I don't think the fact that the summer's over will hit me until I get home and have nothing exciting to do, until I wake up at six o'clock in the morning (not on purpose, believe me) and, instead of eating breakfast with a lot of other people who are also awake at that unearthly hour, it's just me and the cat. I've spent three months with the same twenty people, and five days of each week with only five other people, so it's going to be really weird adjusting to not seeing them every day.
We spent all of Thursday taking down base camp, which was ridiculously fun. The weather's been crazy hot the past few days though, so we were all baking in the sun as we took down tents, washed vehicles, and packed up possessions. That afternoon, we headed down to Lake George to meet up with the rest of the crew for a picnic. That was also when the Olympics took place. I am proud to report that my team won the knot tying, trivia, and haiku competitions, and thereby locked in first place. We were actually really surprised, considering we had no idea how we did in trivia or on the haiku!
Friday was bittersweet. The team leaders took their teams out for breakfast. We went to the Empire Grille in Skowhegan, which originated as a movie set for the HBO movie Empire Falls. Our waitress was not having a good morning though. We thought we had gotten on her bad side, but then we got a free muffin! Apparently, there's this "Sham Foundation" which was started by people involved with the movie that lets the diner give away one free muffin a day. And we were the lucky winners yesterday. Graduation followed breakfast, and it wasn't as horrificly boring as graduations tend to be. The speakers were short and to the point; the team leaders spoke from the heart. After a trip back to HQ and final paperwork, we were free to go.
About twelve of us weren't leaving right away though, so we went to Bradbury State Park, near Freeport, for the night. We did a ten o'clock hike up the mountain (which isn't so much a mountain as a really large hill) to stargaze. And before the night was over, my team shared a really long goodbye which included a massive, swaying group hug. I left early this morning, and my departure was sadder than I expected. I hope to keep in touch with the people I've met, hope to make the most of my experience in the future.
The drive back to PA is a beast, so I'm breaking it up a bit. I cut across Massachusetts to hit Lenox and visit Edith Wharton's estate, The Mount, this afternoon. It's spectacular. Edith Wharton's been my favorite author since my junior year of high school, so it was really cool getting to see where she wrote and lived. She designed the house, and if I ever get enough money, I'm totally building a replica. I'll post pictures when I get my camera battery charged.
Speaking of reading, have I done an update on my reading material lately? Well, I finished Pride & Prejudice & Zombies last week. It was completely ridiculous, but some good light reading. Right now I'm really into Bel Canto, by Ann Patchett. I've been meaning to pick up something by her for a while now, ever since I saw her speak, but I haven't been able to find the book I wanted. I got this one instead, and man, I should have picked it up all those months ago! The prose is gorgeous, and it had me hooked in just a few pages. I definitely need to read more by her.
I'm in Scranton for the night, so it should be a fairly straight shot home tomorrow. I don't actually know how long it should take though, so who knows when I'll get there! My big plans? Some Chinese food and a good movie. :)
Indie Fantasy Author Carrie Gessner
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Saturday, August 15, 2009
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Last Week
It was our last week on the trail, and what a week it was! We lazed a bit, as expected, but we also got some work done, finishing two of our staircases (we took a 'family portrait' on the second one on the last day).
On Saturday, my team leader and I were cooking dinner, burgers. I was in charge of burgers, so I threw the pot on the burner and tossed in some cooking oil. I got distracted, though, and ended up starting a grease fire. We both looked at the flames and went, "Oh, the pot's on fire," before I had sense enough to throw the lid on top. One of my teammates who was reading nearby laughed and said, "It's just going to light again when you take the lid off, you know." And sure enough, it did. But I scrubbed it out and we eventually got the burgers cooked. All in all, no harm done. And I've seen worse fires at Wendy's. :P
We decided to take the second half of the day off on Tuesday and go for a hike on the other side of the mountain, around the Gulf Hagas loop. We saw some really cool waterfalls and lounged a lot on large rocks, but the funniest part was when we got back to our suburbanand saw the note on our windshield. It was from our project sponsor and all it said was: "Hi there! Lester. 2:30." Caught red-handed! He was apparently there for a dedication of a new kiosk and recognized our vehicle. We shrugged it off, piled into the 'burban, headed back to base camp, where who do we immediately encounter? But our glorious sponsor, who's there checking the tents for damage. We were a little afraid to get out of the car, since we all knew that he knew we weren't working, but we were able to pass the afternoon off as education hours, lol.
