Just as promised, I have completely failed at keeping up with this deal, but here I am finally. And I’m still alive!
The last three months have been an absolute adventure, having already covered a ton of ground in at least 5 states. Our first sponsor was Living Lands & Waters, which is based out of East Moline, IL. They have two main projects, The Great River Cleanups and The Million Trees Project. We started off by working in Memphis, TN for a week, living on a house barge doing trash pick-ups along the Mississippi River. We arrived amidst a huge rain storm, unloaded all 11 members of our team’s gear into small jon boats and drove out to the barge in the dark of the night. From there we unpacked all of our gear and settled our soggy selves into one room where we slept for the entire week. Every day we would pack up our air mattresses, clothes, and gear and personal belongings in an attempt to make the room look unlived in and suitable for our sponsor’s press conferences and group lunch breaks. We worked with various members from the community as well as some high school Alternative Spring Break volunteers which gave us the opportunity to meet all kinds of people from different areas across the US. Picking up trash, although it sounds simple, was one of the most eye-opening experiences of my trip so far. Every stretch of shore that we would ride out to in the jon boats looked dirty from a distance, but was absolutely covered in layers of years worth of trash. From gas tanks to car parts to old shoes and liquor bottles, any sort of personal belonging you can imagine coated the shores of the Miss, not to mention the tons and tons of styrofoam clinging to every plant, rock, tree, you name it. My team and I along with the volunteers spent hours cleaning up a certain area, leave for lunch, and come back only to feel as if we hadn’t even made a dent. The only proof we had that we had actually picked up trash was the giant piles of black trash bags that filled up an entire half of a barge by the end of the week. While we weren’t working, be were able to relax and enjoy the beauty of the Mississippi quite a bit. One of the crew members, Boot, took us on a late night boat ride on the river and even gave us an impromptu astronomy lesson. Night life was a bit hard to come by, what with arranging boat rides to and from shore, but we were able to get out and explore Beale Street a few times to get our fill of local blues bands, real down-home Memphis BBQ and some delicious stouts.
“Your 20’s are your ‘selfish’ years. It’s a decade to immerse yourself in every single thing possible. Be selfish with your time, and all the aspects of you. Tinker with shit, travel, explore, love a lot, love a little, and never touch the ground.”
~Kyoko Escamilla
After our week in Memphis, we traveled back up north (stopping in St. Louis, MO to see the giant arch of course!) to live in Rock Island, IL, working with the same sponsor. Here most of our work focused on the Million Trees Project which was designed to not only clean up important riverways, but also plant native trees and remove invasive species. This means that most of our work over those next 7 weeks involved harvesting, bundling, wrapping, shipping and delivering hundreds of thousands of tree saplings. So many hours were spent standing in the shopping wrapping, wrapping, wrapping and wrapping newspaper around the roots of baby trees and bagging them up. We really got to explore the ‘musical talent’ of our team as well as everybody’s differing and poor tastes in music, uncanny ability to bicker over the most ridiculous topics, and ‘mad skills’ in eating so much food for lunch that we all shut down and become completely cranky and useless for an entire afternoon of work. We had some fun too J For the first month we lived in an absolutely gorgeous, 7-bedroom home in a historic neighborhood in Rock Island that our sponsor had rented for us. It was so nice to have some room of our own in the house after being cramped in one room with the entire team for a week. Our sponsor was also able to get secondhand bikes for the team to use while we were in the area, so we had the chance to take a number of bike rides up and down the Mississippi River, sometimes to and from work, or just for fun on the weekends. I experienced some of the most beautiful sunsets and sunrises of my life along that river, but also some of the most grueling winds, massive ‘bug clouds’ and frigid bike riding conditions. We were also able to use some free passes at a local driving range. After realizing we had to have our own golf clubs, we borrowed some from our sponsor and I promptly snapped the head off of one with my unbelievable, hulk-like strength. Everybody was ever-so impressed. After that month was up, we moved into the crew’s shop in East Moline. The shop had a loft area where we typically ate lunch during our work days, and this is where we made our home for the few weeks of the project. It was essentially back to cramming our entire team into one room, however a few people got tents and some were able to stay in a camper which freed up some space. Things got interesting when we discovered that the oven in our kitchen (don’t be mistaken, it was not separate from our sleeping quarters, but one giant room divided by a small bar) had developed a gas leak. It only took a few mornings of waking up with team-wide, massive headaches to get that corrected. My team and I spent some of the remaining time working with trees, but also got the opportunity to branch out and work with some other groups in the area once most of the tree work was done. We traveled to Peoria, IL, Des Moines, IA, Winona, MN, Aiken, IL, and Cassville, WI (of the places I can remember off the top of my head) to do various jobs that included cleaning out and tearing down a squatter house on an island, planting somewhere near a thousand trees during a rainstorm for habitat restoration, hauling railroad ties that had been washed out by floods, digging up old refrigerators, stoves and barrels (mystery contents included) out of at least a foot of mud, and handing out trees to clueless workers at Caterpillar companies. You wouldn’t believe how difficult it was to get people to accept free trees…
“Hey there, Sir! Would you like a free tree?”
