dover. DE

Happy Thursday!

The days are quickly fading away into weeks. Moose 4 is doing well! No doubt we have had our hiccups along the way. When you live, work, AND spend your free time with the same 10 people, things get interesting. One thing our team is really good at is having fun. We may not be the most professional, most appropriate, or most productive team, which at times, makes me shake my head and roll my eyes, but man, we sure do know how to laugh. It seems to be a trend that every week I end up laughing so hard, tears start dribbling out of my eyes.

I truly think it is a testament to our team that 11 completely different people can spend, what I’ve come to realize is an incredible amount of time together. I can’t even imagine what kind of crazy stories we will have after nine months of our “togetherness”.  

So my team is now in Dover, DE. We left Lewes last Sunday and headed for the Delaware Estuarine Research Reserve, which is where we are staying and working. We are living in this funny little education center where the kitchen is the size of a bathroom stall and stuffed birds flock the walls. The Research Reserve specializes in Horseshoe Crab research and outdoor education. We have been helping eradicate the invasive species that are absolutely suffocating the trees in the area and doing some landscaping for the center. Next week we will be “tour guides” for the 400+ kiddos that are coming to the center to learn more about estuaries.

Since our team is not traveling to a different spike site, we finally have an entire two days off! A full weekend! Unheard of! This morning I woke up at 8:30 and relished the fact that I could sit and slowly drink my cup of coffee. Usually I have to down it in a few gulps and scramble to find some open sink space to perform my morning hygiene routine. Around 10:30a we had a tour scheduled at the Dickinson Plantation about a half-mile up the road. It was an authentic tour of John Dickinson’s childhood home. Then we traveled to a wonderful Amish market! It was so amazing to eat homemade, delicious food again. I was giddy for the entire two hours we were there.

Ok, our internet trip is coming to an end. Have a lovely day!

- Liz

Some of Moose 4 outside of the house that Sarah's Grandma grew up in

Working at the Research Center

My buddy Terrence and I

Atlantic Ocean!

Layla, myself, and Barry

Steve and Layla happy to be at the beach!

on your mark, get set..... 

Our tiny tiny kitchen

Home for two weeks

It was so cold that the water inside the vines had frozen!

a few so far

Some photo updates for you folks. Most of these are not my pictures, but borrowed from friends. Enjoy!

Meet Jimmy

Some volunteer work at Jimmy's home

"Hurry up and wait" is a motto used frequently in AmeriCorps
 

haha, Recognize the clothes?

Out for pizza

Fire training!

This is a fire shelter. Every firefighter is required to carry one of these guys.

Chipotle burrito? I wish. 

Fusees! They are like a sparkler on steroids. I'm the fourth one in.  

Practicing with the drip- torch. Probably one of the coolest things ever. 

Using flappers to put out the grass fire.

Avery with his pulaski 

Yep. I am a wildland fire fighter.   

Kickball never gets old.

Adios NC

So fire camp is coming to a quick end. We are all officially Type II Wildland Fire Fighters now. My mind is definitely still processing that. As my friend Rusty said, life feels just a little bit sexier now.

I really had no idea what it meant to be a Wildland Fire Fighter. I knew it was probably hard work and all, but didn't you just put water on the fire and wear special clothes? Not in the least. Like most things that you are unfamiliar with, there is so much the average joe doesn't know. It is an entire sub-culture. The lingo and    norms are enough to put an outsider into culture shock. 

This week has been such a beautiful break from the non-routined routine of Ameri-life. I feel like I can finally appreciate that when class was done for the evening, you were free... for the ENTIRE night. No meetings, no mandatory group PT, no cooking, no cleaning, no room inspections or last minute schedule changes. In a round-about way, it was our spring break. Now vacation is almost over and everyone feels a little bummed to be leaving such a cool environment. Karaoke tonight, back to Perry Point, MD tomorrow afternoon, and then Delaware tomorrow night. In the words of one of my favorite songs, "Send Me On My Way."

"The Doorway"

Its been quite a few days since I last posted. Life has been a crazy mess of organized chaos lately. I am currently in Kinston, NC about to start fire training for the next week. We are staying at Forest Service housing which is actually really nice and... drum role please...... there is WiFi! It was a 6 hour drive from Perry Point, and I successfully managed to take 3 naps in that time. The crew just finished an epic game of muddy ultimate frisbee for our evening PT and now everyone is hanging in the rec room,  playing pool, ping pong, and soaking up the free time. 


Last week all teams finally were informed of their spike sites! Lets just say I'm about to get real familiar with Delaware :)  
Moose 4 (my team) will be doing lots of environmental projects in Dover (yay Murphys!), Wilmington, Lewes, and Newark. More details later, I'm excited about it though!


I do have to share this video that my friend Tracy made! It's a perfect example of "cheap entertainment" or in our case, having nothing better to do at 10:30pm.


Enjoy!

"The Doorway"

- Liz