First Month Adventures!

Hey everyone! I have a lot to tell you, so quickly run to the bathroom or grab a snack because it’s about to get crazy.

As most of you may have heard, my unit had to chance to go camping in the redwood forest! We took a journey into the heart of the forest to the Boys and Girls Club of America-Camp Mendicino. The forest was amazing. My team participated in a high ropes course there, and I got to climb 30 feet up a redwood tree. So up I went, trying to act confident and ignore my natural instincts of freaking out with heights. I took my first step onto the cross wire and nearly had to change my pants. It took me about 4 minutes to walk 20 feet. When I finally made it across, I took a huge breath and said “No way am I ever doing this again.” The problem with that is the only way to get down is by going back across the wire. At the time, my face was probably as pale as it could possibly get. I barely made it out of the high ropes course alive. A few of my other teammates actually finished the entire ropes course, while I walked across one line. One step at a time, I suppose.

We did get to see a legendary redwood tree. It can fit 20 people around the trunk and is a complete beast! No one was exactly sure how old the tree was, but some were saying 600 years old. Could be more, could be less, but either way, the tree is amazing.

My team worked on digging a trench on the side of the road for water to drain down. Since the road is on the side of the mountain, the water would cause a lot of erosion and create mudslides. Basically, we did landscaping on the side of the mountain, which sounds a lot cooler when I put it that way.

I also took an awesome 24 hour adventure to San Fransisco with 6 other friends. We had a service project on October 27 until 5 pm. After wards, we all got together and took a 2 hour bus ride to the city. We stayed in a hostel on Broadway Street and saw many interesting people for the Halloween weekend. There were three police vans in front of our hostel, but that didn’t scare us away. The next day, we explored the city by going to the park, China town, and eventually made our way to the Golden Gate bridge. Then we walked halfway onto the bridge, and looked out onto the bay with The Alcatraz right in our sights. We had to make our way back to the Greyhound station, ending our 24 hour get-away to the most beautiful city I have ever seen.

Since I last blogged, I became certified in CPR, First Aid, AED (defibrillator), and Flood Control. I am also the Physical Training Coordinator for my team as well as Vehicle & Safety Training Coordinator.

My team has been very busy, as we are just a week away from graduating Corps Training and Institute. We are towards the end of classes, and getting into a lot of the hands-on activities. We have had about 4 projects where we would go out into the community and clean up the parks or help with gardens. The people in this line of work are so amazing and have a huge heart. They appreciate the work we do, and we appreciate the work they do.

My team just learned about our first project! Also known as a spike, a project lasts about a month and a half. We will have roughly 4 spikes for this term. Our first spike is working with a Sacramento Food Bank! We will be helping them with their personal garden, stocking their pantries, and their education program, helping adults receive their GED. We are one of four teams on campus (out of 28 team’s total) that will be staying on campus. There are a lot of benefits of staying on campus. We have the laundry room open, kitchen open, and a lot more personal space. My team will be commuting to the food bank every day, and we will get to know the Sacramento community a lot better. We are all very excited and can’t wait to get started!

Things have been going very well here in California. I’m going to miss my close friends from other teams when they leave for their spike, but I will have a great opportunity here in Sacramento. I can’t wait to get started with the food bank and help out the community.

That is all, folks! Thanks for reading, stay safe and Go Packers!

Much Love,

Connor