Oh, The Places You'll Go

wan·der·er

/ˈwändərər/

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noun

1. a person who travels aimlessly; a traveler.

In my lifetime I have found myself in many different locations. I've lived in 13 different places, 8 different states, worked at 14 jobs and moved back and forth more times than I can remember. I've lived on the coast of Florida and spent a summer following the trails of Alaska. I've moved from the desert of Colorado to the mountains of New Hampshire. I've had jobs at the sites of the beginning and the end of the Revolutionary War. I've worked at the longest cave in the world and walked the beaches of a few of the remote islands of the Kodiak Archipelago. 

I've spent countless long days building trails with only hand tools and muscle. I've hiked miles to get to job sites, through all kinds of weather. I've had jobs ranging from teaching to maintenance, from cleaning beaches to preparing food. I've rarely known what I where I would be headed for my next job or what sort of work I would be doing. Many times I'd wake up not even knowing what sort of work the day ahead would bring. 

I've never shied away from hard work. I've accepted each new challenge and did my best to make the most of even my least favorite jobs. Since I started travelling for work my shortest position has been 3 months of my longest 10 months, until I found myself at my current job. Here in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia I've found myself facing a new situation. For the first time in my adult life I'm living and working at a place that I can't picture myself leaving, with people whose lives I want to be a part of. I've loved places I've been before and dream of returning to. I've worked with people that I've been heartbroken to leave. But here I've found a new type of family. For the first time in a long time I've put down roots.

I've been working at Camp Blue Ridge in Montebello Virginia for over a year now. I've always had a special place in my heart for Virginia. My Granny and Pappy grew up there and I spent many summers of my youth exploring it's nature. My travels brought me to work in Virginia once before but now it truly feels like home. 

Where Does the Time Go?

It's crazy how fast time passes. Sometimes days seems to drag on, but then you look back and realize it's all speeding by. You wish the clock would stop, that the sunset would never end, that you could just stay in those perfect moments. But life keeps on going at the same pace. You have to enjoy each of those moments as they're happening, but you also have the gift of memories.

Memories, that's why I share pictures and blogs about my adventures. It's a way to document, to remember, to be able to look back and bring up feelings that may fade from my mind. It's been more than two years since I posted to this blog. I always intended to keep writing, but there was always another distraction. I guess it was easier to write when I was living in the middle of woods. So I'm taking the time now to give a glimpse of the past two years.

I left off in October 2015, just before my last hitch with the SCA NH Corps. For that hitch we traveled to Hampton Beach State Park. As you can imagine it's fairly chilly on the beach in New England in October. It also happened to rain a few days. Both of these made our project of painting a few of the park buildings even more difficult. Below a certain temperature the paint won't dry properly, so each morning we did what prep work we could and waited for the hours of workable warmth. This hitch was far different from backcountry, but there were still a few puddles in tents and cold nights. After finishing our time we loaded up and headed back to Bear Brook State Park. We were happily surprised to pull into camp and find a small welcoming group with a banner across the road symbolizing us crossing the finish line of another season.

(Saying goodbye to the I.S.L.E.)

The next week was a mix of activities from bowling to hiking and even more group bonding (one would think after 10 months you would know everything, but there were some surprises yet to be revealed). There was also paperwork to be wrapped up and cleaning like we'd never done before. The morning after our last night festivities we all one by one made our way to the lodge to say our goodbyes. We didn't all leave right away but eventually we had all headed towards new adventures.

For me that meant heading home to Tennessee for the winter. After months of job applications I found myself headed back to New England. In March 2016 I started my first National Park Service job at Minute Man National Historical Park in Concord, Massachusetts. This is the site of the first battle of the American Revolutionary War. Being able to work in a historic location adds an entirely new element to a job. On quiet cool mornings I could close my eyes and almost hear soldiers marching down the rock wall lined trail past open fields where homes used to stand. 