We spent the rest of the evening team-building, going into town for pizza and watching The Goonies. We stayed up late, too, to try to catch the meteor shower. At first, we had no idea which section of the sky to look in, and it was slightly too cloudy for my liking, but we were able to see some meteors. Some people got discouraged early and headed off to bed (it was way past our bedtime!), but I think I saw about ten in a half-hour. So yeah, it was a pretty good day.
I'm not sure how the rest of the week will go, but I'm heading home this weekend. Hopefully I'll be able to stop in Lenox, Mass to see Edith Wharton's estate. :)
On Saturday, my team leader and I were cooking dinner, burgers. I was in charge of burgers, so I threw the pot on the burner and tossed in some cooking oil. I got distracted, though, and ended up starting a grease fire. We both looked at the flames and went, "Oh, the pot's on fire," before I had sense enough to throw the lid on top. One of my teammates who was reading nearby laughed and said, "It's just going to light again when you take the lid off, you know." And sure enough, it did. But I scrubbed it out and we eventually got the burgers cooked. All in all, no harm done. And I've seen worse fires at Wendy's. :P
We decided to take the second half of the day off on Tuesday and go for a hike on the other side of the mountain, around the Gulf Hagas loop. We saw some really cool waterfalls and lounged a lot on large rocks, but the funniest part was when we got back to our suburbanand saw the note on our windshield. It was from our project sponsor and all it said was: "Hi there! Lester. 2:30." Caught red-handed! He was apparently there for a dedication of a new kiosk and recognized our vehicle. We shrugged it off, piled into the 'burban, headed back to base camp, where who do we immediately encounter? But our glorious sponsor, who's there checking the tents for damage. We were a little afraid to get out of the car, since we all knew that he knew we weren't working, but we were able to pass the afternoon off as education hours, lol.
We spent the rest of the evening team-building, going into town for pizza and watching The Goonies. We stayed up late, too, to try to catch the meteor shower. At first, we had no idea which section of the sky to look in, and it was slightly too cloudy for my liking, but we were able to see some meteors. Some people got discouraged early and headed off to bed (it was way past our bedtime!), but I think I saw about ten in a half-hour. So yeah, it was a pretty good day.
I'm not sure how the rest of the week will go, but I'm heading home this weekend. Hopefully I'll be able to stop in Lenox, Mass to see Edith Wharton's estate. :)
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Libraries!
Can you collect libraries? I'm definitely giving it a shot. I spent much of the summer hanging out in the Abbot Memorial Library in Dexter (They have cats! Seriously, how could I not love it?), and I think I've found a library in every little town I've visited over the past two and a half months. (The Bangor library is gorgeous, btdubs.) So it's my last official weekend in Maine, and I decided that I needed to get out of base camp, which is why I'm sitting in the Peavey Library in Eastport, the easternmost city in the United States.
I can't seem to break out of my work schedule, because I woke up this morning at quarter 'til six, two hours before my alarm was supposed to go off. And when I say "woke up," I mean, slowly crawled to consciousness, realized it wasn't even five-thirty in the morning, and tried to go back to sleep but barely lasted for fifteen minutes because it was so cold. One thing about August in Maine - the nights are getting cold!
I'm camping in Cobscook, so I just headed out to Lubec (the easternmost point in the US) for the morning to do some hiking and check out the lighthouse. After hiking a bit around Cobscook, I'm exploring Easport and thinking about eating pizza for the first time in over a month. (Whoa . . .)
