section of the Eldorado. By planning and executing prescribed burns we greatly decrease our odds of having our part of the forest being devastated by any large fire that were to rip through at any point. While cutting line is tiring work, it has been great getting to do some project work that will hopefully be meaningful in the near future (the plans to burn the areas we've put line around could potentially not come from fruition until 1 year or two from now).

Most recently our team has been clearing access roads of overgrowth (large shrubs, small trees and ridiculous amounts of manzanita and establishing a relationship with Engine 14 down in the Amador district of the Eldorado by PT-ing with them and getting to know their area of the forest.


 
In terms of PT, each member of our team has seen a significant improvement in our physical performance since arriving on the Eldorado in March. In addition to running Old Dirty Bastard we have added the following PT sessions to our repertoire:

Runs

The Flume.
It starts at Pacific and goes up the first part of ODB, but right before the paved section of ODB starts you mercifully take a left and run along a (flat!) trail right next to a flume that, eventually, delivers water to Sacramento. The run totals a little over 4 miles.
 
Hazel.
A seven mile run that utilizes Hazel Road and parts of The Flume. The parts that take place on Hazel are steeper than ODB, but the nice flat flume section in the middle provides a nice break.

Blair.
This run has us start by running out of the compound through The Boneyard (a masticated area where spare lumber, PVC pipe and metal roofing sections go to die) and out to a road that parallels highway 50. Eventually we hit a trail and it's a nice, gradual decent down towards the American River. The way back, therefore, is uphill but it's nothing compared to ODB. According to Fred, it's the tamest run that Pacific bothers to use; it's also the shortest.


Hikes

We hike with backpacks that contain a mix of rocks and weights that total about 45 pounds, so it's not the easiest hiking we've ever done. We also just wear regular running shoes, which was weird for everyone at first. My sneakers, which I just bought in late April, already look 10 months old.

With these packs we have hiked both Blair and ODB. We also have:

The Hole.
I wish I knew how to quantify the length and gradient of this hike. It usually takes me 13-14 minutes to climb the thing and, for the most part, it's incredibly steep. There are two routes out: the shorter route that we usually use the first time (again, 13-14 minutes to get out), and the longer route (about 18 minutes to get out) that we'll hike if/when we hike The Hole twice. Descending into The Hole was psychologically unsettling at first since it's steep; all of the trees and fauna make you feel like you're walking through the jungle; and the American River, which is running high and fast from all of the late-season precipitation, roars at you once you reach the bottom.

 

With any luck I'll get another entry or three up here before I leave that detail some of the adventures we've had...but I might not hold my breath =)


Cheers!

Strange Times/Are Here

We're slowly finding our groove at Pacific. It's a bit tricky to do for a couple of reasons. The first reason being that our schedule is never set in stone. We spent a couple of days this week simply waiting for our sponsor to figure out something for us to do. There have been a few paperwork mishaps that have prevented us from dividing straight into heavy project work, so those have been getting straightened out. The weather also plays a big part in what we can accomplish in a day. Monday and Tuesday were pretty awful this week, but I got to experience my first thunderstorm since leaving the east coast! I was beginning to think they didn't happen at all out here. I usually sleep through weather-related happenings at night, but some of the thunder we experienced this week was enough to wake me up around 1:30am. It was fantastic – I forgot how much I missed a good thunderstorm.

The second reason is because we're still settling in, really. We spent most of last weekend in Placerville, a town about 15 minutes away, because it's cute in a touristy kind of way so we explored the area and completely assaulted the Cozmic Cafe with our presence as we flocked towards an source for internet. Cozmic Cafe is a great place for internet though. Good coffee, the prices aren't bad, there's a bar and performance space upstairs that we haven't made use of yet and there's a MINE SHAFT ON THE FIRST FLOOR! You can't go too far into it, but the whole place was literally built off the end of this mine shaft. It's so cool that I'll forgive the proprietors for spelling “cosmic” with a “z”.

So since we weren't really around last weekend and the fact that food everywhere around us is expensive (everyone jacks up the prices for the tourists who invade this area during the summer) we're not on a real schedule yet in terms of buying food, doing laundry (there's only one machine here and it's not at all reliable) and even hanging out around the house. There's a TV, but it's covered in balloons right now (one of the employees at a grocery store we were scouting gave them to Josh, Jules, Jeff and I). As a result of our time in Placerville, the Morris House looks a little bit more like a home thanks to purchases that people have made.