“Erm. Um. Man, I’m not sure… Is it… Well… Maybe… I think I know what trees are. I don’t know much about trees… Ok, well what is it?”
“It’s an oak tree, sir.”
“Can I plant that oak tree in a pot on my back deck at my apartment?”
“Oh. Well sure sir, as long as you are prepared to watch it die…”
It was a long, long 8 weeks, but we all managed not to murder one another before we made it back to campus for our transition period. To be honest, most of us were dreading transition because it meant multiple presentations on what we had accomplished as well as preparing for the up and coming projects we were about to head out on. However, it happened to be a really refreshing week. There was time to see old faces we had met on campus during the first month of training, gain a little space and freedom from our team by having our own rooms, get some help with some life-planning from counselors on campus, and mostly just sit back to relax and get back into somewhat of a routine again. The team absolutely nailed all of our debriefings and briefings, and before we knew it, it was time to roll out again on the next great adventure!
And so this leads me to our current location: Wisconsin. We’re currently working for a few different YMCA Camps in Western Wisconsin, very near the Twin Cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis, MN. The first week was spent at a camp called Icaghowan near Amery, WI. It was a beautiful little camp located on somewhat of an island surrounded by Lake Wapogasset. Almost every hour of every work day was spent outside doing various projects around the camp. Tasks such as raking what felt like acres of damp, stinky leaves; shoveling dirt truckloads of dirt; mulching various trails around camp; assembling team-building ropes courses; installing new docks and boat launches; sweeping off roofs; cleaning and prepping cabins to be used in the summer; hauling old furniture into a giant dumpster; building bocce ball courts; washing windows; painting cabins; weeding outdoor volleyball courts and so on. Even after the work day, most of my time was spent outside whether it was utilizing the camp’s trails for a good run, reading in the sky chairs, going for night walks in the rain, or playing beach volleyball for hours on end. On one of our off days, the camp’s caretaker, Jeff, took the time out of his day to show us how to throw tomahawks, shoot archery, and master slingshots. He also invited us down to his house one night for beers, BBQ, a bonfire, and some fireworks. Although it was a short week with the camp, it was great to see that we made such an impact, and what really impressed me was seeing how much the director, Bob, and all of the staff cared about making a difference in children’s lives. Multiple times in speaking to us about the children that attend the camp, Bob was drawn to tears. It made things a little awkward for us when he would kind of stare off into space for a while… But seriously, it was really impressive to see someone so compassionate about doing things for others despite the toll it may take on him or the time it may take out of his life. He could have chosen any number of things to do with his life, but he devoted himself to the camp and has been there for years.
We finished up at Icaghowan early, so we took off after lunch to head to the next YMCA Camp. Camp St. Croix is a huge change from Icaghowan, being a 400 acre camp located in Hudson, WI. With somewhere near 15 various cabins just for campers alone, the camps sprawls on forever and offers activities like volleyball, tennis, horseback riding, canoeing, etc. Despite its size, the camp still feels cozy and definitely focuses on the same core ideals as the smaller camp. So far we’ve already worked on a variety of tasks even though we’ve only been here a few days. We started out putting up fences in the horse pastures, so that the horses being delivered for the camp on Memorial Day actually have somewhat of a home here. The team also did a lot of trail building, brush hauling and invasive species removal. We tackled a local invasive species called Buckthorn… Thorn is an understatement; these things pack daggers and most definitely do not like to come out of the ground. From pulaskis and spade shovels, to bow saws and loppers, we hacked at those plants for hours and managed to remove more of them than our own flesh, so I’d say it was mostly successful. My arms may look as though I’m the victim of domestic abuse, but at least I feel like a champ. We found out after we were done removing the plants, that if you happened to get stuck by the thorns badly enough, they can cause infection… Convenient. I’ll send word if my skin starts falling off! Today we started building more fences, and managed to bust open one of the camp’s waterlines by the stables, but were unfortunately interrupted by giant thunderstorms and were forced to retreat to a barn to work on building a ‘gaga pit’ for the camp. Gaga is a game that the campers play which involves slapping various balls at one another to get each other ‘out’ until only one child is left, the child then being named the ‘gaga champion’. The game is a blast, but building the pit was quite the adventure to say the least. It seems our team could use a little help in the construction aspect of things, which should make our next project in South Dakota pretty interesting.
South Dakota! Yah, I’m going to South Dakota. We’ll be there for about 4 weeks, working in Pierre and Fort Pierre doing disaster relief due to some flooding that came through last year. I’m not sure what all we’ll be doing for work, but I know it will include some home renovations and reconstruction since most of the first stages of relief, such as mucking and gutting, have already been completed. The team and I have grand plans of making a trip out to see Mt. Rushmore and hopefully scoping out the Badlands.
Well that’s all for this round, hopefully this gives you some idea of what I’ve been doing for the last few months! Family and friends, I miss you all more than you could ever know. Although I’ve been having the time of my life, I think about you all every day, tell myself to keep in touch, fail miserably, and miss you all, all the more. Think of this as one giant postcard from all of the various places I’ve been.
Much love!
PS I tried to add photos but couldn’t get them to upload. I’ll try to add some next time around.
chelseainthecorn 