This coming week is our last work week. We're still putting in stone steps at Gulf Hagas, and let me tell you - rocks are heavy! Then we take down base camp on Thursday and 'graduate' on Friday. After that I'm a free woman! I'm trying to make plans for my week between work and school, but all I can come up with are going to Kennywood and the driving range. . . . I'll have to work on that.
Sorry for not updating in a while. There hasn't been much to say! Hopefully I'll have lots of good pictures soon!
I can't seem to break out of my work schedule, because I woke up this morning at quarter 'til six, two hours before my alarm was supposed to go off. And when I say "woke up," I mean, slowly crawled to consciousness, realized it wasn't even five-thirty in the morning, and tried to go back to sleep but barely lasted for fifteen minutes because it was so cold. One thing about August in Maine - the nights are getting cold!
I'm camping in Cobscook, so I just headed out to Lubec (the easternmost point in the US) for the morning to do some hiking and check out the lighthouse. After hiking a bit around Cobscook, I'm exploring Easport and thinking about eating pizza for the first time in over a month. (Whoa . . .)
This coming week is our last work week. We're still putting in stone steps at Gulf Hagas, and let me tell you - rocks are heavy! Then we take down base camp on Thursday and 'graduate' on Friday. After that I'm a free woman! I'm trying to make plans for my week between work and school, but all I can come up with are going to Kennywood and the driving range. . . . I'll have to work on that.
Sorry for not updating in a while. There hasn't been much to say! Hopefully I'll have lots of good pictures soon!
Thursday, July 23, 2009
It's Been a While!
I'm exhausted.
I'm finally back to base camp after two weeks in Baxter State Park. I think I told you we've been doing stone steps, but we've actually been highlining rocks down the trail in order to build stone steps. The main goal of the project was the get the rocks moved so they could bring another pile over in the fall. We did some odd projects, like riprapping side areas of the trail to prevent erosion, but it was mainly moving rocks. If you look at it from above, it looks like a big Y. The main line is attached to two trees, and then there's a supporting vector with a griphoist on one end to move the line up and down for loading and unloading. Once the rock or rockbox is attached and the line is tightened, someone gets to guide it down using a rope. It's actually pretty fun work, though slow at points.
We stayed in the park during our days off last week. On Wednesday, we drove into Millinocket, the closest town, and went to the Appalacian Trail Cafe, which is home to the Summit Sundae Challenge. It's fourteen scoops of ice cream, a banana, a king-sized Snickers bar, a handful of M&Ms, five cherries, and an entire pastry (ours was a blueberry muffin). It's meant to be eaten by one person, but we split into teams of two for a challenge. We made quite the spectacle, and the locals were even getting into it, cheering us on. Turned out to be rather anticlimactic though, as all three teams finished at the same time. My stomach was fine, but my mouth was cold! We warmed up by lying in the sun on the sidewalk for a few minutes!
We spent the rest of the afternoon driving around town looking for t-shirt supplies to make team tie-dyed shirts. We actually drove forty-five minutes to the nearest Walmart to get the actual shirts, and the only color dye we could find was green. But it was my first time tie-dying, and the shirts turned out pretty well. We used cardboard to make a stencil with our team name on it, and we spray-painted it onto the shirts. Low-budget, but effective. :)
Thursday, we woke up at the unearthly hour of five am - even earlier than we get up for work - to climb Katahdin. But we hit the peak at about nine-thirty and were down again in the early afternoon. We went up the Hunt Trail (which we worked on!) to Baxter Peak, across Knife's Edge, and down Helon Taylor. I'm not the most experienced hiker, so it was a challenge, but it was definitely worth it. I tried to take lots of pictures, because the views even halfway up were incredible, so we'll see how they turned out.
We chilled on Friday, finished our t-shirts and went to the Ledges - the swimming place with the natural water slides. We were back at work on Saturday and left on Wednesday morning. The weekend in the park was nice, but staying in a tent for two weeks straight is not the most comfortable thing in the world. It starts to smell after a few days (mostly from socks), especially when you don't do laundry or take a shower! Also, it's tough to dry clothes out when they get wet.