The Happy New Year 2010 Bear and Wanda, the cat cookie jar. Wanda holds our laundry room key (attached to the safety glasses) and our snaps (kudos) to each other between team meetings.

 

And our team is still really great about trading off chores so there's not a lot of stress in that area. In fact, we have a dining room now! We've definitely taken advantage of that by having family-style dinners as often as time allows.

Our project work this week had its ups and downs. Monday and Tuesday were spent working at the fire cache in nearby Camino, CA. The team spent two days taking inventory of everything there – and there's a ton to count: fire hoses of varying materials, lengths and diameters; couplings; sleeping bags; nozzles; batteries; antennae; packs; cans of gasoline; sets of fire resistant clothing (Nomex); whistles; space blankets; Nalgene bottles; bottles of Gatorade; hand tools (shovels, rakes, McLeods, Pulaskis, etc.); rolls of caution (flagging) tape; fusees; driptorches; tents, and other fun/not as fun things. 

Ellen found some fashionable goggles!

 It was great getting to see the cache and learn exactly where some wildland firefighting resources come from. It was not as great to count over 200 of just one nozzle type by hand, and so on. But Tuesday afternoon found us one Nalgene, one whistle, and one carabiner richer thanks to Dave, the cache supervisor. We were also fortunate enough to listen to a presentation by a Forest Service Recruiter who gave us some tips on how to apply for a full-time position (or even seasonal job) with the wildland fire division of the USFS. Thanks, Pacific!

Wednesday and Thursday were spent in training, which was wonderful. The alternative would have been busywork, but our sponsor decided that our time would be better spent getting trained up before the refresher courses for the seasonals start in May. Wednesday was all classroom training for the S-212 course: Portable Pumps and Water Use. We learned the basics of how 2-stroke and 4-stroke portable pumps work and how to set up/use them in the field. There was a lot of new vocabulary involved, but it was a great review of some terminology we covered during fire training but haven't used since. Thursday was the Intro to Hydraulics section and the written final exam: both of them went just fine. 

Thursday afternoon involved driving out to Jenkinson Lake, which was only 5 or so miles west on Highway 50, towards Placerville. Pacific staff drove out with us and helped us actually set up and run the pumps we had learned about. 

Tucker messes around with the fog nozzle

Josh takes aim at mallards

  The field day concluded with our instructors running us through a "real" scenario in groups of 4. Both groups did quite well and everyone passed the practical portion of the class. So now, in addition to having my Basic 40, my S-211 (chainsaw certification) I also have my S-212 certification! I'm so glad that the Pacific staff chose to train us versus telling us to go paint a shed or something (which will happen in the coming weeks, we're told). It makes me feel more productive and more at-ease when I think about the approaching fire season.

This weekend is still pretty open in terms of plans, but we have some things on the horizon! I'm talking with someone from the South Lake Tahoe Department of Park and Recreation to see if we can do an Independent Service Project there. It would be ideal because then the whole team would have an excuse to use the van to get up to South Lake Tahoe and see some of the sights in addition to performing service. I'm also trying to think of if I want to take vacation time and where I'd go. Any suggestions? Send them my way!

Speaking of sending things my way, I have an address at Pacific that I'm allowed to use for the rest of the year! If you'd like it, get ahold of me somehow and I'll be glad to share it. This address will be much more reliable than my campus address because SPIKEmail, no matter how convenient, takes forever to get to us.

Cheers, everyone! 

Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

It's official! We have arrived at the place where we'll spend the rest of our time in NCCC, the Pacific Ranger Station, working with the fine employees of the Eldorado National Forest.

Before I continue I must register my frustration with how the name of our forest is spelled. My current location is outside of Pollock Pines, CA which is in El Dorado County. There is also the town of El Dorado nearby. The Eldorado National Forest, however, is all one word and not two. So if you're like me and notice discrepancies like that, now you know that Eldorado pertains the forest and El Dorado is the county or town (or, you know, the fabled City of Gold). It still bothers me every time I see signs for the forest.

The compound isn't all that big. There's an administrative building/visitor center, a specialty office building (which is shaped like a large trailer), a few barracks for the seasonal workers, and a building that houses a gym, a small garage-like meeting room/workout area, and a work room.

