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The trip here was insane. So much action and just generally cool stuff has already happened. The start of the trip, where we all gathered up at the van, was tight-strung with energy, and the first ten minutes in the van was all yelling and laughing and good vibes, being late but not really and leaving campus for the first time on the first SPIKE.
So the first interesting thing that happened occurred when we arrived at our living arrangements at the Best Western Hotel.
But I don’t want to skip stuff. The trip was good, I listened to the ever-reliable ‘pod, we drove through mid-California to the coast, stopped at subway, and made a lot of sarcastic remarks.
Ok, interesting thing number one. When we stopped at the hotel, we did it strategically, because we were planning on putting 11 people in a room booked for four (thus saving oodles of cash we could then use to eat). So, I got out with our leader (Vlad) and another teammate (Laura) and we went to check in. Buuut, when I hopped out of the van, I forgot my headphones were on. My ipod yanked after me, the headphones jerked out, and it clattered neatly into a storm drain.
I took my typical route in calamity and ignored the problem. I find issues much easier to deal with when the emotional elements are ignored (MY MUSIC! NOOOOO!), and we went inside to check in. Later, I came out with a teammate, and managed to stick most of my upper torso into the drain. It wasn’t a grated drain, just a 6”x3’ slit in the curb which dropped about four feet to a cement slope that drained the water into the sewers or wherever it goes. The good news was that I could see my ipod, and there was no water to be seen. The bad bit was I couldn’t quite reach it, because trying to fit any more of my body into the drain brought some serious creakage from my ribs.
But, thank goodness for Jason (our unofficial cook), we had some cooking tongs. With said apparati, I was able to nab my ipod and save it from the clutches of the LA waste-treatment system. A shout-out to the old-fashioned ipod minis which can bounce off anything and not break.
The second crazy thing was the general process of fitting 11 people into one hotel room. This was no master suite neither, it was two queen beds crammed into a room, with an attached bathroom. There were three people per bed, and no space to walk on the floor. I was pretty comfy with my therma-rest, and even managed to call dibs on an outlet to charge my phone.
All the while we were all slightly concerned about whether or not the hotel would call us out on booking a room for four and then parading 11 people laden with gear through the hotel. I would like to take credit for solving that problem, if there ever was one. I went back down to the lobby after we all got up to the room to check on parking arrangements for our van, since it couldn’t fit in the garage. When I got to the lobby, there were two elderly ladies checking in with the receptionist, so I stuck my hands in my pockets and waited. However, while I was waiting, one of the ladies made a comment about “hiring one of those young men” to help with their baggage, and gestured in my direction. Being a good American lad, I laughed and asked if I could help. Long story short, I ended up loading up a cart for them and trundling their luggage up to their rooms. The women were apparently friends from elementary school traveling and sight-seeing across the west coast. Carol and Caroline, and Caroline was traveling with her husband.
They were really nice people, and I got a chance to talk about AmeriCorps NCCC as I put their bags in their rooms. One of the women tried to put a twenty dollar bill in my pocket, but I told them I couldn’t and wouldn’t anyway, policy and morals and whatsuch. Why would I sign up for NCCC if I wanted money for helping people?
The reason I take credit for ensuring the hotel didn’t care about us piling into a room is because I volunteered to help these women right at the front desk and was very obviously being a good Samaritan. Brownie points for the overbooked room.
The next interesting thing was a classic Silver IV crisis. We needed to go shopping for food while in Long Beach, so that we could bring it to Catalina with us and avoid paying lots of dough on the island. So we headed to Sam’s club to buy bulk. Unfortunately, we have something of a planning problem, and when we got there, a couple of rather important things became apparent:
1) We didn’t have a Sam’s Club membership
2) Sam’s club doesn’t give you bags to put your purchases in
3) We sure as heck hadn’t brought any extra bags
But, in classic Silver IV manner, we fixed everything on the fly. Nicole, our teammate from NYC, was an excellent distraught young idealist and talked the manager of Sam’s Club into letting us make the purchase without a card (we ARE supposed to have cards as AmeriCorps members, we just hadn’t been issued them yet). We purchased a few big, reusable grocery bags to put the food in, and the rest we packed into our clothes bags. I had refried bean cans and goldfish mingling with my socks.
But that’s the end of the crises. We made it over onto the island just fine, and spent the first day being driven around to see the 1 square mile city.
It’s beautiful here. I’m sitting at our picnic tables, fifteen feet from out sunken firepit so my headlamp doesn’t disturb the team. We’re all just sitting in silence. The stars, though I’ve been told they’re not as numerous as they could be, are gorgeous. I definitely wish you could see it. Our campsite is completely secluded on the top of one of their smaller mountains. We’re about five miles from the small city of Avalon, with permanent tent structures, bunks, running water, and a fridge, stove, etc.
I wish I could turn down the moon, it’s so damn bright. Earlier we found sports equipment in shed on the camp, and spent a half-hour hitting rocks with bats and golf clubs, throwing around volleyballs and footballs.
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Awright, I'll do more tomorrow, I want to sleep. We start at the boys and girls club tomorrow.
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