So now I'm back! We got in yesterday morning, had lunch, went for showers and laundry, and then immediately piled into the vans again. We camped last night and went white water rafting today! It was my first time (I know - for shame! I live so close to the Yough!), but it was pretty fun. Most were class 2 and 3 rapids, but there was one 4 I believe. The first half of the trip was more exciting; the second half was a lot of drifting and minor rapids. We occupied ourselves for at least an hour with a riddle about two men in a restaurant and an albatross, lol.
Whew. Well, that's all for now. It's already past my bedtime, so I'm off to sleep! Catch you on the flip side. :P
I'm finally back to base camp after two weeks in Baxter State Park. I think I told you we've been doing stone steps, but we've actually been highlining rocks down the trail in order to build stone steps. The main goal of the project was the get the rocks moved so they could bring another pile over in the fall. We did some odd projects, like riprapping side areas of the trail to prevent erosion, but it was mainly moving rocks. If you look at it from above, it looks like a big Y. The main line is attached to two trees, and then there's a supporting vector with a griphoist on one end to move the line up and down for loading and unloading. Once the rock or rockbox is attached and the line is tightened, someone gets to guide it down using a rope. It's actually pretty fun work, though slow at points.
We stayed in the park during our days off last week. On Wednesday, we drove into Millinocket, the closest town, and went to the Appalacian Trail Cafe, which is home to the Summit Sundae Challenge. It's fourteen scoops of ice cream, a banana, a king-sized Snickers bar, a handful of M&Ms, five cherries, and an entire pastry (ours was a blueberry muffin). It's meant to be eaten by one person, but we split into teams of two for a challenge. We made quite the spectacle, and the locals were even getting into it, cheering us on. Turned out to be rather anticlimactic though, as all three teams finished at the same time. My stomach was fine, but my mouth was cold! We warmed up by lying in the sun on the sidewalk for a few minutes!
We spent the rest of the afternoon driving around town looking for t-shirt supplies to make team tie-dyed shirts. We actually drove forty-five minutes to the nearest Walmart to get the actual shirts, and the only color dye we could find was green. But it was my first time tie-dying, and the shirts turned out pretty well. We used cardboard to make a stencil with our team name on it, and we spray-painted it onto the shirts. Low-budget, but effective. :)
Thursday, we woke up at the unearthly hour of five am - even earlier than we get up for work - to climb Katahdin. But we hit the peak at about nine-thirty and were down again in the early afternoon. We went up the Hunt Trail (which we worked on!) to Baxter Peak, across Knife's Edge, and down Helon Taylor. I'm not the most experienced hiker, so it was a challenge, but it was definitely worth it. I tried to take lots of pictures, because the views even halfway up were incredible, so we'll see how they turned out.
We chilled on Friday, finished our t-shirts and went to the Ledges - the swimming place with the natural water slides. We were back at work on Saturday and left on Wednesday morning. The weekend in the park was nice, but staying in a tent for two weeks straight is not the most comfortable thing in the world. It starts to smell after a few days (mostly from socks), especially when you don't do laundry or take a shower! Also, it's tough to dry clothes out when they get wet.
So now I'm back! We got in yesterday morning, had lunch, went for showers and laundry, and then immediately piled into the vans again. We camped last night and went white water rafting today! It was my first time (I know - for shame! I live so close to the Yough!), but it was pretty fun. Most were class 2 and 3 rapids, but there was one 4 I believe. The first half of the trip was more exciting; the second half was a lot of drifting and minor rapids. We occupied ourselves for at least an hour with a riddle about two men in a restaurant and an albatross, lol.
Whew. Well, that's all for now. It's already past my bedtime, so I'm off to sleep! Catch you on the flip side. :P
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Vacation!