Our housing, however, is far better than the barracks. We live in the Milton Morris house which is an historical place or somesuch. It's the oldest building on the compound, which is kind of neat, but luckily it's mostly up-to-date in terms of amenities. No internet, but we do have a propane fireplace! There's also plenty of room for the eight of us to spread out. Yes, eight. Sadly, we lost a team member due to injury.

The three girls share one of the bedrooms that's off the living room and two guys share another. Two other guys share the space that connects the living room with the rest of the house. The kitchen is sizeable and the table seats everyone, which has lead to many family-style dinners already. Lastly, Jeff has his man-cave in the back of the house off the kitchen. We also have access to the shed that's attached to the house. This is where we store the chainsaws that have been assigned to us for the round, our extra gear, and some other things that have been left by previous teams.

In the driveway you'll notice the 15-passenger van that gets issued to every team. You can also see the chase truck that was given to our team for the round. We're strangely excited to have the truck even though it mostly just sits in the driveway.

You can also kind of glimpse the two bags we were issued. The green bag is a fire pack which we will have to wear if we ever get called to go on a fire. In those we store water, files for our hand tools, extra batteries, an extra shirt, and all of our personal protective equipment (PPE). Our PPE list includes smoke goggles, alternate eye protection, ear protection, gloves and our hardhats. We also keep space blankets and our fire shelters in the green packs. Everyone on a fire carries their fire shelter with them but it is only under the most desperate circumstances that they are deployed. Many of our instructors during our two weeks of fire training in January have never had to use them, so here's hoping that mine will stay safely tucked in my pack until I hand it back at the end of July.

The red bags stay packed at all times in case we are called out on a fire. The red bags contain extra clothes (including our fire resistant Nomex outfits and extra socks/underwear/undershirts), toiletries, an extra mess kit, and other supplies that would be helpful if we were to suddenly find ourselves in the woods for two weeks fighting a fire. These red bags are typically collected by a ground crew and dropped by helicopter if the firefighters find it unfeasible to hike back to where they were originally stored.

But it's March and fire season is at least two months away. It can get up to 60 degrees in the afternoon here on the compound, but there's still some snow on the ground here and it gets pretty chilly at night. It also happens to be gorgeous here! Our cabin is located on the road to the heliport which means a couple of things:

1. We will always know when a helicopter and its crew arrives/departs
2. We have access to a spectacular view

The mountains in the back are a part of the Crystal Range, which we got to see a little bit closer when we drove around to potential project sites on Wednesday.

Speaking of project work, our schedule currently rocks socks. The team works 4, 10-hour days and then has three-day weekends. It's amazing. Unfortunately, this schedule only lasts until May 9^th, which is the first day that the seasonal employees show up and start their refresher training in preparation for fire season. Starting May 9^th we'll switch to a typical work schedule of 5, 8-hour days, and we will have a 2-hour travel restriction. The Forest Service wants to make sure that we stay close to the compound in case we are called out on a fire. The chances of this actually happening remain to be seen, but we'll know more about the season as it approaches.

Until May 9^th, however, the team will be looking to travel a bit and take advantage of our three days weekends. Not to mention we also have a “spring break” (aka a four day weekend) at the end of April to think about. I'm hoping to get to the coast at some point, but there's a bunch to see out where we are – Lake Tahoe and Desolation Wilderness being just two destinations I'd like to see before I leave.

This weekend, however, was mostly spent in the town of Placerville. Placerville (formerly, and proudly, called Hangtown due to the number of hangings the town carried out) has a decent amount to do. It's a cute little place that really embraces its gold rush past. The facades on the buildings and the close set-up of the shops really make it feel like a mining town. It's a bit kitschy, but it's a nice place to stroll around. Not to mention that there's live music everywhere, apparently. Well done, Placerville.

We don't really know quite what to expect in the coming weeks. The team will be passed around a bit between supervisors working in various departments within the Forest Service. This means that we are (supposedly) guaranteed to have a variety of projects to work on before fire season starts up. I really hope that we do, just because that means more learning and more travel around the forest! We've already learned the basics of radio communications, seen the main dispatch center in Camino, the fire lookout station on Big Hill and a couple of other sites we could be working near. I'm excited to see how the various departments all fit together (or if they in fact fit together at all).

