i'm writing this entry at the atlanta airport after a long weekend adventure in charleston, sc. i went to see my friend becky get married in a beautiful service with a reception following at a gorgeous mansion.
i think i'm going to try a new format for writing about my trail hitches...here goes!
location: quabbin reservoir park, the main water supply for the boston metro area
project: building retaining walls out of dimensional lumber along eroded sections of a beautiful trail just south of the dam as well as putting in "runners" along the side of the trail near a stream bank to help hold in and build up tred
highlights: quabbin is beautiful. downright gorgeous. we saw lots of wildlife (turtles, turkeys, and an eagle!) and made friends with two families of geese who enjoyed hanging out by the section of trail we were working on. it was the crew leader's birthday in the middle of the hitch so we went to amherst for some yummy vietnamese food and ice cream. the program director even came out to eat with us! our site contact was AMAZING and introduced us to what seemed like almost all of the employees at quabbin. we even joked about making DCR (department of conservation and recreation) trading cards. al detour (nicknamed hipster al for his large plastic framed glasses, snazzy hairdo, and fun sweaters), the head carpenter was invaluable in supplying us with tools and tips of the trade. i broke a sledge hammer handle. yup. i did!
not-so-good parts: in the middle of the hitch a huge thunderstorm rolled through the area and woke us all up for over an hour. there was a torrential downpour, terrifying winds, and thunder like no other. the lightning was so frequent that it seemed as though someone had a strobe light outside the van. needless to say, the day after the storm was not ideal. all of us were tired, some of our work had to be redone, and morale wasn't super high. we got over that though...only to come back to the campsite one evening to find that two big packs had been stolen from our tents (none were mine). that brought on lots of issues (calling the police, questioning our safety there, needing to go to town to replace some clothing and gear the folks didn't have anymore). the police were hilarious, so that was at least entertaining. to add to that, the next day we came back to the campsite to find that 3 of our 4 tents were missing. also gone were a crew member's nice hiking boots and headlamp. we eventually relocated to the ranger station where we slept on the floor of the locker room. i much preferred being in a tent to that, but it was a warm, dry place to be which was all we really needed at that point.
wrap-up: despite all of the not-so-great moments, i had a great time! i loved all of the wildlife sightings (cute goslings and baby turkeys!) and enjoyed having a camp kitchen (even though we didn't use it all of the time).
next stop...southeast mass!
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