a trip to the east.

last monday found 6 of us piled into a minivan with a trailer hitched to the back, full of everything we needed for 10 days of hard work, good eats, and enjoyable free time. it was actually the same minivan i've been in for all of my hitches...which is fine, but kind of strange.

for this hitch, we camped at f. gilbert hills (to this day, no one knows what the 'f' stands for!) in foxborough, ma. FG hills was central to our two work sites. we spent the first week building up the tread on an eroded section of trail at the borderland state park. the work was fine, not terribly challenging, but it kept us busy. the staff were AWESOME. our contact and the head carpentry guru were especially hilarious. borderland is home to the ames mansion (descendants of the folks who patented the curve on shovels...and made building railroads possible) which we got a tour of one afternoon. there's also a small cabin that some scenes of the film shutter island were shot. the final cool thing about the park was the disc golf course that was there!

one of the other crews, led by my teaching partner caleb, stopped by for a rousing game. i'm not very great at golf or frisbee, so i wasn't very great at disc golf, but the course sure was beautiful. our crew had fun making welcome signs for the other crew (nicknamed the ruopp family vacation) and posting them all over the park.

our second project involved rebuilding a section of boardwalk at the stony brook wildlife sanctuary near norfolk, ma. the main tasks involved removing the 20 year old decking and posts and installing new ones. seem simple? nothing is ever that simple. it was a really fun, challenging carpentry project that allowed all of us to expand on our skills.

the sanctuary was BEAUTIFUL. wildlife sightings included 2 snapping turtles, lots of frogs and toads, oodles of smaller turtles sunning themselves on the mud flats, a couple muskrats, a water shrew, lots of birds, and a family of swans (which i learned are an invasive species from asia).

there were lots of non-work time difficulties along the way...lots of sickness endured (myself included), bug bites (2 spider bites...yikes!), rain storms, and long days, but overall, it was a great hitch. our main site contact, ron, was absolutely hilarious. he worked with us almost every day and told the funniest stories about his many years working in massachusetts parks and forests.

now it is time to enjoy my 4 day weekend!