We do know that we'll be doing some of the hardest work we've ever done in order to prepare for fire season. We conduct our physical training sessions (5 days per week for at least an hour each session) with the Forest Service now, and they're hardcore. Our first day here our supervisor of the week, Fred, took us on a run called Old Dirty Bastard. It was only five miles, but the first half was all uphill. For those of you keeping score at home, Sacramento is flatter than the SU quad. I thought I was going to collapse at various points going up the hill, but I finished the run surprisingly strong. And just to show the hill that it couldn't keep me down, I ran it again on Saturday morning. Owned!

To everyone who might at some point read this, odds are I miss you and would love to hear how you're doing! Hope all is well.

Cheers, friends and family!

Sugar Pine, Project Work

Life at Sugar Pine moves both slow and fast simultaneously. How this is accomplished escapes me, but we have barely a week left here!

The days pass a little slower here than what we were used to living in Portland. The Habitat work days always had a sense of urgency to them that simply doesn't exist here. Couple that with the two 15-minute breaks per day in addition to the half-hour lunch, and it seems like the day barely gets started before it's time to quit for dinner. Not to mention the fact that, on this SPIKE, all of our meals are prepared for us. This means that we don't go grocery shopping, cook for ourselves, or clean up crazy amounts of dishes/cooking space. This puts a bunch of time back into our days, but we're finding interesting ways to fill it. More on that later.

Our work days find the team being split into small groups. For the first couple of weeks one or two groups (of rotating team members) were running chainsaws, bucking up fallen trees and sawing down small ones or any brush along the side of the road that could potentially be hazardous. We've accomplished a lot in this area so far despite the tricky footing, our prey getting stuck and compacted in the snow, and the fact that we need to walk or drive to our work sites multiple times throughout the day.

Another group works further down the road in a small meadow area splitting wood – by any means necessary. We've used axes, mauls for the bigger rounds, and a wood splitter. The main purpose here is to accumulate firewood for the camp, the staff and their families and the small community of Sugar Pine, which is around the corner from the camp. We've had some fun with this task, creating a Fortress of Doom out of the stacked wood.

Unfortunately, we had to fill in the fortress. It was sad, but it's great to have such a strong visual representation of our work. Our team won't be around to see the fruits of our labor once the summer camps kick into gear, so it's nice to be able to have something like the firewood piles because we can see the impact of our work in a more timely sense.

When the weather conditions are right, there is another group in the meadow that works on burning all of the cut brush and reject firewood in order to reduce the overall amount of fire fuels in and around the camp. It's a little tricky to start the fire when everything is covered with snow, but the diesel helps!

More recently, Silver 5 has been working on clearing some trails throughout the camp. These trails are blocked by downed trees from over a year ago and the staff has already said how appreciative they are that they'll be able to take the kids on these trails in the summer. I think this is my favorite job so far at Sugar Pine. It's great to go and get our tools in the morning (axes, Pulaskis (link), rope for pulling down stubborn trees, hand saws and a chainsaw) and bring them and our packs with us as we trek through the snow-covered trails to hack up trees and clear the trails. My skills with the axe and chainsaw are definitely improving, through I prefer the axe.

Working at physically demanding jobs outside in the snow isn't nearly as bad as it could be because we're working here:

Thanks to Ellen for letting me steal this photo!

Beautiful! I'm so glad that I didn't miss winter. I thought I would get sent someplace warm for the winter months, but no! I've had snowball fights, been sledding and I've shoveled my heart out and I've loved every minute of it.

Threw Your Arms in the Air and Said, "You're Crazy"

Our first week back in Sacramento felt like at least two weeks crammed into one. We had cross-training with a Green team who is taking over our Habitat project in Portland and with Blue 3 who told us all about what life would be like on our next project! Our next project being Sugar Pine Christian Camp outside of Oakhurst, CA!

We're pretty excited because both our project and our sponsor seem really great. The project is right up our alley - fuels reduction work/trail clearing in the snowy mountains with chainsaws. Chainsaws and snow?! Ok! We're mostly going to be bucking and clearing instead of chopping down trees, but it'll mean a good deal of time just handling the saws and getting us ready for when we start to use them more in a fire line capacity. Not to mention that we'll get a great workout just from shoveling snow! We're 20 minutes from the south gate of Yosemite and we're up in the mountains - I cannot wait to play in the snow. Dead serious.