(Minute Man Statue)

(North Bridge)

While March in the south means spring had begun, in New England there were still a few snowy days left. Same as the year before, snow fell the night before my first day. But after a few weeks the weather began to change and turned into a hot summer. The difference this time was that after a long day of work, I had a house to go home to (even though there was only air conditioning in one room it was still cooler than a tent). I stayed in a home owned by the park, and had various housemates in and out through the year. 

(Farwell Jones House)

 

(Downtown Concord)

As my six month season came to an end in September 2016 I searched for my next location. I ended up finding another SCA position in Boston, about a 30 minute drive from my current park. I worked in historic preservation at three National Park sites; Frederick Law Olmsted NHS, John Fitzgerald Kennedy NHS, and Longfellow House-Washington's Headquarters NHS. This gave me the opportunity to not only move into a new chapter of Revolutionary War history but also into two other sites of very different historical values. I was also able to spend my an entire fall in New England enjoying the changing colors and welcome another winter.

Just before Christmas I received a call about a job I had applied to in North Carolina. It was an opportunity I couldn't pass up so I cut my time in New England short and headed back south in January 2017. I moved to Manteo, a town on Roanoke Island, part of the Outer Banks of North Carolina. I grew up close to the ocean and it's always had a place in my heart. I had only been to the Outer Banks once, but it left me with the memories of seeing the Cape Hatteras Light being moved and my first flight at the Wright Brothers National Memorial.

That season I worked at Fort Raleigh NHS. I lived in the park just steps away from a sandy beach on the Roanoke Sound and a short drive to the ocean. I watched some of the most incredible sunsets of my life and was able to spend hours after work each day walking in the sand. I spent my time off traveling up and down the Outer Banks and the surrounding area, taking in everything around me.

(Sunset over the Roanoke Sound)

(Cape Hatteras Light)

(Wild horses in Corolla)

Winter and early Spring the the Outer Banks is quiet. Businesses close for the season and the majority of people around are locals. This changed drastically when the weather began to warm up. But with the changing season also brought the start of summer jobs at the various NPS sites. After a few months without meeting anyone new at work, I was excited about new seasonals. But what I didn't expect was how quickly friendships would begin and how strong those bonds would grow. Almost every minute outside of work was with that group of friends, and a good portion of that time spent eating ice cream. 

It was everything a summer should be, but eventually the end of those six months came calling again. In July 2017 I headed to Yorktown, Virginia to work at Colonial National Historical Park. While I wasn't spending every night by the water anymore, I was only two and a half hours from my previous site. I was able to visit a few times, have some more adventures, including going skydiving for the first time (but certainly not the last).

In VA I moved on to the final battle of the American Revolutionary War. This park is the largest I have worked at so far. It includes Yorktown Battlefield, Historic Jamestowne, and the Colonial Parkway that connects the two sites. I once again have been working in maintenance/grounds, which gives my the opportunity to be outside enjoying the site every day. 

Just as with the Outer Banks sites, these locations hold memories for me from my childhood. I spent my summers in Virginia with my grandparents, and I remember visiting these sites on multiple occasions. This was my first time returning to these places where I could walk the same paths I had many years before.

(Overlooking the York River)

(Yorktown Battlefield West Tour Road)

My six month season at Colonial NHP ends in January 2018, but I may be leaving here early. My next job will take me to Charleston, South Carolina to work at Fort Sumter National Monument. This time I will be going to the start of the American Civil War. I once again will be moving to a new site and meeting all new people. Each place I've been has led me into the next and there's no way of knowing what the future will hold. Just looking back on these past two years I've been in five different states. While part of me is always nervous about moving to a new location, there's also a part that can't imagine staying in one place for too long. No one knows what adventures lay ahead, but I hope to make the most of each one of them.

