Back from the Bush

HIIIII everyone!! Wow I can't believe that it has been over 2 weeks since I have been on a computer. That just seems crazy to me. But things are well, I'm in Morganton right now which is about 45 min away from Table Rock where I was for the past 17 days.

There is so much to post but not a lot of time so I'll try and get some highlights in there. I wish that I could email you all separately but right now that just won't work, so I hope everyone has a chance to read this.

So when I arrived at the NCOBS Table Rock base camp oh 2 or 3 Saturday's ago, I'm not really sure anymore. We took off immediately. Pretty much tossed all our gear into backpacks and were off on the immersion phase of the internship. I had thought that we were going to chill out and then leave later but I quickly learned that we were on a very need to know basis and I didn't know crap... still don't really :)

But I was ready for my FIRST camping trip ever. After the first packing of the backpack that was going to live on my shoulders for the next 17 days I thought that I really might die... the thing weighed about 65 pounds and I was not expecting it to be quite that heavy honestly. Definitely thought that I was going to be in for a long and rough experience. Fortunately after two days of torture and thinking my arms and back were going to fall off I finally figured out how to pack the sucker and tie it a bit better so the good news is that I didn't die.

The majority of our time out there was expeditioning. Meaning we woke up bright and early in the morning tore down camp made breakfast and then hiked all day to our next camp site, but up camp, made dinner and went to bed. It was totally exhausting... we were forever hiking up and down steeps hills and rocky terrain with that stupid small person on our backs. I would like to think that I caught onto the camping thing pretty quick and didn't stick out to much from the group. I can know successfully put up a really tight and execellent tarp to sleep under, bake pretty much anything out in the field on little tiny stoves, not shower for `17 days and actually not die from it, poop in a bag, poop in a hole that I dug, navigate through the bush, and a whole slew of other things that I can't really think of right now.

It really did rain the first 7 days that we were out there which got really old. I was starting to think that the sun never actually shined in NC. There are these hilarious banana suits that are bright yellow that students wear when it rains, they don't let any air in at all but they are quite fun to play around in the mud in. I'm not sure one day or night went by when I didn't put it on at least once, if I wasn't hiking in it all day anyways that is. Despite the weather everyone was in a cheery mood and had a great time out there. we also got to do 2 climbing days on course which was a great change from backpacking and gave the legs a bit of a rest.
The very end of the immersion was a 7 mile run (another thing that was a shock to me). We started at about 6 in the morning and about 2.5 miles of the course was completely up hill. No joke I really almost died again :) The biggest hill I've seen since living in FL has been a driveway!

My intern group is full of amazing people. There are 11 of us: me, Christy, Chelsea, Carrie, Charlie, Keith, Eric, Eli, Leslie, Max, and John. At the end of the immersion we found out that in fact we are going to be split in half and staffing two different base camps during the summer. I'm actually assigned to the Cedar Rock basecamp (not table rock which is where I was telling you all that I was going to be). I'm excited for the switch and have met a ton of awesome people that work at Cedar Rock. The 6 of us interns going there are actually on our way right now and will be getting there later tonight.

The rest of the month I have more training and then it is time to start work and get things moving in the direction of the job. Since I'm still on a need to know basis I'm not sure what all is going to happen but I've decided not to try and figure it out and just take each day at a time and do whatever comes up. But I'm really hoping to get in a lot of climbing and white water canoeing.

Needless to say I'm going to have a different address. I'll try and post that and some pictures as soon as I get a chance. I've got to run now, other people need to use the comptuer and we have to peace out.


Miss you all TONS AND TONS AND TONS!

Love and Cheers
J