In other, semi-related news, Silver 5 is walking a little bit taller lately and it has everything to do with these guys:

Fire boots! We received them, along with a lot of our other fire gear, last week which was something we had been waiting for since we found out we had all made it onto a Fire Management Team. We broke in our boots and our new uniforms while hiking this past weekend in Auburn, CA which was a bunch of fun. I for one was thrilled to get off of base (transportation here is way trickier than in Portland) and definitely excited to get hiking! Luckily we're going again this weekend - a longer trail this time, but the elevation change won't be as dramatic.

Silver 5 (minus Rick) at the turn-around point on our hike last Sunday

We've also been busy with chainsaw training. After two days in the classroom we got to try our hand at actually operating a saw. By the end of the day I had felled a tree! I can't deny that it felt pretty awesome. We had great instructors from one of the hotshot crews from the nearby El Dorado National Forest. They were very thorough and safety-conscious which, I'm sure, makes my parents feel better! During classroom training we heard a lot of stories from our instructors (this time from the Bureau of Land Management). If the stories didn't end with "...and that's how he died" they ended with "...I said, "I'm not comfortable with this" and walked away". So now not only do we have a vague idea of what we can do with a chainsaw but we also have a clear view of what we cannot, should not and must never do with a saw, which is equally (if not more) important.

There is still more fire training in our future, but the rest of this week has our team focusing on pre-project stuff and day-long interim projects. We had one interim project last week at the Danny Nunn Community Garden. Together with Green 6 (a fellow FMT) we got the place spruced up and laid the ground work for pathways to be constructed by another team later this week. We have another interim project tomorrow with Blue 4 (again, a fellow FMT) at a nearby museum doing some as-yet-unspecified fuel reduction work. With an Independent Service Project on Saturday, a long hike on Sunday and the MLK Day of Service on Monday, the team is taking advantage of some of the downtime today to recuperate from last week and to prepare for this "weekend".

Harvesting at the Danny Nunn Community Garden

But we're still having fun! We had a Mandatory Team Fun Night last week and we spent it playing Murder in the Dark (kind of like Mafia just...mostly in the dark) with some Blue 4 kids. Blue 4 and Silver 5 also took turns cooking for one another last week. It has been really great to get to know some of the other teams here especially since we're going through fire training together (example: our chainsaw training yesterday was with Green 6).

That'll about do it for tonight! Hope all's well with everyone, and take care!

Cheers =)

The Gyms Are Full and Bloggers Are Posting Again...

...that's how you know it's the New Year.

I had hoped to not be "that person" and completely abandon this thing, but it happened and there you have it. At the suggestion of family members, one of my resolutions this year is to actually keep up with this blog. Not just for the sake of keeping in touch with friends and family, but I'd also like to be able to look back on this year and remember the chronology of things because that's the first thing that gets fuzzy for me.

Portland
The end of our Habitat for Humanity project was fantastic! We made marked improvements on both sites - Lents Landing (where I worked, closer to Portland, along with 3 other teammates) and Jubilee Commons (located in Gresham, where the other 5 teammates worked). Collectively, Silver 5 learned a bunch of new skills and lead dozens of volunteers. We also survived the housing situation just fine. In fact, it's kind of weird being back on base and spread throughout the dorm. It makes the dorm seem so much larger than it actually is.

Portland, as a city, is a place I'd recommend to anyone I know and love as well as people I stumble across in life. The neighborhoods and atmosphere made it possible to feel "at home" in a reasonable amount of time. The public transportation system and the wide variety of outdoor activities made it possible to have a lot of different experiences all in one place. Honestly, a couple more weekends there and I would have felt like a local. I wasn't ready to leave, but I was excited to get home and see everyone for Christmas!

I feel like I should make a "Top 5" or "Best of..." kind of list. I might have to go with a pansy Top 5 list. Pansy, because it'll probably have more than five things and they're not ranked in any order. Double pansy.

Top 5 Portland Memories

1. Intense Physical Labor Days - "Sod Day" and "Move All These Appliances Day"

     Sod Day happened at Lents Landing. We had to level the front and back yards, put down good soil, plant trees and then cut and lay the sod for all four units. It was a bunch of work but it was the most different day that our crew experienced. It was primarily outside and we had about 30 volunteers that day. It was rare for our site to get more than 5 on a regular day (especially once the weather started to get cold) so each of the NCCCers got to lead a group of volunteers that was far bigger than we were used to - but they were all great kids from both a local high school and a local university, so none of us minded at all! Though our volunteers had to leave at 3:30pm, the four of us (and fresh-on-the-scene-half-an-hour-before, Jeff) stayed until the job was done (around 6pm). It was dark, wet, cold and we were absolutely covered in mud but it was, clearly, one of the best times I had in Portland.