Hitch #7 White Lake State Park

For hitch #7 I returned to White Lake State Park, where I spent Spring hitch. This time our task was to re-route a section of the trail that goes around the lake. The problem with the current trail was that it edged a campsite and most hikers entered the campsite because they didn't see that the trail turned. So we closed out the old trail and built a new section of trail that was easily separated from the campsite. Our new section of trail ended up going through a fairly wet area and over a stream bed. So we knew that our main project would be to build a bridge and ramps over the stream.

(Bridge with foundations and sills)

(Bridge with stringers)

(Completed bridge)

Over the course of 6 full days we set the foundation for the bridge using 4 concrete blocks, notched and set 10 cedar logs as as sills (the supporting logs) , set our stringers (the logs that sit on the sills and hold the decking), built 2 ramps on either side of the bridge, set our decking and trip rails, and built 2 turnpikes on either end of the bridge that equaled 46 ft to raise the trail out of the wet area.

(36 ft turnpike)

(10 ft turnpike)

(Bridge side view. Bottom to top: Cedar stringers, pressure treated and cedar stringers, pressure treated decking, 2x4 trip rails)

In the end our bridge was a total of 41 ft. We brushed in 170 ft of old trail and built 156 ft of new trail. While the stream bed under our bridge was mostly dry except for a small bit of mud, we did get to see the area wet when we experienced a downpour of rain for nearly 24 hours. We worked that morning of the rainy day and watched the water under our nearly completed bridge rise from inches to several feet. By lunch we decided the possibly of flash flooding was too high for us to continue working. But we all agreed that it was nice to actually see water in the previously dry area and see the need for our bridge.

(White Lake Hitch #7 crew)

I now have one hitch left before my season here is complete. Then one week to close out the program and I'll be headed back south. The weather here has quickly changed from warm summer to chilly fall and I keep hoping that I'll see at least a few snowflakes before I leave.

Hitch #6 Bear Brook State Park aka Home

My latest hitch was originally planned to be at Kingston State Park, but due to funding issues that project was put on hold. So instead of driving to a new location we stayed at Bear Brook to do projects around camp. This environment has many benefits as far as hitch life goes. For instance, rather than packing our tents and setting up camp we just stay in our cabins with our beds and all our gear at our reach. While we still have a separate amount of hitch food and dishes, we use the camp kitchen, fridge, and dry storage area. We also have the luxury of showers, washer and dryer, bathrooms, and comfortable couches to relax on after work. All of these things are usually not even imagined while on hitch, often the only time we go indoors on hitch is if we drive to town to get food or wi-fi.

We had a variety of projects, most of which had to do with preparing the camp for next year. So we cleared trees along the road and parking lots to make more space for snow plowing and parking. Since we've seen how skinny the road becomes when the snow is continually packed alongside it for 4 months, I know our clearing will be very helpful for next year. We also split firewood for days and have a few sizable stacks. We did a few other odd projects, such as adding a ramp to a bog bridge and prepping an area for a satellite dish to be installed. We had a few days early on that were the hottest of the summer, but now the weather has cooled significantly. Today was the first day that felt like fall is in the air with the temperature barely getting above 60s.

Tomorrow we pack out for hitch #7. I will be co-leading the crew that is traveling to White Lake State Park, where we will be preparing material for a volunteer day and building a bridge. Quality over quantity will be the object of this hitch. I'm looking forward to doing more carpentry work and having plenty of time to do our highest quality of work. I'm also looking forward to being near the lake, even though one night is forecast to be in the 30s, I'm sure the days will be warm enough to take a dip.

With only 2 hitches left I'm beginning to feel the end edging closer. I'm starting to think about having to say goodbye to all the friends I've made here. Part of me is trying to avoid those thoughts and just focus on each day, because I know I'll tear up if I think about it too much. It's amazing to think that we've been here almost 9 months. I can hardly imagine leaving and suddenly not living here. The hard thing about falling in love with a program and a group of people is that it makes it that much harder in the end. But after our final hitches we will have about a week with everyone back together and I imagine that many more memories wait to be made during those days, as well as reliving of memories from the past year.

