The Journey Home

The first day on the road was a nice one. I got to get in some reading that i had been neglecting for awhile as we were being serenaded by artists such as The Beatles, Jack Johnson, Damien Rice, other assorted artists. We arrived in St. Louis around 5:00 and meet up with a team from another unit. Later we went out to eat at a local oriental cuisine restaurant. Our team leader left early in the morning to go home for a much needed vacation, and put our 2 newly elected assistant team leaders in charge(Sam and Katie). The next day was just very average switching drivers and ATDs every 2 hours or so, and we stopped in Salina, Kansas for the night. On the final day of travel to Denver we saw some interesting things, such as tumbleweeds, and also along the way we saw some random helicopters and fighter jets sitting out in the middle of the grass. Most of the way the view was of vast expanses of fields for as far as the eye could see, spotted with all kinds of various cows, crops, and huge wind turbines.

~Levi

The Last Day

Today we fixed up the school nice and pretty for our departure. After our work was done we chillaxed in the sun. We took hours worth of pictures to remember our good times on spike. This past Sunday, we also took pictures in front of the school. Our favorite picture is of the team jumping. We weren’t in full uniform because it was a Sunday, but nonetheless we thought it would be a good picture to add to our blog. Anyway, after cleaning up the school we moved into a cabin at the Cumberland Gap State Park for the night. It was a very nice cabin. It had modern luxuries like beds with sheets and cable TV. For dinner that night our sponsors took us out to dinner at a southern buffet. We gave them a collage of memories. We talked and reminisced about our good times trail building and working together. The next morning we got up early and said goodbye. Our sponsors were sad to see us go. There were hugs and handshakes all around as we said our final farewell.

~Levi

Video: End of the Day

Our Third Move

This is our second week living in the Stony Fork School -- a school in the backcountry of Tennesee that is no longer in use. This week we are building bridges on the trail at Lick Creek. Building bridges is fun. It includes moving lots of extremely heavy, awkward-sized logs over the creek even when it doesn’t seem possible. That is what AmeriCorps does -- makes the impossible seem possible…hahaha.

Then we got to hike miles upon miles of trail with heavy tools. We were mules for a couple of days, but it was all good because then we got to do some awesome work. I got to help some of the long-time volunteers of CTC in making hand rails for the bridge to prevent hikers from falling into the creek. It was fun work because the guys I was working with are one-of-a-kind; they know such interesting stuff and are full of crazy stories.

I learned a lot in that day, including about the type of tools I will be working with during our next project in New Orleans. We will be working with a non-profit organization there called Project Homecoming finishing homes and presenting them back to the families affected by Hurricane Katrina. I am excited but a little nervous about the heat and humidity, since I am from the north and prefer the cold over the heat any time. It's all good though. Building the best rustic bridge and not a hillbilly bridge (that is what I was told was our goal) in the world was great and I am sure I will have fond memories of it. As always, we got to move lots of heavy rocks to build stairs and walls. Let me say we made rock stairs that would even look good in someone's mansion. That is just how good we are at moving boulders around. After this spike I will never look at a rock the same way, but I will automatically decide if the rock is good for a cribbing wall or a stair and I am sure it is the same with the rest of my team.

The team is doing great, working hard as always and as always tons of team bonding 24/7 since we are really the only people our age we get to see. Everyone loves the fact that the school has a gym which makes phsycial training (PT) so much easier. We get to play knock-out all the time which is a great game. If you haven’t heard it you need to find out about it real soon. In all, I love building trails. I went to school for environmental studies and seeing it everyday makes me realize what I want to do after AmeriCorps. This is one of the great benefits of AmeriCorps: experiencing new things while helping people and also figuring out your life.

~Kate

More Camping Insights...

After a wonderful two-week stay in our cozy house at Cove Lake, our team packed up our belongings and moved to a beautiful campground in Frozen Head State Park a couple of weeks ago. This was exciting for two reasons, one being that those who have camped before greatly enjoyed what this particular site offered. The second reason being that those who have never camped before were able to get a pretty fantastic first experience. The fact that it rained the majority of our stay at Frozen Head didn’t bother anyone. We still bundled up around the campfire after having made a delicious meal, and we enjoyed others’ company thoroughly. We shared stories with one another, whether they were of our own lives or ghastly ghost stories. Not a single story went unappreciated. Our team shared our camping area with members and volunteers of the Cumberland Trail Conference, which was an excellent way for everyone to get to know each other. We stayed in tents of all shapes and sizes and, with the surrounding sounds of nature, it was nearly impossible to go without a good night’s rest. But, the campground offered us the perfect area for our afternoons of physical training, with soft green grass on a large field that was surrounded by a beautiful forest. At night we were able to catch a glimpse of the white-tailed deer lazily grazing through this very same field. Our camping neighbors were wonderfully amicable and welcoming, as was the campground’s staff. Throughout my life, I have stayed at a fairly vast number of camp grounds. Some of these said campgrounds I can’t see myself visiting again, whereas others I definitely hope to make future visits to. Frozen Head State Park is certainly the latter.

~Mallory