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