For now I should get to bed, staying up late will just make it that much harder to get used to waking up early again. I've got the morning off and pack out starts at 1 pm, so until then I'll start packing my gear and preparing paper work. Only one more pack out after tomorrow.

Hitch #5 White Mountain National Forest

For hitch 5 I went to Bunnell Notch Trail in the White Mountains National Forest. This trail leads to the summit of Mount Cabot, one of New Hampshire's 4,000 ft peaks. The hitch before us had started work on this trail and we returned to finish. Due to a large amount of rain in that part of the mountains, the trail becomes flooded for a good portion of the year. Our goal was to divert the water from the trail or raise the trail above the water. There are various ways to do this, most of them involving setting heavy rocks in the trail.

Overall in 10 days we set roughly 33 rock steps, 2 3 rock staircases, 8 rock waterbars, cleaned over 30 hand built drains, cleared 1 1/2 miles of corridor (cutting branches/vegetation to give width for the trail), and built 4 bog bridges of 20 ft each. We were very lucky to only have rain for our first day, which included our hike in, and for a couple hours 2 days after that. 

The night before our day off we hiked to a cabin near the summit of Mount Cabot and spent the night before taking our time hiking down another trail the next day. Between hiking the 1.5 miles from our campsite to the trail head multiple times, the roughly 9 miles on our time off, and the 6 miles on Mill Brook Trail to get to the site of the bog bridges, I estimate we hiked well over 30 miles.

My next hitch will be at Bear Brook, which is nice because I get to stay in my cabin and I have access to our facilities. The work will be various projects around the park, from trail work to chopping firewood for winter to clearing brush to make plowing easier. After that just 2 hitches until I'm finished here.

Hitch #4 Greenfield State Park

For hitch #5 I was at Greenfield State Park. We finished and painted the existing shelter and built a second shelter. The first shelter had been started during training and needed the last of the siding and trim put up. This hitch was relaxing due to the good cool weather, the fact that we all had enough knowledge of the work to complete the tasks with ease, and the lazy evenings hanging around camp. The campsite was close enough to walk to town and the local grocery store (which we did daily for snacks after work). We finished our pack out back at Bear Brook and began our 9 day summer break.

Many people left for break to go to various places, but a few of us stayed at camp and had very relaxing days. There were a few trips to town, family visitors, hours spent swimming and enjoying the rope swing, and many hours of couch potato-ing. There is now only a week left in August. Soon the weather will begin cooling down for good as Autumn approaches. Tomorrow we leave for hitch #5, and I will be headed to Bunnell Notch Trail in the White Mountains for a back country hitch. I am assured this hitch will be a good deal of hard work, from the two mile uphill hike to our campsite to moving and setting rocks each day. I hope for good weather and many good stories to tell.

Hitch #2 Wolfeboro and Hitch #3 Crawford Notch: Backcountry, Bears, Shelters and Bears

Since my last post I have completed two hitches, which pretty much is the extent of my July. Hitch #2 was on Whiteface Mountain in Wolfeboro. For this project my crew was building a trail from the base of the mountain to the summit. This meant each day our sawyers would cut down the larger trees and then we would follow through removing stumps, cutting out small brush, clearing the leaves and top layer of organic soil before building structures if they were necessary. The trail would be nearly a mile long and over the course of 11 days we made it more than halfway. A second crew went back to the site for hitch #3 to finish the trail.

Our campsite was about a 20 minute walk from our truck. But because we lacked a water source at camp and we knew that there were bears in the area (we did have three sightings) this became a backcountry hitch. That means that we hung our food in a bear hang each night and during the work day, we hiked and drove to a nearby water source before carrying 6 gallon jugs back to our site to filter the water, our campsite and kitchen site needed to be far enough apart that any nosy bears would not mistake our tents for food storage, and because we were working on a trail that grew each day we hiked further to work each morning. I can easily say it was the most tiring work I've done since arriving here. By the end of our supper each night (being approximately 7 pm), we would all retire to our tents until our 6 am breakfast rolled around again.

