Red Ants, Downed Team Members, and Unrelation

Heading into the final week here at Camp Cedar Glen. Looks to be about 5 more days of digging trail, and then maybe one day of goofing off when we finish early (that's the hope). They do have a ropes course here, and the kinda sorta maybe suggested that we would get to use it. And soon I will get to shoot some arrows at their hay bales, as they have an archery range.
Trail maintenance is a dreary process, to say the least. Usually about five of us make up a trail team; two Pulaskis (the axe-hoe double-trouble combo) and three McLeods (the pitchfork-jumbo hoe double-trouble combo). And yes, our tools are proper nouns because they are all named after people. Some kind of famous firefighters I think. Whatever. But, in short, the trail building sounds like this (in order) slam, hack-drag, chipchopCLANG (if there is a rock, which there always is), scrape, and the final rearrangedirt. It is a mind-numbingly slow process, and we are lucky to creep along at .2mph.
But still, it's nice to see the level, new-dirt trail behind us that you could probably drive a golf cart up in dire need. We have discussed amongst ourselves we might be making the trail a wee to wide, but we seem to be unable to alter that.
In other news, we broke the camp's pole-saw today. A pole saw is essentially a chainsaw on a telescoping stick, and the team clearing the road had it all the way out to limb up an overhanging snag. Even though the snag was fairly large, they managed to cut it off quite admirably, but unfortunately, in it's rapid descent to the ground, the branch bent the drive shaft of the saw. One of the camp staff we work with assured us that pole saws are meant to break, so no biggie. He said something about a conspiracy in which the pole saw company still own sole rights to the patent, and they make them to break often enough to be reeeeeally profitable. The idea made me drool.
It's been a rough week for silver four beside the breaking of the pole saw, last week we were down two members due to injuries and sickness. Someone got a nasty virus (which no one else picked up, thankfully), and one of our female members messed up her back via overwork. Of course, the lingering poison oak is still everywhere (the worst part is when you are in the trans-dream sleep state, and you unconsciously scratch the heck out of it. You burn for a good half-hour after one of those). And I made a close aquaintance with a number of red ants today. All it takes is stepping near the ant hill you just annihilated with your Mcleod, and for SOME reason, they climb up your pants and leave large red welts. Obnoxious to say the least.
In closing, I would like to recommend that anyone who looks into buying a GPS in the future NOT buy the brand that is called "Tom Tom." Often we have better luck arbitrarily choosing a direction than following the GPS the Govy so kindly supplied us. It gets us places eventually, but not untill double the projected travel time has passed.
And I am totally going skydiving over spring break. And, as an added bonus, I will be living like a hobo while doing it. The skydiving place said it would be ok for me to camp out on their lawn or nearby, since they are way away from any kind of amenities and I can't rent a car for some reason. So I will be living off PB&J and oatmeal, and oranges if I'm lucky.
But SKYDIVING! Wahahaha