Myself and Andrea on Sod Day!

    
     Move All These Appliances Day was a Tuesday at Jubilee Commons. Tuesdays are days when the Habitat staff (including NCCC) are on but there are no volunteers on site. So the nine of us moved 40 appliances (ranges, dish washers, refrigerators, washers and dryers) from the truck (after Cory, the super-human in charge of driving them to us, unloaded them) and put one of each into the eight units. The stairs weren't totally finished so getting the washers and dryers up to the third story added extra danger to our day, but it was awesome work.


2. Multnomah Falls

     The Portland area has a lot to offer in terms of natural beauty, but I really loved visiting these falls. Everything from the drive there to the top of the falls was great. We stopped along the way for views and photo ops, and once we got to the falls I didn't even mind that it was so touristy - it's touristy for a reason! You didn't have to hike anywhere to get a great view (which, I'm sure, is why this spot is so popular) but once you started to hike up to the top the tourists fell away and you could enjoy the views in relative peace.


3. Mandatory Team Fun Nights

     Once a week, whether we stayed in or went out (we alternated so as to not spend a ton of money), we had some great nights as a team. Team nights in included card games, banana boats, and cooking meals together. For team nights out we went bowling, ice skating (in a mall!), or adventured in some of Portland's many small neighborhoods. Despite the fact that we lived in such close quarters and worked together, we needed these times to come together as a team to have fun and not be worrying about work, food shopping or other housing-related situations. Whether we were on the fence about the given activity at the time or not, everyone always wound up enjoying themselves and the company.


4. Yee Olde Thanksgiving

     Those of us at the Lents Landing site knew Yee, a regular volunteer for years and years and years, pretty well by the end of our time in Portland. But by the end of lunch on the first day we had worked with him, Yee had already invited us over to his house for Thanksgiving dinner: not just the four of us on the Lents Landing crew, but all nine people on our team. He wanted us to have someplace that was going to be as close to home as possible since none of us were going home for Thanksgiving.
     Yee said he was glad to have company for the holidays, but I'm pretty sure that Silver 5 were the clear winners that day. Yee cooked a trillion course meal (no joke) including not just a turkey, but a full roast as well! Everything was delicious and no one was prepared for how much food we were presented, especially when we went for a post-dinner walk around Yee's neighborhood. Yee lives on the northwest side of Portland, which is nestled into the hills. This means that Silver 5 dragged their ridiculously full selves up San Francisco-esque streets with gradients I didn't even want to think about. The view of the city from the top of his hill was well worth it though.

Tucker (center) is pretending he's ready for the post-meal walk we're about to embark on. But don't let this picture fool you - he whined the whole way. Left to right: Yee, Full Andrea, Scared Ellen, Groaning Josh, Tibbs (and his food baby), Zombie Jules, and Are You Kidding (Me).

5. McMenamins

     The McMenamins brothers bought a bunch of property in and around the city of Portland. Not just any properties, no way. Sure, they bought the typical bars and restaurants. But they also bought an old elementary school and multiple old theatres. While we never got a chance to visit the Kennedy School (though it's a ton of fun, from what I'm told), we still visited quite a few McMenamins establishments. My favorites were The Bagdad Theater and The Crystal Ballroom (where I saw the Black Keys, thanks to a new Habitat pal!). Both of these places were pretty whimsical, which was fitting because our team is going to bring whimsy back into our daily lives and the lives of others. It's right up there in our mission statement along with strengthening communities. Promise.

There are so many other good memories but to go into them now would be unfair since we're already into the second round! Before talk of that ensues, however, I leave you with...

...Christmas Break!
Break was wonderful, even if it did start off with terrible transportation issues. I saw friends and family from both Clinton and 'Cuse, but all for too short a time. I had some wonderful food thanks to some great homemade treats, home-cooked meals, and fun meals out of the house. Oh, and the SU football team won the Pinstripe Bowl! AND the basketball team remains undefeated! A good break? No, sir. A great one!