This hitch also marked the hottest and most humid weather I've experienced since arriving here. Due to a one day shortened hitch we did not have a day off. So after agreeing to work an hour extra one day we took off an hour early the following day in order to take some much deserved off time. We drove into Wolfeboro and found a beach on lake Winniepesaukee to go swimming. Afterwards we stopped for dinner and ice cream, which is always a nice treat on hitch. On our final day we hiked to the summit and picked blueberries.

Our shortened hitch came about due to an event called All Corps. This is when NH Corps, Adirondack Corps, and Massachusetts Corps all get together at one of our headquarters for a couple days of fun, service, and a not-so-friendly friendly competition. This year All Corps was held at Mass Corps home. So our entire crew, including our interpreters and CLC, came back from our respective locations throughout the state and drove south a few hours. I enjoyed getting to meet so many other corps members and have a few days of fun, including a dance party, ice cream, lazy day by the lake, talent show, and more ice cream. On our last morning in Mass we had our All Corps challenge where our three corps compete against each other in a series of mental and physical challenges for one of three trail tools: copper loppers, a silver swizzle stick, and a golden pick mattock. Despite being in a tie for first coming into the final event, we lost in the tug-o-war and came in second place. But over the course of the challenges we reconnected as a corps and while cheering for our crew we became a stronger community. It was a great sight to see our corps wearing our matching shirts, cheering loud enough to loose our voices, and seeing the pride on our staff's faces as they watched us encouraging each other.

After returning to Bear Brook and taking our much needed weekend off, we returned to begin hitch #3. This time I headed to Dry River Campground in Crawford Notch, which in my opinion is one of the most beautiful parts of New Hampshire. The complete opposite of backcountry, we had a site within walking distance of running water and a bathroom with showers. Our project was to build two shelters in the campground. This may not sound like too much of a challenge until you realize that all other hitches that have been shelter building have been one shelter, and it still takes every bit of 10 days to complete the work. But we were tasked with two shelters and two shelters is what we finished.

We worked several 11 hour days. The hardest part was getting our foundation set, which took until our third day on site. We literally built from the ground up. We set the base of the shelter on the foundation, added floors, framing, siding, a tongue and groove roof followed by shingles, and by the final day at 7 pm in the rain we had two completed shelters. My favorite part was once we put up the bents, which are the main structure for the walls and roof, I was able to climb up and stand on top of the shelter. Even though it's only about 12 feet off the ground it still felt pretty cool to be using a nail gun to put on the tongue and grove boards.

Shelter #1 with foundation, floors, bents, and the beginning of roofing

Shelter #1 completed

Side view of Shelter #1

Shelter #2

We also had two bear sightings on this hitch. We were told by the park staff that there is a resident bear at the campground, and we saw it on one of our first days while working. On our last morning the bear returned to got into some of our food. I had decided I wanted to sleep in our completed shelter for my last night and surprisingly I wasn't awoken at 7 am when the bear was rummaging through our granola and butter roughly 10 feet from where I was sleeping. But no one was harmed and now it will be another story to share.

Notice the fire pit in the second picture of shelter #1 above, which will show you how close the bear was to where I was sleeping

Tomorrow is pack out for hitch #4. I will be headed to Greenfield State Park to build another shelter. Yes, just one this time. I'm excited to be working on another shelter because I now know what to expect, versus last hitch where I was being newly introduced to the entire process. After this hitch we will be halfway finished with our conservation season and will have our summer break. It's hard to believe that in 2 1/2 short months my time at Bear Brook will be finished. My plans after this are still up in the air, but I know that I don't want to rush my time here or spend a moment worrying about the future. I find that it has a way of working itself out.