Sleeping in a bed is a good feeling. It's not something I realize that I miss when I'm in a sleeping bag and a tent, but, if asked, I would probably take the bed over the sleeping bag, especially in a torrential downpour. I'm in Bar Harbor with my family for the 'weekend,' and every morning, I wake up diagonal across the bed. I always manage to stay on my sleeping pad when I'm in my tent, but the mattress seems to be just too big. Too much room!
It's been fun being out on the town and hitting the sights. It was rainy yesterday, so, after lunch (and a shower for me), we went to the Whale Museum in downtown Bar Harbor. We did some shopping and then went back to the hotel to play some cards in the bar, where I had my first legal drink. It was a . . . Bluberri pink lemonade? I'm not actually sure what was in it, but it was . . . interesting.
It was a gorgeous day today! Sunny, low 70s. We had breakfast at this cute little restaurant, where I had chocolate chip pancakes. Yum! We explored the BH shops a bit more before going on a lighthouse/harbor boat tour, which was fun for a number of reasons. I didn't get sick on the boat! The tour guide was funny and he was from near Pittsburgh. We've gotten stopped at least three times in the past few days because of our PGH college sweatshirts, and the general consensus is that Pittsburgh is awesome. :) We're all set to go kayaking tomorrow. I'm super excited for that. Being on the sea is definitely a worthwhile experience.
As for work, I have to be back tomorrow night to get everything packed. We leave again on Saturday for our second week on the Hunt trail, on Katahdin. Last week, we fixed up some extra things. We'll be doing stone steps for the next two weeks. We have plans to stay an extra day one week so we can hike to the summit. I'm not the best or most experienced hiker, but I'm really looking forward to that. I don't want to spend three weeks working halfway up the mountain and never experience what it's like to make it to the top. I can't wait for the view!
We also have plans for an ice cream competition! There's an AT cafe in a nearby town that serves fourteen scoops of ice cream, one for each state. We've already split up into three teams of two. The goal is to finish. If more than one team finishes, then it's fastest time. We've been "training" for weeks, eating seconds and thirds at dinner in the name of this competition. I think the gaps between appetites are starting to decrease, and it's going to be a close contest. The biggest thing I'm worried about is brain freeze!
I have more pictures to share! I'll try to get some up soon.
It's been fun being out on the town and hitting the sights. It was rainy yesterday, so, after lunch (and a shower for me), we went to the Whale Museum in downtown Bar Harbor. We did some shopping and then went back to the hotel to play some cards in the bar, where I had my first legal drink. It was a . . . Bluberri pink lemonade? I'm not actually sure what was in it, but it was . . . interesting.
It was a gorgeous day today! Sunny, low 70s. We had breakfast at this cute little restaurant, where I had chocolate chip pancakes. Yum! We explored the BH shops a bit more before going on a lighthouse/harbor boat tour, which was fun for a number of reasons. I didn't get sick on the boat! The tour guide was funny and he was from near Pittsburgh. We've gotten stopped at least three times in the past few days because of our PGH college sweatshirts, and the general consensus is that Pittsburgh is awesome. :) We're all set to go kayaking tomorrow. I'm super excited for that. Being on the sea is definitely a worthwhile experience.
As for work, I have to be back tomorrow night to get everything packed. We leave again on Saturday for our second week on the Hunt trail, on Katahdin. Last week, we fixed up some extra things. We'll be doing stone steps for the next two weeks. We have plans to stay an extra day one week so we can hike to the summit. I'm not the best or most experienced hiker, but I'm really looking forward to that. I don't want to spend three weeks working halfway up the mountain and never experience what it's like to make it to the top. I can't wait for the view!
We also have plans for an ice cream competition! There's an AT cafe in a nearby town that serves fourteen scoops of ice cream, one for each state. We've already split up into three teams of two. The goal is to finish. If more than one team finishes, then it's fastest time. We've been "training" for weeks, eating seconds and thirds at dinner in the name of this competition. I think the gaps between appetites are starting to decrease, and it's going to be a close contest. The biggest thing I'm worried about is brain freeze!
I have more pictures to share! I'll try to get some up soon.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
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