We got our official teams on Friday. I am now a proud member of Earth 5 (not to be confused with my first Earth 5 team, which was temporary). Ervin is my TL again, which is great. My team consists of Nikki, John, Adrienne, Harrison, Travis, Paul, Mike, and Levi (who, coincidentally, was on my first temporary team with Ervin).
The TLs divide us into teams by having every member write down an interesting fact about themselves. They took those facts and divided us into our teams. Then, on Friday, Buck and Trisha (Earth TLs) read out each fact and the person to whom the fact belonged was assigned a color. Before they started the activity, I had been feeling pretty anxious. I really enjoyed the group I had been in for the past week. There were a lot of great people on it and we worked really well together when we did our box-building activity. I was actually a little close to being upset by the whole experience. I was actually the first one called for my team, so I had to watch it develop in front of me. But everything turned out okay, I'm definitely satisfied with the people on my team.
Anyway, after we were separated into colors, we were given our first "clue" to find out who our TL was. We got a collage that we didn't really understand, but it took us first to the pool and then to the cafeteria. Our color was "balloon blue," which helped us when we saw the remnants of a blue balloon near a trashcan that was outside the cafeteria. It was popped, but we couldn't find a clue. We figured there was no other place to go but to Walsh Hall dorms, so we started walking in that direction. Then, we spotted balloons attached to a car in the parking lot. Everyone recognized the vehicle instantly: it was Ervin's pickup truck. There were a bunch of blue balloons in the bed of the truck that we popped immediately. Travis found a clue in one of them, which told us to "Go North" and "Look Left." North took us toward the dorms and we looked left where we saw Ervin with a blue balloon. It was a lot of fun that it's a shame the scavenger hunt was so short.
Once we gathered around Ervin, he gave a little talk and, at our request, he told us where our first spike is: Beaumont, Texas. We'll be spending an extra week here in Denver to do our Wildfire training and then we'll leave for Texas on the 10th.
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We're going to be working with the local Habitat for Humanity chapter, and we'll be living at a YMCA with an NCCC group from the Perry Point, MD campus. We also found out that we'll be housing in Nederland, CO with another team for Wildfire. That team has almost all of the other people I've spent time with, so I'm definitely looking forward to that.
After that, the entire campus was buzzing about who was on their team, who their TLs were, where their first spike was. Everyone is going to have an amazing time and all the spikes will definitely be great experiences, both to the communities and the teams. But some people definitely got lucky on their first spike. One guy I know, Pat, is going to Selma, AL. His team is staying in a house that's provided by a couple of sponsors who have arranged for a member of the community to cook for the team once a week. They're going to be doing Habitat projects and working with kids in after-school programs. One team is going to Key West. Another is going to stay at Camp Hope in New Orleans, which is the AmeriCorps*NCCC hub of Gulf Recovery operations. Whenever Anderson Cooper does anything concerning AmeriCorps, he's usually broadcasting from Camp Hope.
That night, everyone was so excited about their projects and their teams that everyone went out. After Joanna's birthday outing, I was pretty much 0-2 on going out and having fun in the process. So I decided to stay in, since it was also an ideal time to do laundry with everyone out for the evening. Still, it's a little frustrating. I don't always enjoy going out, I'm not into the bar scene. But staying in isn't always much fun either. At least I got my laundry done.
The next morning, our team woke up early to go on a hike together. We went to Chautauqua Park in Boulder and hiked Green Mountain. We started on the Gregory Canyon trail and then followed Ranger to Saddle Rock.
Toward the end we somehow were following the Amphitheater trail, but that doesn't seem to be on the map. Still, we made it back to the parking lot. We started the hike around 11:00 am and finished around 5:00 pm. The hike up was sunny and hot at times. We stopped right before we reached the top to have our lunch of sandwiches that we had bought in Boulder. When we reached the top, there was a marker that indicated 8,100 feet. Everyone took a bunch of pictures from the pinnacle.
The climb up was pleasant, if a little tiring. The decent was another story. It started out kind of fun. There was a lot of packed snow and some ice, so a few of us started out sort of skiing or surfing down it on our feet. Eventually, though, it became more difficult to maintain balance and stability. In all seriousness, that hike made me realize that we spend our entire lives taking for granted the comfort of walking on flat surfaces. Every time the snow cleared and it was a little flat, I could feel all of the tension leave my body. There were a few spots where some of us just sat down and sledded across the trail. That was fun, until I did it for one part of the trail and I did a somersault instead. Every so often, we would pause for the whole group to gather back up, and one of us would comment on how dangerous the hike had become. It really was the true meaning of treacherous.
As I said, we finally got back to the van around 5:00. We had to stop at Target for Nikki on the way home. We made it back around 6:40 and ran to the cafeteria to try and make it before dinner closed. Apparently, dinner was 4:30 to 6:30 though (not according to our CTI schedule! grr), so it was two bowls of Lucky Charms for dinner. Oh, well. All I really cared about at that point was getting out of my clothes and taking a hot shower.
All in all, our first day as a team was quite the experience. Things are gonna be good.
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