A Week in the Woods

So much happened this past week that I cannot possibly sum it up in a resonable amount of time. But it involved...

- Infinate bathroom space during the day, just make sure you're out of sight of the other workers. And a bit of advice about this, if you're feeling unconnected to the woods and not finding joy in it and tripping all over the place because the land seems to be mean to you, if you pee in the woods it might solve all of that! ;)

- A few jam sessions, which made me very regretful for giving up music so quickly. However, I did get to almost learn a whole song on an extra tin whistle, it makes me want to pull mine out again.

- A few camp fires which I enjoyed only for short amounts of time because they were usually late at night and I wanted to get to bed seing as I had to get up so early in the morning. (You know you're in the south when the alarm clock at 6:30 in the morning is a man walking down the hallway with a metal spoon banging on a metal pot all up and down the corridors.)

- A wonderful 5ish hour hike on our day off led by Warren, one of the wagon masters.

- Lots and lots of trail building, cutting into sidehill chopping up roots in the way and looots and looooots and loooots of rocks

- A very sad forest fire that looks like it got about 2 or more acres of land. It really put me in a somber mood that day and the wind was so strong you could tell it was just carrying it up the hill. :,(

- A very scary incident on Saturday morning being woken up by the police because we weren't sure if we were missing people in the river. 2 had already been pulled out of the water, they took the canoe out at 5 in the morning, thankfully they are both okay and no one else was missing.

- Food that increasingly got worse as the week went on, buuut although it was semi-mass produced I have to say still it was better than cafe food.

- A lot of new fun interesting people that I'm having a hard time communicating with on campus because the only place I knew them was on the trip. But YAY for wonderful new friends and long talks.

- A fall on the amphitheatre seating in Chattanooga which leaves me with about a two inch by one inch bruise on my right leg, a scraped knee and bruise there too. (Of all the dangerous places I went and could have fallen. Off the side of the cliff..on a rock into the water...twisted my ankle in unset areas..and I get hurt in a safe clean harmless city.)

- A walk across the footbridge that goes across the Tennessee river.

- A new lanyard at a store called All Things Groovy and a gift for my girlfriend that I was planning on giving her later but absolutely couldn't wait!! (Almost a new hippy skirt too...damn but it was gorgeous, but very expensive I don't have an extra 33 dollars for something I might not even have a chance to wear all that often.)

- A frisbee game bare-footed in squishy muddy shelly beach.

- More peanut butter and jelly sandwiches than I want for a long time eaten in dangerous territory either on really cool high rocks or in poison ivy.

- An afternoon exploring climbing over slippery rocks upstream and neat waterfalls.

- An approx 14 hour car ride home with a slightly sore throat.

- Although sick, a nice end of the weekend-beginning of the week spent with Callalily.

- Lots of really cool pictures that I am *bursting* to have developed!!

- Tons of wonderful new memories

I really did have an awesome time but it feels so strange to be back at school. wow. Not in a bad way but this past week feels nothing more than a distant dream, yet it changes so many things. And I'm sorry if I didn't clarify, for those of you that don't know I went to Tennessee with 29 other IUP students and Dr. Finnegan to build hiking trails, we were working on the cumberland trail. Eventually, it's going to be part of the Western alternative to the Appalachain trail. I'm so proud! Pictures may eventually be up..and then again...maybe not. haha